JNWArchitect Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 I have imported a PDF for use as a background in my drawings. Is appears ok on the screen, but when it prints out the background is very light, almost invisible. Is there a way to adjust the lightness/darkness and/or contrast of the PDF? Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chopsaw Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 Interesting Idea but I would advise not to use a PDF for that purpose. The will most likely be performance issues. https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/topic/21230-pdf-resource-drag-why-im-seeing-only-1-core-being-used/?tab=comments#comment-173000 You will be much better off using a .jpg or .png formatted file. And it allows you to adjust the brightness and contrast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tommy1 Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 37 minutes ago, Chopsaw said: You will be much better off using a .jpg or .png formatted file I usually us a .tiff format. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JNWArchitect Posted February 14, 2019 Author Share Posted February 14, 2019 Thanks everyone! I changed to .JPEG files vs. the original .PDFs and it works great. Love this forum! Should I avoid PDFs? I use them frequently for product data sheets etc. in some files. Also any advantage/disadvantage to importing them directly to the layout sheet vs. into .plan file? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BenMerritt Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 55 minutes ago, JNWArchitect said: Should I avoid PDFs? I use them frequently for product data sheets etc. in some files. Also any advantage/disadvantage to importing them directly to the layout sheet vs. into .plan file? That entirely depends on whether you're seeing performance that's acceptable to you. PDFs can often be a better option for text-heavy documents because they can usually be rendered at the correct resolution for printing at whatever size you need, whereas images have a fixed resolution and may sometimes look blurry on large-format prints. If you're dealing with a PDF that's just scanned from an image, though, you'll definitely be better off with a plain image. As for whether to import directly into the layout, it depends on what kind of effect you're trying to achieve. Putting the PDF in the layout helps avoid the overhead of rendering the PDF while working in your plan view, which can make editing operations considerably smoother. However, if you're primarily interested in the background's alignment relative to objects in the plan (rather than just its alignment with the layout box), then it'll be easier to keep it aligned if you put it in the plan. If you do put it directly in the plan, it's possible to use layer sets to turn it off during regular editing while still having it visible in the layout. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug_N Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 Sort of related. I have been having a problem with importing PDF files used to show a survey. The original PDF is crisp and can be easily read, but the PDF in the layout is fuzzy and hard to read. Does anyone know how to improve the PDF resolution in layouts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug_N Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 I am going to bring this to tech support's attention as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chopsaw Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 5 minutes ago, Doug_N said: Sort of related. I have been having a problem with importing PDF files used to show a survey. The original PDF is crisp and can be easily read, but the PDF in the layout is fuzzy and hard to read. Does anyone know how to improve the PDF resolution in layouts? Likely a scanned or copied survey ? Or even copied from a copy ? Try converting to .png or as Tommy has suggested .tiff which I believe is even less lossy or loss less but is not usually required in my experience. That should make quite and improvement in itself but then you can also adjust the brightness as I said above. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug_N Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 No, Michael, these are direct to PDF copies of AutoCAD work by the land surveyor. It is the only way I can insert a survey with a registered surveyors stamp. They will send AutoCAD drawing to me as well, but because these can be edited, they won't include their stamp in that drawing. Converting to a TFF is not something that I have tried, but I will as a workaround. I have the same problems trying to read text from building PDF drawings used to trace from once imported. It seems that CA is lowering the resolution of any PDF imported. I could be wrong, but that is how it would appear from my observations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chopsaw Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 2 minutes ago, Doug_N said: these are direct to PDF copies of AutoCAD work by the land surveyor. I have had some pretty crappy PDF's from AutoCAD and other software users. I think it is often a practice to put out pdf's that are not of a quality that can be copied and look like originals. Either low resolution or very often not vector PDF or flattened or encrypted. It drives me crazy sometimes why they do it I don't really understand as it makes it really difficult to collaborate. Please do send to CA as they are making the problem worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug_N Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 Done. By the way the PDF that I am sending is actually a really good resolution, but not after inserting into a plan or layout file. Just sayin. Here is a typical PDF that I am talking 13222 Survey Plan.pdf about and here is what it looks like in the layout 2 Storey Rear Entrance.layout Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chopsaw Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 7 minutes ago, Doug_N said: Done. By the way the PDF that I am sending is actually a really good resolution, but not after inserting into a plan or layout file. Just sayin. Thanks for sending that in but I would love to see the PDF. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug_N Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 Posted here in the forum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DRAWZILLA Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 I find that PDF's look light on the screen but print out ok. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chopsaw Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 18 minutes ago, Doug_N said: Posted here in the forum. Thanks Doug, I don't see any issues with that in PDF in comparison to some of the stuff I work with. Until Chief gets a hold of it. 14 minutes ago, DRAWZILLA said: I find that PDF's look light on the screen but print out ok. Fairly substantial degradation on that file even printing at 600 dpi with the Chief Architect Print to PDF. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DRAWZILLA Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 41 minutes ago, Chopsaw said: Thanks Doug, I don't see any issues with that in PDF in comparison to some of the stuff I work with. Until Chief gets a hold of it. Fairly substantial degradation on that file even printing at 600 dpi with the Chief Architect Print to PDF. Yes ,I never use Chief's PDF b/c of the file size, I use Adobe Acrobat DC so I wouldn't know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chopsaw Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 10 minutes ago, DRAWZILLA said: Yes ,I never use Chief's PDF b/c of the file size, I use Adobe Acrobat DC so I wouldn't know. Just tried a 600 dpi. with Adobe and it is not any better than Chief with my settings however the file size is substantially smaller. Here is the Chief Version for comparison : 13222 Survey Plan Reproduction.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DRAWZILLA Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 I just don't see any problems with your example there. Zoom in and see the difference, looks good to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chopsaw Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 6 minutes ago, DRAWZILLA said: I just don't see any problems with your example there. Zoom in and see the difference, looks good to me. I would say there is at least a 30% loss of density with the version I posted and another 5% or so with my Acrobat print. Zooming in to the same magnification is the true test, but a quick check is to minimize all three to your taskbar and look at the thumbnails side by side. It is really quite dramatic considering the best one has by far the smallest file size. Original 328 KB Adobe 1,079 KB Chief 8,015 KB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DRAWZILLA Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 6 minutes ago, Chopsaw said: I would say there is at least a 30% loss of density with the version I posted and another 5% or so with my Acrobat print. Zooming in to the same magnification is the true test, but a quick check is to minimize all three to your taskbar and look at the thumbnails side by side. It is really quite dramatic considering the best one has by far the smallest file size. Original 328 KB Adobe 1,079 KB Chief 8,015 KB I'll take your word for it on your end, I just don't see a problem when printed on my end. What version of Adobe do you use? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chopsaw Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 I believe I am current ? v. 2019.010.20069 Although I prefer to view in Reader cause I don't have to mess around. Here is my 600 dpi. Acrobat file if you want to compare to yours. It was done in X10. Could try in X11 now that it is public. 13222 Survey Plan Reproduction Adobe.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DRAWZILLA Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 4 minutes ago, Chopsaw said: I believe I am current ? v. 2019.010.20069 Although I prefer to view in Reader cause I don't have to mess around. Here is my 600 dpi. Acrobat file if you want to compare to yours. It was done in X10. Could try in X11 now that it is public. 13222 Survey Plan Reproduction Adobe.pdf of course it looks light looking at the full page but when you print or zoom in it looks correct to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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