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I bit the bullet last night and bought the Adobe Acrobat Pro 2020 stand alone (i.e., not subscription version) for $449 and it successfully reduced the file size to 11,000 KB per each of my two .layout files and I was able to send each of them to my engineer for his review. So I am sure that the County Building Permits & Inspection Division dept will be able to receive that file size. In contrast my old Adobe Acrobat Pro XI was unable to reduce the file size anywhere near that small.

I now have a Part 1 and a Part 2 Layout file which I am happy with. However the Part 1 file saved to .pdf is too large to email (and thus likely too large to submit online). What are the tricks for reducing the .pdf size of a layout file? Can I go through and uncheck Save to Plan on each item and then print that file to .pdf? Will that reduce the size of the resulting .pdf? Any other suggestions?

Update: Was successful in creating the second .layout file with the same cover page pt. 2, including Saving to Plan File without any issues. Consists of 10 layout pages 8 .pdfs per page.

You know you may be right. Maybe I could fit all the pages in one .layout file if I didn't save these to file. Now I am at a fork in the road, do I continue with my second .layout file with save to file or not save to file. Or do I go back to my single layout file and not save to file? If I don't save to file do I have to put the entire directory with the Engineer's .pdf in the directory to the printer to be able to print the .layout file? Sacramento County requires an online filing in .pdf format. So, I assume that I print my entire .plan file and my layout file to .pdf and upload it to the County. Acrobat will allow me to split that .pdf into smaller files. Any thoughts on how to proceed?

To fit eight 8.5x11 pages on Arch D, I import the file, then marquee the 30 pages, the Open the file the check Save to File then change page size to 8x10 3/8" then click CAD Line stops. They go it fine but obviously I am overloading CA. So right now I have made a second .layout file just for the P.E. structural engineering calculations. I will report back.

I have Adobe Acrobat XI Professional. So I guess I could make an Acrobat template similar to my CA .layout template in Arch D (24"x36") is that what you mean?

Well Chopsaw may be correct. I deleted enough file space on my computer to assure that insufficient hard drive space is not the problem. And then started re-importing the P.E. Structural Engineering .pdfs and at about 50 pages, I closed the .layout file and CA and then tried to reopen CA and then the .layout file. CA opened but it cannot open the .layout file. It is likely too large a file for CA to handle? See below. So I think I will create a separate .layout file for just the P.E.'s calculation .pdfs.

I hire a trainer to get the ball over the goal line and over the last week he has done just that. Today we worked on the .plan and .layout in my Dropbox folder and he finished sprucing it up for filing tomorrow. After getting off the Zoom meeting and thanking him, I was blithely importing the 70 pages of P.E. Engineering Structural Calculations when I got the following warning: Layout can't backup then crashed and went to 0 file size. Now .layup won't open because contains no data. So, I copied the files over from Dropbox to my hard drive and am starting over importing the P.E. .pdfs to layout. And I got the same warning. Then I got a warning that Dropbox can't sync. because of low hard drive space. So, right now I am deleting files from my hard drive to free up space before I recommence. Any other suggestions? (Thank God for the backup in my Dropbox!)

Bingo! Yes, I duplicated Electrical Plan View to make Door Plan View or vice versa. How would I change one or more of the Saved Plan Views to isolate them now?

Both Saved Plan View Specifications boxes are checked "Never Save" I thought that the purpose of making a Saved Plan View was to isolate it from changes made elsewhere in the Plan file or in other Saved Plan Views. Is this a misunderstanding? Or is there a box I have not checked or a feature I have not activated? Or does a Saved Plan View merely permit a Layer Set to be saved to that Saved Plan View but does not permit, say, the deletion of dimensions or objects on the Door Saved Plan View without deleting those dimensions or objects on the Elec. Saved Plan View?

By the Grace of God. Thank you! FYI, to get into the Saved Plan View Specification box, Right Click on your saved plan view, then Right Click on Edit, then the above Saved Plan View Specification Box will appear.

I find myself frustrated when I have perfected a Plan View and have sent it to Layout only to find that some other change I made to the main Plan File has changed my Plan View and thus my Layout Page. My work around has been to send my Plan View to CAD Detail and thus "freeze" it and then send the CAD Detail to my Layout page. Seems kind of clunky. Is there another way to do it? Why are my saved Plan Views changing? Is there a way to stop that from happening? It is quite frankly very frustrating and very discouraging to have to recreate the same saved Plan view multiple times. . . And yes I have watched the Saved Plan View tutorial multiple times to no avail.

We need to submit our plans online to the County Building Dept. I could print the Layout and then have the P.E. stamp each sheet, and then have each sheet scanned, but there will be a degradation of the drawing from that process. What is the best way to add Professional Engineer's Stamp to Layout Drawings?

Marquee, Copy and Paste contents from each CAD Details file into new CAD Details in current .Plan does indeed work. But tedious. Don't know what cad block to place into the library is but will investigate.

rgardner Thank you. You are correct, I am trying to put some of my CAD Details from my older .Plan into the .Layout of my current .Plan And I think I know how to do that by opening up the CAD Details of the older .Plan and then sending them to the .Layout of the current plan. But I want to tidy things up because I want to dropbox the newer .Plan file to a member here to train me on how to do the drop garage and drop entry porch slabs and I would him to have one tidy current .Plan file with the CAD Details in it, as well as the current .Layout file. As I get a little more proficient with the program (for a newbie) I want to clean up and simplify my prior messes. I am not a "bad man," just a "very bad CA wizard" . . .

Hmmm... I watched the Finding and Placing Library Objects tutoriial video and it did not say how to put stuff into the Library>User Catalog. I Selected all the CAD Details Files I have in the older .plan file but couldn't find a Copy command to Paste the Files into either the Library or the Project Browser for the new .plan. Are you saying that I need to open each CAD Detail File and Marquee its contents and Copy and Paste the contents of each file into a newly created CAD Detail File for the new .plan?

I am getting close to completing my construction drawings, but I have quite a lot of CAD drawings which I saved in a previous Plan file which do not exist in my Current Plan file. None of the titles of Plan Management tutorial videos seem appropriate to this task. The CAD Tools tutorial videos don't seem to address anything other than importing .DWG files into a CA Plan. There must be a simple way to do this. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

Bingo! Fixed it. Call me "Mr. Inadvertent." Interesting. So for a newbie normal guy, should I have Layout set to "Default Set" and "Default Active Layer"? At least prior to importing?

I don't like Layout Box Borders. Is there a way around this where my imports will appear without Layout Box Borders checked?

Yes, I can't believe it. It would seem that the program would know to display the Electrical items in the Notes Schedule, but it didn't. I checked them off and now everything is showing. Included in schedule was checked. You guys are the best. Thank you.

First of all thank you all for all your prior help. I watched the Notes & Note Schedules tutorial video but when I follow it, my text does not display. Rather, only the phrase Note Schedule displays. Please see below. Any suggestions? Notes are checked as on in my Electrical Plan Layerset.

I like my Door, Window & Flood Vent Plan just the way it is. But it has some manual point to point dimensions which I put in for my Electrical Plan. When I delete the manual dimensions on my Door, Window & Flood Vent Plan they are also deleted on my Electrical Plan, which I don't want. Is there a way to "Lock" Plan Views or to isolate them from the General Plan? Or should I just save the Door, Window & Flood Vent Plan to CAD Detail (where I believe it will be isolated from changes on the General Plan and other plans) or send it to Layout to keep it from being changed. I watched the great tutorial video on Saved Plans, but it did not address this question.

OK here is the answer: The symbol size expands or decreases based on the size of the box in the grid it occupies. So, if you use Callout for Labels, like I did, you grab the diamond edit handle on the first column (the one with the symbols in it) and move the diamond left. That squeezes the size of the symbol. And when you squeeze down the size of the symbol, the rows also become closer together, because row distance is a function of the largest entry i.e., either text size or if you are using symbols, then the size of the symbol.

The text I have reduced in size. But there don't seem to be edit handles for rows. There are only edit handles for columns. It seems to me that the row height is set by the size of the symbol. Is there a way to reduce the size of the symbol?