LevisL

Hi Mike, I bet they printed from the Preview app on the Mac computer. I've seen a lot of this. It's just been since the Mojave OS was released. I had to switch to print from Acrobat Reader instead of Preview for that exact reason.

You are correct Rob!

And thanks for the compliments guys. Means a lot coming from users like you! And Rob, yes I know the approx. symbol is ≈ (or ~ as in Chief's rounded dimensions), but I don't think all the subtrades know that, so I use ± instead!!

Thanks Rob. That worked like a charm! Curious as to why this wasn't a problem before, but at least I can move on and complete these plans now!

Alright, this one has me stumped! The room above the stairs (open below) is missing the ceiling surfaces on the sloped sections. They used to be there but now I can't get them back. I'm not sure when they disappeared, but I'm guessing it was either when I raised the roof planes (truss designer required a higher heel), or when I increased the structure thickness (was originally 18", truss designer asked for 21"). Anyway, if I delete one of the half walls around the stairs to get rid of the open below room, 2 of the 3 missing sections automatically re-appear. Can anyone figure out what's causing this all of a sudden? I've never had this happen before. File is attached. Problem_Ceiling.zip

Replace them using the new barn door tool we got in X11 instead of using the ones from the library that we had in X10 and prior. You should be able to use the same door slab if you updated your library. There's now a folder for the door panels and a folder for hardware in the 'Doors No.1 Sliding Barn' library.

I did the same thing. The heavy separator lines make the toolbars look too busy, especially when you have a lot of toolbars like me! I found them to be quite distracting to the eye. Hopefully they give us a setting we can adjust for those in the next update.

I felt the same way. Didn't want to add a bunch more layers. So I just assigned my note defaults to the various text layers I already had, as Joe explained. Framing notes are on 'Text, Framing', foundation notes on 'Text, Foundation', electrical notes on 'Text, Electrical', etc. It works well so far. You might have different needs and want the notes separate from text though.

For me, I find that it depends on the resolution I set for the PDF output, as well as how many live views I have in my layout file. The higher resolution and more live views, the slower the PDF generates. It’s the same for generating the preview in the print dbx, so I usually turn that off. I have an older MacBook Pro on its last legs and I can’t even use live views in layout on it. Crashes every time I try to create a PDF. Send images to layout instead and it doesn’t crash.

I hope now that I got it to work that it stays that way! Not overly optimistic yet

Got it to work. It appears to be very finicky though. The order that you adjust the ceiling planes seems to matter. Thanks Eric!

Hmmm... I wonder if it works differently on a Mac than a PC... I open up the file you attached and I see this:

I have two different vaulted ceiling peaks in this plan and I need a wall to fill in between the ceiling planes where the vaults join (where the hole is in the image). Just curious if there's any way to do this from the structure or roof tabs in the wall dbx? I've tried several different combinations of checkboxes (attic wall, roof cuts wall at bottom, stop at ceiling above, etc.), but I can't get the wall bottom to cut at the lower ceiling plane. Is it possible without editing the wall bottom in an elevation view or drawing a polyline solid instead of a wall? Vaulted Ceiling Plan.plan

Alright. Sounds good!

I have a plan to get out the door this morning. I'd have time later this afternoon. I'll message you at around 4:00pm my time (3:00 for you) if that works.

Here's how the pdf looks on my screen PDF Exterior Elevations.pdf vs. how it plotted Black Exterior Elevations.HEIC I'm going to try a different file to see if I can reproduce the problem and submit it to tech support if I can. If anyone has encountered a similar problem, I'd like to hear if you ever found what the problem was and how you resolved it. I'm not sure it's Mojave related, but it's the first time I see something like this.

Hi Steve, I upgraded one of my machines and I've experienced a couple issues, as I mentioned in this thread: I also just had a new one yesterday, and I don't know yet if it's related to Mojave or not (or maybe just a corrupt file) – I printed a plan to pdf. Opened the pdf and it looks fine. Once I plotted it, some images have a black background, including my exterior elevations and title block logo. Plots fine directly from Chief, but creating a pdf first and plotting it seems to be where the problem shows up. I'll attach some pictures shortly.

Hi Don, I've only noticed two hiccups with Chief since upgrading to Mojave. The first is the font rendering, as mentioned above, which is resolved. The other has to do with fonts within the plan and layout files. I've submitted the bug to tech support, but basically some fonts are bolder than they should be, others are the opposite. For example, in my condocs, I use Arial Narrow for pretty much all annotations and dimensions. For my room labels, I bold it. For some reason, now it doesn't really look bold. On the flip side, in my prelim layout template, I use the Syntax font. Again, I bold certain items, like titles. This font has a few different styles (Roman, Italic, Black, Bold, Ultra Black). Before upgrading to Mojave, making the text bold in Chief would correctly change the style to bold. Now, it incorrectly changes to the Ultra Black style for all the bold text. I've suggested to Chief on a few occasions in the past to give us access to all font styles, like other Mac apps, instead of just B/I/U, which would eliminate this problem. Hopefully they do soon! As far as the rest of Mojave is concerned, I haven't explored all the new features yet, but I find there's no revolutionary new features that will drastically change the way I work. The Dark Mode is kinda cool, but I ended up switching back. The new options for screenshots are nice, but I wish there was a way to add a shortcut to my dock. Stacks to organize my desktop are a nice addition. Quite a few new features in Finder, but I haven't really explored those. I haven't had a chance to try the new Continuity Camera either, nor explore the added Privacy and Security options. And I'll never FaceTime with up to 32 people at once! That just sounds like it would be mass confusion... no thanks! I upgraded my iMac to Mojave, but I'm holding off on my MacBook until these bugs are fixed. Hope that helps!

I just upgraded to MacOS Mojave on one of my machines and I noticed that the fonts in Chief appeared blurrier than before (the library, tab names, dbx's, etc.). After talking with tech support, we determined that the problem is not with Chief, but it's an easy fix. Apple has disabled subpixel antialiasing for text in the new OS. Apparently, if you have a Retina display, you won't have this problem, but my machines are older... So for anyone in the same boat as me, you just need to type this command in the Terminal app: defaults write -g CGFontRenderingFontSmoothingDisabled -bool FALSE

Yes, my text is placed directly in layout. I downloaded your file to see, and when I print that page to pdf, it's not just the story pole dimensions that are off... the whole elevation seems to distort (look at the roof slope indicators and where some of the arrows are pointing). It's not bad near the main ridge, but it seems to distort more as it gets lower. My printed pdf looks different than yours though, so I don't know if the problem is worse on the Mac version than the Windows version? I see that you're using live views (as am I), so I think that's the source of the problem. There's a bug in there somewhere! Send it in to tech support if you haven't already.

These are just the preliminary plans I send to my clients in pdf format. I don't get these printed. They are set up on letter size paper though so that if my clients want to print them, they can do so with their own home printer. I get what you're saying about plotting in color though. The costs are ridiculous around here too. I ended up buying my own plotter about 5 years ago for that very reason, since I also like to incorporate color in my con docs. It didn't take long to pay for itself with what the local printing companies were charging me.

Here's one I had just this week. The image shifts about 0.7" in both x and y directions when printing to pdf (using the 'Chief Architect Save as PDF' printer). Plus, when printing just this page (letter size) @ 300 DPI, I get a file size of 9.1MB!!!

I've run into a similar issue with live views (update on demand) sent to layout shifting when printing to pdf. I submitted it as a bug to tech support not too long ago. In my case, I also had text in layout pointing to certain items in the 3D views, but it wasn't the text or lines that were shifting, it was the live view. Sometimes so much so that it cut off a portion of the view. And I've also encountered unusually large files when printing to pdf in some of these cases.

Yeah, I don't do this type of foundation too often, so I wasn't sure the best way to go about it. I remembered seeing 'slab at top of stem wall' as an option when building the foundation, so I figured I'd try it. In my mind 'at top' meant 'on top', but I see now that I was wrong! Oh well... method 2 with pony walls if I ever have to do another foundation like this again!

No, I did not have 'hang floor inside walls' checked. That's just how slab at top of stem wall seems to work. I also use the pony wall method for my parging when the grade is flat, but it doesn't work well for sloped sites (in this case 2.5 ft drop from front to back)... at least for how I like to show my exterior elevations! I only want the parging to show above the terrain, so I use material regions, like this: And I'm not overly concerned about water penetration by having the siding stop at the top of the slab, as long as they properly flash and caulk that joint (which I've detailed). It's only for part of the building anyway, as the siding actually steps down lower where the footing steps lower. Plus, the siding for this project is wood 2x6 log siding, so I'd rather keep it up higher above grade so it doesn't sit in wet snow too much in the spring!