Mass dwg to pdf conversion

Hi there,

I'm trying to convert a few thousand files from dwg to pdf and I believe I'm on the right track but am a little stuck. I'm attempting to use DWG TrueView though I have limited access to AutoCAD for like template creation and such.

I seem to have trouble getting some of them to plot/publish and also it seems many of the layouts don't show the entire actual view (like I see 1/4 corner taking up the entire page) - scaling problems.

My procedure is to create model and sheet page setup files in AutoCAD to use the built in DWG to PDF printer and 8.5" x 11" landscape. So I open the acad.dwt template file, and save one for model and one for layout after setting the above settings.

I then open one of the drawings and run batch plot, then I set the list with all the layout only drawings (was going to do models later) and import the page setup file for drawings. I am getting an error saying the layout is not initialized -I was going to consider using AutoCAD and MultiBatch to initialize the layouts. If I attempt to plot now I currently do not see any PDFs created even though the logs say about 6 or so completed. Any thoughts?

Thanks!

Hi Torquin,

pretty much straight up would recommend using autocad to do this as you can use a thing called Publish, it will batch PDF as many DWG you have got.

First question why are you trying to create PDF's of the model space? are the drawings set up with Layouts? using title blocks and viewpoints? if so there is no need to print model space as that is a working area.

Now to the main part.....

Open the first DWG in autocad and go to print it and set it all up as you would want it to create a PDF, once you have it setup you can see where it says page setup click add and it will create a profile of the setup you just created name it whatever u want.

next apply to layout and close the plot window.

save the dwg.

go to the file drop down and look for publish.

a new window appears here you will see the drawing you have opened in a list, the begin with change where it says 'publish to' change it to PDF.

Go into Publish options pick a location where you want to save and change to single sheet file type.

next click on the little button looks like a cad file with a + sign on it, once there you can add all you drawings, BUT first it says inclue and will say model and layout, change to only layout, then select what you want and click select.

will add all the DWG into the list.

oki order them that the first drawings is at the top then select all. hover over page setup for the first drawing select the Page setup you created at the beginning.

once done all should say the same thing here.

then unclick publish in background and unclick open in viewer when done.

then click publish and away they go.

now this is a pretty rough explaination but should work if not come back here and say what went wrong and will work it out.

Hopefully that helps.

I get this problem from consultants drawings they put stuff all over the place in layouts our auto routines will not work then, so a way around is to move the title block back to 0,0 then call the publish or in my case a lisp, if you want this move title block just post request here. I also have plot all title blocks in modelspace.

The guide works a treat. One hurdle with my batch export was that the VBA something-or-other is not installed, so for every sheet I had to click ignore. It suggested downloading a VBA module but as per this page, ACAD C3D 2013 is not supported... http://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad-civil-3d/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Unable-to-download-VBA-Enabler-for-previous-versions-of-AutoCAD.html

Cheers

Hi @bennyboy86 @ben_vk @BIGAL what do I do if a layout is not initialized?? Please help

Explain more "not initialized" do you mean plot settings ? Using lisp just set to correct settings required.