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pdf files much larger than "parent" .dwgs


OldMikeNewMember

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Hi everybody,

 

Please would someone explain (and help to cure) this problem I'm having when creating pdfs when using the DWG to PDF.pc3 plot driver in AutoCad (2007 - 2010).

The pdf files are about 3 or 4 times larger than the .dwgs, one pdf came out at 6.4MB when I printed the layout drawing; some layouts were only a couple of hundred KBs which was OK. I need to e-mail these drawings as pdfs but there usually is a mail-box limit problem. HELP!

 

Cheers:D

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I have the same issue with LT 2009.

 

Go to the Autodesk website and download TrueView. You can open your drawing with it and plot the pdf files without making any changes at all. And the pdf's will only be a couple hundred Kb's too.

 

I think AutoCAD stuffs the pdf file with ALL the overhead data that is in the dwg file, including importing all the data for external references and blocks.

 

One thing that is really a small issue, but some people seem very annoyed by it. TrueView will take over the "Opens With" Windows default for all your dwg files until either you right click the file in Windows and change it back to dwg launcher or open the same file from within AutoCAD again. Of course AutoCAD does the very same thing, so......

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Thanks for your advice Dana. I'll try that "TrueView" thing. I have found out a little more myself about this problem by looking through the AutoCad help stuff and it suggests it could be down to the resolution settings, but I tend to agree with your suggestion that a lot more (especially layer information) is turned into the pdf file than we imagine. So the "dpi" vector and gradient settings may be contributory to the problem I have.

 

Cheers:)

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An architect just sent me an email. I had sent her a batch of PDFs, and they're fairly large, between 1 and 2 MB apiece. She suggested trying a "simpler" font. I remembered this thread, so I came back to see if the TrueView solution would work. Here are the results.

Original drawing: 817 KB

PDF made with CutePDF Writer: 1481 KB

PDF made with TrueView: 1462 KB

a savings of 1.3%....

Our standard font is Simplex. Don't see how you could get any simpler than that. If I have time, I'll tinker with the settings and see I can get smaller PDFs.

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An architect just sent me an email. I had sent her a batch of PDFs, and they're fairly large, between 1 and 2 MB apiece. She suggested trying a "simpler" font. I remembered this thread, so I came back to see if the TrueView solution would work. Here are the results.

Original drawing: 817 KB

PDF made with CutePDF Writer: 1481 KB

PDF made with TrueView: 1462 KB

a savings of 1.3%....

Our standard font is Simplex. Don't see how you could get any simpler than that. If I have time, I'll tinker with the settings and see I can get smaller PDFs.

True and Cutie are pretty equivelent in the output size. I use trueview so I only have one company to complain to.:lol: AutoCAD would have made that 1481 kb about 11 megabytes.

Make sure you are plotting at a quality level of 'Normal' or lower in the layout manager. Use the minimum acceptable level. I usually use 'Draft' and it comes out fine. Once the drawing is final, purge, purge, and purge again. Delete the scale list items that you are not using. This makes a difference for some reason.

 

1481 Kb? What the heck are you drawing, The new buildings at Ground Zero?:shock:

 

I have an Arch "D" 24x36 sized drawing of a 27 acre ALTA survey at 1" =100' scale. It is only a 182 kb pdf and it is a really dense drawing, over 2000 words of text on it too, but I only have 12 layers and ONE color. I used a combination of CityBlueprint and Times New Roman fonts. I drew with about 5 colors and once I got the thing pretty much finalized, I turned it all 'white/black' By Layer and plot using monochrome.ctb.

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1481 Kb? What the heck are you drawing, The new buildings at Ground Zero?:shock:

 

This plan is for a bait shop that the state legislature is setting up on the State House grounds to bring in a little extra revenue.

 

Seriously, it's part of a community college, about 4 acres. We're doing the site work for a renovation: shifting the parking, adding a driveway, putting in new pipes to drain the pavement, etc. I don't see the size as unusual because all our other plans end up about 1-2 MB.

 

Just looked at another project. A few property lines, contours, building outlines, and a football field (a block). Total size: 767 KB. That's not right.

 

So I pruned out most of the scale list, purged, and saved. The same drawing is now 749KB.

 

Now I've got my deerstalker cap on. Each drawing has a title block. That block includes our logo, which is a different block, and that's 315 KB by itself (!). The logo block has a few closed polylines with enclosed hatches, a few lines of text, a polyline border. That's it. No way is that 300 KB. If I WBLOCK those items I get a drawing that's "only" 114 KB. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

 

To be continued ...

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This plan is for a bait shop that the state legislature is setting up on the State House grounds to bring in a little extra revenue.

 

To be continued ...

 

:lol::lol::lol: You had me there for a couple minutes. I've been to South Carolina and was born in very southern Virginia, so I know it has been done before.:P

 

The Mayor of our little town down there in VA gave his inaugeral speech in hip waders.:roll:

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