Pdf Anomaly


jtcapa1
 Share

Go to solution Solved by Chief_QA,

Recommended Posts

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.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  Sounds like something that is left over from a previous use of your LO template.  If you can select the box and don't feel like it might be anything you need, have you tried just deleting it?

That is my issue, I've not found anything in the template.  It seems like there is something there but I cannot find it. It only appears on printing, not on the image on the computer before creating the PDF

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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)?

Drat, I've never looked to see if CA added a good internal pdf printer.  I'll have to give that a try.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Do you get the same problem using the save as pdf option? 

 

It would be good to have the plan and layout to troubleshoot.

I'll try the internal PDF printer provided by CA and see if it goes away. I'll post my results.

It was on every page of the layout btw.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guy's,

 

If he goes to the layers set dialog box can he look to the what's + out in the "Used" column to see what might be affecting it? 

 

I check these when I'm cleaning up a floor plan to save as template

 

Also, maybe their is something on sheet zero of the layout page

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guy's,

 

If he goes to the layers set dialog box can he look to the what's + out in the "Used" column to see what might be affecting it? 

 

I check these when I'm cleaning up a floor plan to save as template

 

Also, maybe their is something on sheet zero of the layout page

I've got very little in the Layout layer dialog box, I've tried turning the few I had on, off, and turning off those that don't have the red + sign.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well I finally found the "SAVE as PDF" in the destination Print dialog box, right at the top.  It was fast and worked great! I hate to ask how long that has been there! :o  :rolleyes:

Anyway it worked great and the problem is gone!  Thanks Doug for the explanation.

Obviously it is a glitch in the 3rd party PDF printer driver software.

SheetA7_SavePDF.pdf

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have now resorted to using the inbuilt printer driver and put up with the larger file sizes as I have had so many problems with any other printer driver.

I cannot print the entire page if I have an embedded pdf on the page, some part of the page will print blank usually the bottom half of the sheet but sometimes other areas.

Was pointed out in beta by the way.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When I open the .pdf and click around in the document, I get blue shaded boxes, all the same size. 

If I then right click in a blue box, I get an option to Copy Image, which I can do and then paste the highlighted part of the pdf  into Paint or similar.

 

Seems a bit strange.

post-106-0-72066200-1431654901_thumb.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Solution

I have now resorted to using the inbuilt printer driver and put up with the larger file sizes as I have had so many problems with any other printer driver.

I cannot print the entire page if I have an embedded pdf on the page, some part of the page will print blank usually the bottom half of the sheet but sometimes other areas.

Was pointed out in beta by the way.

This should have been fixed in the 17.1.2.2 update, if you are still seeing this issue please send in a plan to tech support so we can investigate this issue.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This should have been fixed in the 17.1.2.2 update, if you are still seeing this issue please send in a plan to tech support so we can investigate this issue.

I'll do that. Other than that, I'd say my question was answered successfully! Thanks everyone for all your help.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here is the answer from CA's tech support ticket people:

John -

When I follow your instructions, and add the transparency fill to the plan - and then send to layout, I can reproduce it every time. I will forward this issue to our Development Staff; hopefully they can get it fixed.

In the interim, the 'Save as PDF' option will work. Like you, I have been using PDF995 for a long time, so it's critical that we make this and other PDF drivers work. Hopefully, we can get this fixed ASAP.

Thank you-
Nigelk

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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.

Thanks Ben,

Looks like they are now aware of the transparency problem so hopefully it will be solved in an update or in the next release.  As to the color check box, I'm going to open a new thread as you pose and interesting comment about printing in color.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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!  :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Printing on windows cannot produce transparency due to the way it printing is currently implemented. This means that when you print to a PDF printer the transparency blending has to be done before it is sent to the printer to a bitmap. This will result in certain artifacts, especially if your PDF printer driver is set to print at a low resolution. If you choose the resolution that you will ultimately print at the blending should not show up when you print, but will likely still show up in a PDF viewer because of the discrepancy between the resolution of the bitmap embedded in the PDF and the resolution of your display.

 

The color accuracy of your monitor may also have an effect since the blending can produce a slight color shift which may not be rendered accurately.

 

Save to PDF doesn't suffer from this limitation because it doesn't go through a Windows printer driver.

 

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

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't expect any change. The problem would more than likely require the rewrite of printer drivers to support it. And would certainly require a rewrite of the toolkit we use to do printing.

 

I didn't mention Macs because I didn't know.

 

A quick search seems to confirm that this would behave the same on a Mac if you went through a Mac PDF printer driver.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Transparency in pdf is supported in pdf 1.4 and higher.

 

See this document:

http://partners.adobe.com/public/asn/en/print_resource_center/Transparency-DesignGuide.pdf

 

Some printer drivers may not support that level. I noticed the first PDF in this post is at PDF version 1.3.

 

If transparency is not supported the image has to be flattened, which may explain some of the pix-elated problems if the transparency is being flattened.

 

Also if the PDF printer is printing to postscript (which most do) there may be limits to it's ability to render transparency:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparency_%28graphic%29

 

I believe we are supporting PDF version 1.4 and are not going to postscript.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...

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.

 

Thanks for the info! I have been having the same problem. 2 pages out of a 12 page layout have been having a random area changed from black to a greenish color for no apparent reason. There are some cad details with transparent objects on those pages though. There are other details on other pages that have transparencies, but for some reason only 2 of the pages where compromised. I used the Chief PDF printer and it fixed the problem.... or at least got me to a reasonable end result. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
 Share