Plotting to PDF - part of layout gets chopped off

Hi All,

When plotting to pdf using exportpdf, I notice that part of the layout gets chopped off. I am not sure why it does this? The exact same layout plots out fine when printing on paper. I have circumventing this problem by printing to extents, center, and fit to page. BUT, when I do that, the scale gets off, just a bit. Anyone else have this problem?

Thanks for any ideas!!

Kat:D

I use use a pdfcreator not exportpdf, but does it have margin settings like printing to paper?

I have circumventing this problem by printing to extents, center, and fit to page.

Try it without the fit to page.

Thanks for your reply. I just double checked it. It still chops off part of the page even when I don't do 'fit to page'.

The reason I like using exportpdf, is that it's just so easy! I really wish I could get all of this to work with the default pdf creator.

Any more suggestions?

I use 'cutepdf' as a plotter and that works well. Download it off the net.

Try 'center the plot' in 'extents' also sometimes if I get no joy - in my title block I put nodes to get the extents to limit the plot a little bigger

Hope this helps

I have heard about cutepdf before, and as per your suggestion, I decided to try it. The pdfs look great, but when I print them out, part if the page still gets chopped off. >_

-_- Any other suggestions? *sigh* AutoCAD is so much fun, but plotting things correctly has always been one my least favorite parts.

Kat,

You're sure that you're within the boundaries/margins in paperspace? What does your print look like if you just made a hardcopy?

Could I see a screenshot of your paperspace or attach your DWG?

Yup! Printing within the boundaries in paperspace. If I print directly from autocad to the printer, it looks great! If I make a pdf and THEN plot it, it gets chopped off. The weird thing is, is that it happens at my other drafting job, so I know it's not one computer or the other one.

Lemme see dat DWG, Kat. I've got plenty of free time at work today and I could chalk this up as learning/educating myself.

Hi Kat

The only thing I can suggest is to make your borders work within you worst case. I hope the amount being cut off isn't too much.

Sorry for my delay in response. I got tied up at work and I don't have internet at home right now =( . I will try to reset some of the borders of our title-blocks for different clients of ours.

It definitely sounds like the plot driver's margins (also called bleed limits). Most printers can't print right up to the edge of the paper - they need some space for the feeder's wheels to grab paper. You do get some (slightly more upmarket) printers which have a "Borderless" setting. However, the default PDF drivers (including PDFCreator, CutePDF, Adobe, etc. as well as the driver used by ExportPDF - the DWG2PDF driver in the plot dialog) don't have this "borderless" feature. You could "try" to get it working by the method listed below, but be warned - even if it works on the PDF, when printing from the PDF you'd probably find that it gets chopped of in any case.

In the plot dialog, choose the PDF driver you'll be using (e.g. DWG2PDF for the ExportPDF command). Click the Properties button directly to the right. Open the Device and Document Settings tab. Scroll down and select: User-defined Paper Sizes & Calibration / Modify Standard Printer Sizes (Printable Area). For each of the page sizes listed, select them, then click the Modify button - change the 4 borders to 0, click the Next & Finish buttons. Repeat for each page size.

After changing all the page sizes (including custom if you've setup some custom sizes) click OK, and when asked, choose the "Save changes to following file" option to save these settings to the PC3/PMP files ACad uses - otherwise it's only going to be used for the current plot.

Further to this, maybe your plot offsets are weird in the plot dialog. Those listed in the bottom-right. Sorry, without examples / screen shots as bbankston's asked for none of us can be sure.

I have this problem from time to time and I just recently found out how to fix this easily.

when you go to plot

go to custom properties

and click on advanced either in layout tab or paper/quality tab

Change the DPI to a lower setting

until it will plot the entire dwg.

Hope this helps.