Pdf Anomaly


jtcapa1
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I've been having an issue with creating PDF's ever since VX7 came out.  It is very annoying.

Only way I can describe it is like there is an invisible box over only a portion of the sheet layout and it is causing the layout image on the sheet to look like part of it is being screened.  I've searched and searched to see if I've got something on Layer 0, but I cannot find a thing. I've update PDF995 and that did not help.  Has anyone else run across this problem??

 

I've attached a typical D sized sheet showing this anomaly.

SheetA7_Roof_Framing.pdf

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I've had many such anomalies and the new update is supposed to address this issue. I can't see the issue in the pdf you posted but I've had large sections with just white space where there should be data/information. Don't know if the new release really fixes it or not.

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Wow, that sure is a strange looking thing to have happen.

 

Drat! If only there was some way that we could actually open your plan and layout from our computers. Perhaps that way one of could figure out the reason for this happening instead of just looking at your very interesting picture.

 

But alas, ChiefTalk does not provide any such mechanism for doing this.

 

 

Alas and alack, tisk tisk.

 

Andy.

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Part of the PDF looks like a poly line solid box that has about 75% transparency is laying over the drawing.

 

The lines are muted in quite a bit of the drawing.

 

A bit difficult to see but it is there.

 

Andy.

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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)?

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It is VERY obvious to me, and I can't believe others would miss this. Much easier to see if zoomed way out. I am using Adobe Reader X1 on this laptop. Maybe something in the Reader version?

 

My guess is that if this occurs on every page, then it IS something on sheet 0, even if you can't select it. I would try a different layout sheet, same size, to see if the same thing is happening.

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I am either dense and not seeing what you are talking about or it is not displaying as you describe on my system. I'm using the latest Adobe Reader XI (11.0.11). Also running Windows 8.1. I thought maybe my high resolution display may have been making it look better so I dropped it down to 1080p and still didn't see what you are talking about. Maybe someone who is seeing the problem can post a screen shot.

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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)?

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Thanks Ben, I didn't see that other post, I think you are correct on the diagnostic.

 

It's odd that some didn't see the problem while others did, I'll have to go look at this on Doug's computer and see if I see the same results as I see.

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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.

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Now that you pointed out the places where the problem exists I can see what you are talking about. Thanks.

 

It appears that there is a somewhat transparent overlay on the layout. I assume this was put there on purpose. I don't know of any bugs where that would occur either in a printer driver or in Chief.

 

Using the built-in Save As PDF there is enough information available to produce a Vector based PDF with transparency information intact. However, at least on Windows, printers don't support transparency so going through a print driver requires a conversion to a pixel based format where the transparency blending is done before sending to the printer. So ALL PDF printer drivers will suffer from this limitation. Chief, or rather the toolkit that Chief uses, does the blending before sending the output to the printer.

 

If you need to use the printer driver to produce the PDF then you will need to go to a higher resolution (I suggest the DPI of the printer you are targeting for the paper copy). You will still be able to see the pixels in the viewer if you zoom in far enough, but if they are as small as the DPI of printer you are targeting there should be no problem with the printed output.

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