PDF vs. DWF

[cdchristian]

Is there any benefit to one over the other for plotting quality purposes?

[mccurdyks]

My experience is that drawings published from DWF files are infereior to PDF files because:

- The lines in DWF files are much thinner when plotted. Lose all distinction between half-tone and 100% lines in the plot
- Even with the latest driver, there are too many random corruptions in the final plots.

We've tested both in house and printing company with the same results. The only benefit we lose is that DWF is accessible to our engineering department when they need to see something and get a measurement. Of course there are ways around it, but that's the only pitfall we've encountered.

[aaronrumple]

You'll find some say DWF files are smaller. That's not quite true as the default for PDF is 600 dpi and DWF is 300 dpi.

I've found the output from each to be the same once you have them each configured to the same level of detail.

I prefer PDF, but wish that the hyperlinking worked as it did in DWF. (Autodesk could do it if they wanted to...)

[greg.mcdowell]

DWF all the way... it's not just about printing a picture it's about capturing information and making it available downstream... only two issues that I see - 1, the viewer needs admin privileges to install (really sucks for governmental work) and 2, the applications that take advantage of the data aren't available yet (though they're being worked on).

The only reason to use PDF in my eyes is when the client won't or can't install the DWF viewer.

[cdchristian]

Have you encountered any plotting quality differences between the two?

[greg.mcdowell]

I haven't personally... DWF being vector driven I would suspect that it would scale better than PDF (possibly why some people don't like how DWF print)

[david_peterson]

I'm a big fan of dwf files. When I create them I don't have to fill in a name of a sheet of hit save or anything. Just hit GO. The only other option I have available to me is to create .plt files and then covert them to .pdf files, then I'd have to use Acrobat to combine them into one file. Not much fun if you ask me.

[aaronrumple]

I haven't personally... DWF being vector driven I would suspect that it would scale better than PDF (possibly why some people don't like how DWF print)
PDF is vector based as well. Both formats are hybrid and may contain both vetor objects and raster objects.

[dazza163968596]

The big advantage in PDF is it is truly cross platform. I can open pdf files on a mac, Linux box, handheld or windows. We are a housing developer and if clients want to see layouts & sales drawings we can't expect them to install a viewer just to look at our work, 99% of people who have a computer will have a pdf viewer on there computer no matter what platform. The closest autodesk can get to cross platform support is dwf-it, a website that doesn't support all browsers, is quite slow, has an awkward interface, requires you to upload the files using the site and look awful. Have a look at www.dwfit.com

PDF is the defacto electronic document standard some of it is open source and it is truly cross platform. Please Autodesk, give up on DWF and integrate PDF into your products properly. Both standards can produce 2D & 3D so it makes no difference to the end user what format the end use receives the document in as long as they can easily open it. With dwf this isn't currently possible as most people who are just regular Joe's and not involved in design or construction will need to install additional software.

[gbrowne]

Yep. Pretty much agree with dazza1639 there, on all points.

I would add that I have only ever been asked to provide .dwf files once, and have only ever recieved .dwf files once in the last several years, whereas I create and receive .pdf's several times a day. Nobody ever asks what to do with them as they are familiar with the concept, and they seem to work just fine. Also, generally speaking, I would say in my experience the only people who know what a dwf file is are people with CAD software, who don't use dwf anyway..

I don't expect Autodesk to drop dwf, but if they made their software more directly compatible with pdf, I would certainly be happy.

[Avatart]

There are a couple of things I noticed missing from this debate:

1. PDF is not scalable, they never get any more accurate than about 97%.
2. DWF DPI is not actually related to PDF DPI, to get a good DWF you need to set the DPI to 500,000.
3. The DWF engine is being modified by AutoDesk now, it has scaling issues at resolutions below 500,000.
4. The file size change, from 600 DPI to 500,000 DPI is actually quite small.
5. You can do a whole lot more with a DWF than a PDF, not only 3D, but object isolation, object transparency, etc.

[robert.manna]

5. You can do a whole lot more with a DWF than a PDF, not only 3D, but object isolation, object transparency, etc.
PDF does support 3D and embedding information, Autodesk just chooses not to support/work with Adobe in this regard.

-R

[Avatart]

PDF does support 3D and embedding information, Autodesk just chooses not to support/work with Adobe in this regard.

-R You can do a 3D PDF from AutoCad, you just need the right PDF engine. My point was that it not only does that, but a whole lot more besides.

[Chad Smith]

I still find DWF quality to be very poor (http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=9511).

[rjcrowther]

Without getting into to technical side of it, I find that if you diverge from industry standard file formats, it makes communication difficult.

dwg, pdf, jpeg, etc. They may or may not be the best but if you need to reliably talk to others it is best to stick with them.

The other thing to perhaps consider is not every one has an interest in changing formats to assist in communication. Often they will not only go with the thing that they know, they will also fight to protect their current situation - even if you can show them something else is better. I sometimes wonder if these forums are a bit insulative in this regard because it seems everyone here is interested in advancing themselves and if that means learning and incorporating new software then we will. From my experience, this is not normal.

Rob

[cnevians@yahoo.fr]

...1. PDF is not scalable, they never get any more accurate than about 97%.....

what is this stupidity ?

you can ....

[Avatart]

...1. PDF is not scalable, they never get any more accurate than about 97%.....

what is this stupidity ?

you can ....Errr, no you can't.

[gbrowne]

Em, you can..

[pblanche123288]

A notable printing point is also that Postscript, (PDF's Language) is a printer native language for any Postscript printer, so you can send a PDF file to a HP Plotter, KIP Plotter, OCE Plotter, and they will render the output the same.

However DWF is not a native language for any printer, and has to be translated through PCL (which is what gives the corruption in most cases) printer driver, to come out.

Incidentally OCE Print Exec LT, Reprodesk, and other tools do not support adding this to print queues, or creating batch jobs with these files.

This is a drawback, when you are an Architectural firm like us with a large number of consultants working on the pieces of the puzzle, and you are printing the final sets, as you require files you can save into a set, and the only way to do this presently is to use files that are in the Printers Native Language HPGL/2 Postscript, or RTL.

PCL translation is manufacturer and printer specific, Postscript is open source, and pretty much generic, as one postscript driver we use in-house prepares a print to file, .ps file, and we send this with a simple batch script to any printer we want that support Postscript natively, (in some larger machines this is an optional upgrade) and hoary the print comes out.

Nice eh.

[Avatart]

Em, you can..I have found that whenever I try and take an area measurement, that it is nowhere near as accurate as measuring from AutoCad. DWF, if you set the DPI high enough gets much closer.

I often need to measure to the nearest square foot, floor plans of tens of thousands of square feet and PDF just can't get it right.

Love the avatar BTW

[pblanche123288]

Errr, no you can't.

97%.....probably is the reference to the print dialogue, that does show it as 97% sometimes, as this is when you have scaleto fit paper selected. simply setting this to none, resolves this, (and with professional acrobat you can meassure scale, as an AEC professional acrobat professional and acrobat 3D are very powerful, perhaps a look into www.adobe.com and simply put AEC in the search will help you locate the latest information on the many ways adobe and autodesk CAN work together.

See CDW's website also, as they worked with us on our AEC / Autodesk integration and have a lot of knowledge in this area

pjb

[Isaacarus]

DWF is the future of CAD and engineering documents. It really dose have equally print quality. In addition is adds all the functionality that comes with a Cad layer System. If you have not tried using imported dwf red line markup sets in Revit and AutoCAD, give it a shot it is pretty convincing.

PDF will always rule the document format world for the majority of people but the DWF has the advantage of being able to cater to the design and engineering profession. The result is specific tools that are not matched by the PDF format.

Also as for native printer formats, this has been my one big concern with DWF. However Oce is in the process of developing their devices and software to make DWF a native format and I would expect that others like HP and Epson are probably not far behind provided the contract between Autodesk and OCE does not lock them out. OCE client tools already supports it, I am told that reprodesk is under development because of it's relationship to buzzsaw. It should be done shortly. Look for the full roll out to happen soon. If you want more info you should be able to find the press release on Oce's website.

[aaronrumple]

DWF is the future of CAD and engineering documents. It really dose have equally print quality. In addition is adds all the functionality that comes with a Cad layer System. If you have not tried using imported dwf red line markup sets in Revit and AutoCAD, give it a shot it is pretty convincing.
I disagree. I don't think DWF has the development resources needed to push it into the mainstream. (Last I heard the deleopment team was about 6 people.) Meanwile PDF is a major part of the Adobe strategy and they are busy integrating multimedia into PDF. While Adobe might not make the tools to extract info into a PDF from engineering drawings - the platform is open enough for all the other 3rd party players to pick up this portion of the market.

[greg.mcdowell]

Who cares about "mainstream?" If my parents can't open a DWF why should I care? And why can't I expect my clients to install a free piece of software in order to use a more advanced feature set (yes, I said advanced... just give it time you nay-sayers)?

The ONLY reason that everyone wants to use PDF is because everybody already has the viewer. I might be wrong here but isn't it already installed on just about every computer in production? Sort of like the inferior web browser that everyone uses because it's already there even though there are better, more secure, options on the market.

Sticking with PDF just because everyone knows it is like sticking with AutoCAD for the same reasons... and yet here we are on the Revit board. We took one step... now it's time to take another!

Power to the People! Workers Unite!

okay, okay... got a little carried away there... sorry 'bout that and have fun with whatever solution you choose

[Wes Macaulay]

A notable printing point is also that Postscript, (PDF's Language) is a printer native language for any Postscript printer, so you can send a PDF file to a HP Plotter, KIP Plotter, OCE Plotter, and they will render the output the same...

PCL translation is manufacturer and printer specific, Postscript is open source, and pretty much generic, as one postscript driver we use in-house prepares a print to file, .ps file, and we send this with a simple batch script to any printer we want that support Postscript natively, (in some larger machines this is an optional upgrade) and hoary the print comes out.

Nice eh.Good points. And bonus points for using "hoary" in a sentence :mrgreen:

[gbrowne]

I threw that little jpeg in there, in case anybody didn't know about the feature, but to be honest its a clumsy method of measuring which I never use. I was always told never to measure from drawings anyway, that unless areas and distances are stated, you can't be accurate... so apologies for that..

And ozzy will be pleased you like his photie!

[al]

I only seem to be able to get any consistency with our plotting process when printing to PDF. I really thought we should switch to DWF for our Revit output because of its multi-page capability and it doesn't cost anything extra -- well in real dollars anyway. Now I'm thinking it is free for a reason. The DWF viewer comes up with errors all the time, the installation is flakey, the Export DWF 2D is causing problems with some of our text, the OCE is cutting off the plots (I am quite certain there is something inside the file that is causing this.) The quality of screening from the DWF to the OCE is nicer than PDF though. And hasn't DWF capability be around for 7 or 8 years. Oce Client tools is now just arriving -- and the version I have processes the data it feels like.

[cstanley]

I find dwf output to be quite nice, especially when you output shaded line views. they are much crisper and softer when they come out in dwf, and look much better than when the same shade mode view comes out on a pdf. and they are smaller in this case. it is for this reason that I'll actually plot my dwfs to pdfs for final use. they still look better, even after conversion.

However, when we plot our dwf line drawings, the hyperlinked view markers disappear in the final hard copy. they are there in the dwf, but disappear when plotted to hard copy, pdf, or any other document format. this has been going on since we upgraded to v8.1 (admittedly, i haven't tested it in 9.1 yet.)

with that being the case, i can't reliably suggest that anyone print dwfs to hard copy anymore. Also, as many have said, it's not a common file type. I am not going to force my clients to download and install a different viewer for the digital files i send. i don't think that's proper. clients are regular people, not AEC professionals. If you look at my file folders, in the document output for each project, you'll see both. because it's much easier to print a multi-page set to dwf>convert to pdf than it is to print pdf, name sheets, and combine into one pdf file.

I would also look for adobe to be making changes that will incorporate anything that a dwf can do. they are beginning to now focus on the AEC world, and they aren't going to skimp on functionality...

[sleimgruber06]

I HATE DWFs! Had to get that in there.... thanks...

[Andre Baros]

Now that it's been out for a while, what do people think about the round trip ability of DWF redlines to Revit? Does it work, are there still a lot of printing problems?

Has anyone tried Bluebeam's PDF relining ability? Is there any way to get that data back into Revit?

What is a good source for info on using DWF markups with Revit? The first link when you Google it is actually a link to the ArchiCAD site... Autodesk is five or six hits down the list, and has miserably little info.

[ghale]

I'd like to open this discussion back up again to see where firms are at with adopting DWF as a standard form of print and file collaboration. I'm trying to take all items into considerations for changing an office workflow and standard. Some questions:

How do you find the current print quality of PDF vs DWF?
Are all submission tools for large format plotters accepting DWF?
Does the Internet Exporer 8 DWF viewer work well or do clients still need to install Design Review?
Is DWF an acceptable digital archiving format? PDF Archive is the industry standard.
Are project teams utilizing the collaboration tools for redlining and round tripping to Revit and AutoCAD?

[Avatart]

How do you find the current print quality of PDF vs DWF?
Are all submission tools for large format plotters accepting DWF?
Does the Internet Exporer 8 DWF viewer work well or do clients still need to install Design Review?
Is DWF an acceptable digital archiving format? PDF Archive is the industry standard.
Are project teams utilizing the collaboration tools for redlining and round tripping to Revit and AutoCAD?
To answer one at a time:
DWF is more accurate, but PDF looks nicer. Judgment call there.
Never had a problem with our Hewlett Packards or Oces.
E8 DWF viewer works very well in my experience. Especially DWFx files, which you can spin around in websites, coooool.
DWF is a better archive format than PDF, as most of the originating data is still there.
Don't actually know of anyone using the redline markup tools properly. :-(

[kalua123]

Been using DWF’s for a long time.... I'm a big fan of the software.. PDF redline features are in my opinion rubbish. DWF is more intuitive, Areas, dimensions etc. very easy to pull, great when you are reviewing with a client and you can pull the info up, Printing problems do occur, Font substitution was a common problem but it can be fixed, also most print problems can be fixed by using the Advanced option and Convert to BMP prior to printing. Have to say PDF is not suited to these types of Docs, Markup, Regeneration time, file size all hobble the format for me... Also the very underutilized DWF compare feature is a joy when you are using standard output templates, you can very quickly determine what changed sheet to sheet. Been pushing Dwf to clients for years, software is free and easy to pickup once they get a feel for it they want to use it..