Revit Printing to Pdf's

[christine.davis]

We are having problems printing from revit to a pdf. The pdf prints are coming out pix-elated and fuzzy. We have tried using the adobe pdf and the revit writer to pdf and both are experiencing this problems. Also the Revit pdf writer makes some of the text print on top of one another. Does anyone have any suggestions for fixing this problem. Are there any other platforms that might be better?

[kpaxton]

We are having problems printing from revit to a pdf. The pdf prints are coming out pix-elated and fuzzy. We have tried using the adobe pdf and the revit writer to pdf and both are experiencing this problems. Also the Revit pdf writer makes some of the text print on top of one another. Does anyone have any suggestions for fixing this problem. Are there any other platforms that might be better?Ahhhh the Newbies.... Welcome to the Forum, by the way.

This topic has been covered Ad-nauseum in the Forum - so I would suggest doing a search for PDF. To make matters short, I would suggest using CutePDF (http://www.cutepdf.com/) - it's a free writer and I've been having GREAT results. also - in the printing dialogue, make sure you've got Raster checked and you're printing to Better or Best (or presentation) quality. Best of luck!

kyle

[LRaiz]

Most likely your problem is not related to PDF driver itself. More likely cause is that Revit can not produce vector output and is using raster option instead. Frequently this is caused by elements in your view that have surface patterns and inter-penetrate instead of attaching/joining. For example if you have a wall that is not attached to roof but is hither than rooftop then in order to make roof hatching look reasonable Revit will use OpenGL z-buffering and therefore will switch to raster display. Only if all elements in your view are cleanly joined will Revit be able to do vector hidden line removal and will make a nice clean PDF file. By the way, without fixing element joins you would probably get pixelated display not only in PDF but in regular printing as well.

If you are not able to find and fix element joins/connections then as a workaround you may try to increase resolution of raster output.

[tc3dcad60731]

I was first told about PdfCreator and downloaded it to use. It is a nice program but you had better remember the order in which you "print" them since you will have to name them seperately in what appears to be an old Win3.1 type dialog box. Due to the overwhelming response to CutePDF I have recently downloaded that and will be giving it a try.

I am a huge DWF person and it stinks on file size when it comes to Revit files! I HAVE to do pdf just cuz of the file size.

[jspartz]

The pdf prints are coming out pix-elated and fuzzy.

Have you checked the file itself? Our files look perfectly clear, but we had this problem too when printing. It was because of the plotter software downsampling postscript before plotting. So, I up-ed the resolution in the software and it comes out much better. It also prints out with a grayish background unless we pre-process the pdfs before they are sent to the plotter.

On the other hand, if you open the file and the file itself displays fuzzy, first check your pdf printer properties' resolution.

TC3DCAD, for PDFCreator, you don't need to name the file in that dialog box that pops up. That's just added info for the file properties. Just name the file when you get to the browser that asks you where to save it.

[Adam Mac]

I'd have to agree with Kyle - if the PDF software is the problem - then CutePDF is a great little program.

[DanielleAnderson]

Yah - I haven't gotten Pinebush to work properly since about version 7. I use PDF995 and have never had any problems with it. It works great for large-format as well.

[christo4robin]

Danielle, I also use PDF995 but find that I have to manually give a filename to each sheet printed - this is slow and means that I have to sit there when I plot. Have you found a way around that?

[Fishmonger]

I've also had great experiences with BlueBeam Pushbutton PDF. The
Plus version has almost all capabilities of Acrobat Pro for a fraction of the cost.
Prints from Revit dialog so you get naming from the Sheet Views.
Works in all versions of Autocad and Revit and can handle MS Office products
as well. Single sheets or multiple, add remove sheets, reorder, add docs, bitmaps,
jpg's etc. Quite powerful and stable with good (and adjustable DPI) output.

[jspartz]

You can automatically name pdf files through almost any pdf program, you just have to dig through the properties of it. For instance in PDFCreator it says:

Auto-Save Mode allows the user to automatically create PDF's with a predefined settings and save it to a predefined location. When Auto-Save Mode is enabled PDFCreator does not ask for a filename and a location.

In Acrobat Distiller it's under the printer properties, advanced tab, printing defaults button, adobe pdf settings, uncheck 'prompt for pdf filename' and 'ask to replace existing pdf file'.

For Adobe PDF you do the same as Acrobat Distiller.

[guy.messick825831]

We have gone to using DWF for Revit output via "Export DWF", and if PDF is required, we print out of the DWF file. So far, DWF has given us much smaller, quicker files than PDF.

[DanielleAnderson]

Danielle, I also use PDF995 but find that I have to manually give a filename to each sheet printed - this is slow and means that I have to sit there when I plot. Have you found a way around that?

That's a good point and No, I haven't found a work-around unfortunately. PDF995 is just our office standard, but aside from it not wanting to combine sheets or batch, the quality is very good and on some days that's about as good as it gets. :) I should download CutePDF and try it out here, maybe I can change some minds.

[Fred Blome]

Use PdfFactory and you get:


Simple intuitive interface
Single multipage output or individual files. It auto names individual file output to a specified folder, all in the background if you like.
The latest version gives you ability to move pages around in the multipage output, so you can move your G sheets in front of the A sheets
You can also add additional pages to the pdf output, ie plot from different sources into the one file. This is a great way to package specs too.

[Fishmonger]

Fred, is that a freeware?

[Fred Blome]

Fred, is that a freeware?No, but it's cheap, all things considered.

[al]

We are now back to using DWF writer version 2. I tried version 3 by printing and by Exporting DWF 2D and the DWF printer version 2 so far is working.

[gordie_v]

I have looked at
cute pdf
pdf995
Acrobat
BlueBeam

and I found that 995 gives the best quality of image
especially at halftone fill patterns

we typically print using 995 driver but print to file as prn
then we use distiller to create pdf

it works great for large sets for auto naming
a few projects the distiller could not convert file for a couple of the views
we still dont know why, just manually print directly to pdf on these

[dhurtubise]

Same here, we use PDF 995 extensively

[Les Therrien]

Do any of these print "nicely".
I am currently using pdf995 and have tried cute pdf, but I always get floor plans where some walls are greyed out and some are black like they should be. It's fine for most things, but when it's a very important .pdf then it's kind of embarrasing if it's not perfect.

[aaronrumple]

I documented my process using Adobe Acrobat some time ago. It reduced file size. Eliminated naming issues and gave great quality. Most importantly - was very dependable.

http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=23733&highlight=aaron+acrobat

I'm doing a similar thing with Oce PS driver, PDF995 and Omniformt now, but it can be a little flakey.

[gbenjamin.arch]

Sorry to revive such an old thread, but I thick I have a similar issue to the one you described here. I was wondering if you could describe the issue with more detail - I tried to describe my problem in this thread ( http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=89453 ), but no one has replied. Walls and ceiling in this particular project are all perpendicular to each other, and cleanly join to one another as well – so the situation you described doesn’t really apply to my problem, yet it has a similar outcome. Thanks for your help in advance.