Monday, January 7, 2008

Lines Merge for PDF created from AutoCAD using Acrobat

Line merging is possible to achieve using Adobe Acrobat 8 and AutoCAD 2008. I just confirmed it and here is the result with lines merge and lines overwrite.

lines merge                       lines overwrite

The built in DWG to PDF.pc3 that comes with AutoCAD cannot do this and if you just use the Plot command and the Adobe PDF.pc3 it will not work.

In short here is how.

  • In the Page Setup select Adobe PDF.pc3 or some other pc3 file that supports lines merge. Click on Properties>Devices and Document Settings>Graphics>Merge Control and there you select Lines Merge.
  • Acrobat PDF Maker must then be used. Either via the toolbar or with the PDF command.

In step 14 in the post below you don't have to retain the layers. Flatten all layers works as well.

Via Acrobat “Lines Merge” adjustments for PDF created from AutoCAD » I did not know Acrobat could do that

3 comments:

  1. Hi JTB. As an architect, we never intend our drawings to be "printed" in the colors that we draft in AutoCad. I tried your fix (and also looked at the fix in the Adobe blog) but my pdfs all came out in the drafting colors. It appears that the convert to pdf button doesn't take the ctb file into consideration. Therefore, instead of a beautiful black and white shaded elevation I got a pink, purple, blue, cyan, red and yellow elevation. Totally worthless. Is there a step that I am missing that helps the pdf creator use the ctb file. Additionally, this fix doesn't seem to work when you have blocks in your drawing which all complicated AutoCad drawings should have. Any thoughts and solutions would be greatly appreciated. Gail at douglassg@aol.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Gail,
    If you have the latest version of AutoCAD you can try to produce the PDF that way instead.
    As to the usage of Acrobat I don't know what might be the reason or the fix as I don't have it installed.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Gail DouglassFebruary 03, 2010

    Hi all, for all those having this same problem, it does appear to be fixed in AutoCad 2010. I printed a complex elevation with shade and shadow hatch patterns and many blocks. Drawing didn't look right in the paperspace but printed perfect. No exploding blocks and sending things to back required. When printing choose the premade "dwg to pdf.pc3" that comes with the installation. Go to properties and under graphics change to toggle to lines merge. Save to that same pc3 and print.

    ReplyDelete

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