Why PDF?

As a company we have always stubbornly printed drawings in PDF form. The excuse is our client want PDF drawings. However, I feel like it is just what people are used to and don't want to fiddle with it. What are they missing out on?

PDF form does give you a lot of room. They can be emailed and you are still able to toggle layers. However, a hard copy of a document will be the same either way, so printing to a PDF just to print it on a printer or plotter, is really just an extra step in my opinion. I am not to familiar with all the options in a PDF. I know they are good if you need to hide some details, for example hiding a dimension layer so a customer can not steal your designs. But in this case as you have described it, I wouldn't say you are missing out, maybe throwing away some time though.

The PDF file format was created as a way to exchange documents between word processing programs and was never meant to be a substitute for an actual CAD drawing. Many people overlook this fact and think of a PDF being as good as a CAD drawing which clearly it is not. And because the "viewer" for a PDF is free, well-known and widely distributed it became a matter of convenience. Personally, I hate the format and try to avoid it at all costs. A pox on the PDF. It hasn't made my CAD life an easier that's for sure. Feel free to disagree.

I am in agreement with you ReMark. I am dealing with and issue right now where I'm looking for free PDF drivers for Revit software. It would just be easier to print DWF and skip that. It seems easier to print a searchable text document and a 3D DWF rather than Adobe drivers that would require an Adobe license. But sometimes our clients want PDF because, I guess, they don't know what Design Review is and wouldn't be smart enough to use it either. We waste a lot of paper printing out markup drawings as well, although there is something to be said for the ease of use working with phyical copies sometimes.

As a company we have always stubbornly printed drawings in PDF form. The excuse is our client want PDF drawings. However, I feel like it is just what people are used to and don't want to fiddle with it. What are they missing out on?

What would you propose instead? I don't think they are missing out on anything using PDF.

PDF format and viewers are ubiquitous. Autodesk tried to get everyone to go to DWF but you had to convince IT departments everywhere to d/l the viewer and install for everyone. People want convenience and for viewing a drawing PDF is simple.

You are right that if a client demands PDF, our hands are tied. Our IT department as been convinced to load Design Review as well as Abode Reader for all computer builds. But we can only control our IT department.

I totally disagree on this. A PDF can be a true vector file and as such is an excellent way to share documents and data (drawings). I think the main weakness in a PDF file is how it can be created. Some processes are better than others.

Are PDF files easier to convert back to dwg files than DWF?

Well it can be export to another vector format which can be a dwg file, sure. Will it be the exact same as the original CAD file? No it can't. But being a vector file it can be scaled up or down with little or no loss of quality.

I use Adobe Illustrator and Corel Draw to covert some PDFs to DWG files. Not all items come across but it does give you a start if that is all you have.

I'm a fan of DWF/DWFx, but PDF works in most cases. If more people would adopt DWF/DWFx then they would be doing themselves a huge favor. Drawing Compare, Markups, Comments, recording comments, and best of all the ability to have full or isolated 3D models embedded with full navigation controls.

PDFs cause a lot of problems with our older system. Some people send us files that are so big that they bog down the plotters. The PDFs created from CAD with the default settings take so long to print that it takes upwards of an hour to plot a set of drawings compared to less than 10 minutes if plotted directly from CAD.

PDFs are convenient and widely accepted. If people would get educated about DWFs, they might say, "Why are we using PDFs when DWFs can make our process easier?" but people in general are resistent to change are satisfied with the status quo.

how many questions do we get asked about locking drawings so that they can't be copied? (Probably the same number as want a method of going the other way.) I don't have problems with PDFs. The AutoDesk driver works well for me and we supply drawings that can't easilly be turned back in to cad files. If our contract is to supply cad files then we do that and they can print the files how they like. One contract asks for pdf & dwg. Fine - no printing hundreds of drawings for them.

I agree Dave. PDF's might not be the best file format for vector output exchange, but it still works fine.

I've also noticed PDF's that are generated from AutoCAD are HUGE when compared to newer applications, such as Revit. I have Adobe Pro, and even when using the Adobe print driver as opposed to the integrated PDF print driver in AutoCAD, it's all the same. I guess it's just something with AutoCAD. A 1MB PDF file from AutoCAD that's replicated in Revit, would be 30Kb-50Kb.

So point is, maybe it's not Adobe's fault. Seems the ancient application known as AutoCAD might actually be the culprit.

We've standardized here on publishing to a DWF file, and then PDF'ing from there. We've noticed that if we publish straight to PDF from CAD the line weights dont look good, and the files are HUGE. By going to DWF, I can then PDF it cleanly and still have Design Center open for online reviews with my clients, without scaring them by busting out CAD.

From a client's perspective, most just want to be able to print and read a drawing sheet, and that's it. PDF is known, cheap, and easy.

Your client can do the exact same thing using DWG Trueview and work with the native format to boot. Oh...it's free too.

Your client can do the exact same thing using DWG Trueview and work with the native format to boot. Oh...it's free too.

Not that its a huge deal, but everyone already has PDF viewing capabilities. Its not like oh its another file format, all you have to do is go here and download this to be able to view it. Just send the PDF and it works. I always plot to PDF and save them on the company server in the job folder so the engineers do not have to come bug me for a print of something they can print the thing out themselves.

I don't hold the PDF file format when it comes to CAD in such high regard as others.

We always used to scan drawings to Tiff files that could get to 3-5mb each. When we got 2010lt we started printing to PDF instead, I tried to use DWFs but so many of our brickies, steelworkers etc. are afraid of computers we have to keep things simple as they can open PDFs without any real computer knowledge. The other reason was that we use the Xerox batch plotting software and it doesn't recognise DWFs for some reason.

Your client can do the exact same thing using DWG Trueview and work with the native format to boot. Oh...it's free too.

Most of my clients don't know how to use those file formats, nor do they want to download propeitry software (or might not have admin rights to install it etc). I've never encountered someone (yet) who didn't know how to open and print a pdf. Hence why PDF is king.