Plotting from PDFs

Hi there, this isn't really an Acad question at all, but hey.

I figure many of you do as I do, drawing things to plot blueprints.

It just so happens that I'm often sent PDFs of drawings to plot, but for some reason I have trouble with them.

Suppose I have a standard drawing that is meant for a 24x36 Arch D sheet size. It will always plot 36" because it has to, that is the paper width of the roll. But for some reason, it will stop shy of 24" and cut the paper as much as 4 or 6 inches short, instead of printing the full 24".

The drawing inside the PDF is exactly right, the Adobe Acrobat Reader shows the drawing fine, it fits within the margins, it's not scaled, the sheet size is shown accurately. Based on the visuals and settings, all things are great. I've got the paper set to 36" roll, opaque bond, no scaling because I need it to print accurately.

However, when it prints, some of the drawing is cut off at the bottom and at the top, and instead of 24" it cuts the paper at 18 or 20". I don't get it. It shows 24" in the print wizard, the correct paper size is shown, the preview images looks great. All things check OK, and then it prints and cuts off the graphic and makes a short sheet.

I'm afraid to try scale to 100% or scale to sheet size, because the people who have to use this need to scale it on paper with a ruler and I can't have it stretching or shrinking the print.

What gives with Acrobat printing? Has anybody had this problem trying to plot PDFs accurately? It would be one thing to simply cut the sheet where the graphic ends, but this is actually stopping shy of printing the graphic altogether and cutting the sheet early before it reaches 24".

Any ideas?

Thanks.

do you have centre the plot checked on the lower left hand corner of the plot dialog box?..

do you have centre the plot checked on the lower left hand corner of the plot dialog box?..

that's what I was thinking...

also, what type (manufacturer) plotter do you have? Our OCE printer has a nice interface that allows for some adjustment.

Turns out it might (that is might) have had something to do with this particular document being scanned. I suspected this because of little artifacts all over it. So it seems the document was scanned in instead of being plotted to PDF. That is all I can think of, because I've plotted other PDFs recently that did fine.

The issue is that the plotter would cut the image short. Not only cut the sheet short, but slice some of the image off with it.

It's a mystery that I didn't solve, but it's over now, just annoying.

It's a mystery that I didn't solve, but it's over now, just annoying.

^_^ i thought id get a solution in this thread coz I had exactly the same problem when I try to print acad sheets converted to PDF.

the plotter cuts off about 1"-2" off the sheet, whats annoying even is I didnt notice it coz the cut off boundary was drawn with a margin

When I set in the print dialog specifically "coated bond" and '36" roll' it seemed to help, normally I left those default.

do you have centre the plot checked on the lower left hand corner of the plot dialog box?..

This would only apply if you were plotting from ACAD- a PDF will be plotted from Adobe Reader or similar?

Not sure on scale requirements, but there is a page scaling option in Adobe Reader which gives an option to "Fit to Printable Area", but I'm not sure you're going to be happy with losing any scale?

The only way to get the Architectural settings for PDF's, is to purchase Acrobat Pro. There is no way around it.

I wish someone would have found a solution for this. The problem is printing from Adobe Reader, not from ACAD. @mrbucket Why would you need Pro in order to plot something? That is ridiculous.

I have consistently found that when a plot does not have a border and is plotted to our Oce that is cuts off the page size and removes white space. I have tried changing all kinds of settings in the Oce plot settings but absolutely nothing works. Anybody have any other ideas?

So apparently updating the plotter driver software works.....can't tell you why.

Drag and drop the pdf into Autocad rescale it back to true draw a border plot from Autocad we gave up on extrenal pdf's being true scale and plot correct.

So apparently updating the plotter driver software works.....can't tell you why.

Who woulda thunk?