BenPalmer

Fixing this for printer drivers can't happen because of the limitations of Windows.

Is there any indication that this is being fixed in Windows 10?  I assume by your comment that this is not an issue with Macs and transparency printing straight to 3rd party printers blends as expected?

More information and better resolution on this topic found at this thread:  https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/index.php?/topic/5189-pdf-anomaly/

Yeah, they were aware of it before via my previous post on this found here: https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/index.php?/topic/3893-x7-poor-print-quality-using-transparent-fills-in-walls/

I also reported it to tech support at the same time as that post, but glad to see another post on it to help them understand the urgency.  In fact I'll link these posts to that other in case people search.  Better resolution on this thread.

Thanks! 

FYI follow up.  When I have transparency in the plan I print using Chief's pdf printer, then when the adobe file pops up, i then print that to my 3rd party printer that I prefer due to features etc.  And it works fine there since the transparency has already been processed.  If no transparency, then I bi pass Chief printer and use the 3rd party.  Hope that helps someone.

BTW, why is 'print in color' checked by default now with latest update.  Very annoying.  I rarely print in color.  Even if I uncheck, it doesn't retain that preference and I have to uncheck everytime.  This is from plan view and seems to work fine printing from layout.

Yes, i get that too with pdfs:  both the slowness and the blank/white areas.

Chief's PDF printer also creates a larger file size.

Yes, I've noticed that to, but I've had inconsistent results.  One computer gave me 10mb and the same file on another computer gave me 2mb.  Never figured that one out.

On a different note:  I can't remember if using the 'reduce file size' feature in adobe will bring the larger file size down or not....worth a try.

Excellent explanation Dough, thank you!  Back to the original post, I assume transparency is his issue as well, but until he confirms, not sure.

I'm attaching a crude chief file and a pdf with notes that demonstrates what I have found that others can play with if interested....curious to see if others get the same results as me or not.  Could help narrow down the issue to local or global.

transparent test-Floor Plan.pdf

transparent test.plan

No, if you zoom in that close on the portions outside the box, they are not pixelated, it is only pixelated in the areas within the box...and it results in poor print quality.  When you want to do printing on letter size paper, it is even worse.

Yes, I think I know what is causing it.....seee my previous post...i'm pasting it below:  I'll see if I can track down a file I created to send to Chief to demonstrate this.  Still waiting for an answer from 'jtcapa1' (no name) to see if it is the same issue.

I didn't see it at first either...wouldn't hurt to make notes on the pdf to point it out a little better, but I see it as well.  I think this is related to an issue I reported as well and it has to do with using transparent fills.

https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/index.php?/topic/3893-x7-poor-print-quality-using-transparent-fills-in-walls/

 

Basically, if I had any transparent fills, the area around it would 'pixelate' and not stay 'vector'.  This would only happen when I would send to 'any' 3rd party pdf printer.  It did not happen when I used Chief's built in pdf printer.  I reported it to tech support and we did some round and round and I eventually gave up dealing with them because they weren't getting what I was saying or not admitting that they had the problem when I did with each different pdf printer I downloaded and tried out on multiple computers.

 

If you zoom in really close to where the transition is between darker and lighter, you will notice that the problem part is pixelated, and the good part is not...and it follows a distinct line which I discovered in my testing that it was due to transparency fills and followed exactly the limits of this fill.  If i got rid of the transparancy fill, it worked great.  You can zoom in on angles, curves etc and you will notice the pixelation...makes for poor printing as well.

 

so to see if it is the same issue, what pdf printer are you using?  is there transparancy fill in your file (either floor plan or layout)?

I took the liberty of marking it up

SheetA7_Roof_Framing (1).pdf

I didn't see it at first either...wouldn't hurt to make notes on the pdf to point it out a little better, but I see it as well.  I think this is related to an issue I reported as well and it has to do with using transparent fills.

https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/index.php?/topic/3893-x7-poor-print-quality-using-transparent-fills-in-walls/

Basically, if I had any transparent fills, the area around it would 'pixelate' and not stay 'vector'.  This would only happen when I would send to 'any' 3rd party pdf printer.  It did not happen when I used Chief's built in pdf printer.  I reported it to tech support and we did some round and round and I eventually gave up dealing with them because they weren't getting what I was saying or not admitting that they had the problem when I did with each different pdf printer I downloaded and tried out on multiple computers.

If you zoom in really close to where the transition is between darker and lighter, you will notice that the problem part is pixelated, and the good part is not...and it follows a distinct line which I discovered in my testing that it was due to transparency fills and followed exactly the limits of this fill.  If i got rid of the transparancy fill, it worked great.  You can zoom in on angles, curves etc and you will notice the pixelation...makes for poor printing as well.

so to see if it is the same issue, what pdf printer are you using?  is there transparancy fill in your file (either floor plan or layout)?

When you say version 4,5 or 6, are you meaning X4,X5 or X6 (meaning version 14, 15 or 16 from just a few years ago)?  Or do you mean the versions from the early 90s?

I assume you mean the more recent ones??  If older ones, just import your current annotation sets, and solved (a step that needs done anyway since annotation sets didn't exist on the early versions, so no extra work).

Please clarify if I'm misunderstanding.

Thank you!

We have thrown solids to the front of the door to model it quick.  Haven't put the actual symbol together yet.

Same situation in the release version.  They install the font all over again, so it looks like we have to update to the old font, or change the font back to what we want with each update?  Maybe it's just the main release and the font won't be part of the patches in the future?  Guess we'll find out when the first patch comes out.  Thanks again for everyone's input.

Yes, I had the same problem, see linked post below for more info:

https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/index.php?/topic/3648-x7-chief-blueprint-font-changed/

I'm using Beta for production, but agree with the lag, and printing is super slow.  Hopefully the final release with these fixes come out soon.  But the Beta is very solid otherwise.  No more crashes in X7 that I get in X6, which are few.

Good luck.

I get the same results in both Adobe Acrobat Pro & PDF Factory Pro.  Those I attached were done in PDF Factory Pro, and the logo is a watermark/letterhead I add during the print preview process.

Thanks Doug and Brian.  I'll send the plan and steps in when I get a moment.  Hopefully it's something on my end I can change which will make it easy for all.

Thanks for the feedback on this. I had a conversation on this with one of our developers just the other day asking about what I thought might be the best way to fix this issue. I'm not sure what the status is, but it is certainly not working the way it should.

 

I hope that we get this fix into the final release. Keep letting us know of problems that you have, we really appreciate every report on issues.

Thanks Doug!

Thanks Arthur.

Bill, great video.  Interesting that they didn't demonstrate what I'm trying to do.  Again, this works great in X6, but not in X7.  It seems that they are conceding that it no longer works and they are wanting us to use that new same line type handle instead to make up for it not working.  I can work with that for now, but it is an extra click this way.  After I draw the first arrow, I normally just simply draw a new one.  Now, I have draw it, then go back and select the arrow, then select the same line type and drag.

I'll report it.

Appreciate all the participation.

Yeah, I've done the color/greyscale print in the past, but found that the colors I was using were too light and therefore my line weights were not true to what was set.  I played around with darker colors and line weights, but I admit I was too lazy to spend the time. My pdf maker has a greyscale option as well, but I get the same problem as mentioned above with the colors I'm using.  Let me know if I'm missing something. I know some have a seperate layer set for printing, which seems like an unnecessary extra step and prone to errors in case a layer is inadvertently left off, or added on.

If I'm missing something on this process, please elaborate.

This fill option seems like a perfect solution if it will print as vector and not raster.

I'm not sure what is triggering the raster.  I put a cad box with 50% transparent fill on the screen to see if any transparent fill causes it, but it didn't.  Maybe I need to make the box bigger?  Or it is specific to the walls?  Not sure.  Hopefully Chief will test this more and get it fixed so we can use it.  I love the transparency fill, and understand it is a new feature and there are bound to be kinks to work out.  That is why I'm reporting this so the hopefully the final release will have this fixed.

PS: Nincinus, love your profile pic

Kevin, you nailed it, that is exactly what is happening.  Didn't catch that.  I haven't done beta since version 10, remind me how to report a bug?

Perry, thanks for the suggestion.  I will use this until they fix it.  This method is slower because it only has one line and I need to break it to get the 2 segments, but at least they are on the same layer and stay connected. I miss the old way version 9 and earlier had the 2 segments built into that add arrow feature.

Thanks everyone!

I've been playing around with using solid filled walls with a transparency of 50%.  Looks really nice, and is behaving nicely with other layers that cross over the top of them such as text, dimensions, etc.

However, I noticed when I print, Chief appears to be treating it like a raster image (print image function) vs a vector image (normal print function).

For example:  when I print a plan with walls that are solid filled with no transparency, the lines are crisp vector views as expected in the pdf when zooming in.  Once I add transparency to the walls, the entire drawing becomes pixelated raster views when zooming in.  It appears Chief is treating items that have a transparency fill as raster vs vector.  I'll attach a quick print out of a small casita plan.  I am using both Adobe Acrobat Pro, and PDF Factory Pro and getting the same results in both.  I did have to increase the down-sampling of images to ensure the quality didn't get too pixelated.

Another hint that this is being treated as 'print image' is that it is creating a white box border around the plan and cutting my logo off in the top right corner of the attachment.

Curious if others are getting this.  I can attach a plan as well, but would prefer trying your own quick plan to see if your settings get the same results or not.

Print-Sample.pdf