Printing a PDF of an Excel File in AutoCAD?

[Tpoulin]

I have used Paste Special to insert an excel schedule into my AutoCAD drawings. When I try to print to Adobe PDF the excel schedule disappears. When I print to DWG to PDF the schedule is there but the text is really heavy and the file size is extremely large. This is causing a problem when combining PDF drawing sets, the files crash. Does anyone know why when I try to print an excel file to Adobe PDF that the schedules disappear?

[wlcmhm]

There are two options you can try to solve this. The first one is by using a data link to bring your excel file into CAD, which makes your excel table a CAD table. The Data Link is farily straight foward to use and is located under the INSERT tab. However, I have had bosses that like the looks and formatting of the excel tables 'pasted special' into CAD and therefore do not want to see CAD tables. This brings us to your second option.....after you paste special your excel table into CAD, when you go to print, after you've selected your PDF printer of choice, click printer properties. Click on the 'Device and Document Settings' tab, then select the 'Graphics icon'. Under the Graphics icon, click on the 'Raster Graphics' icon. Once you've clicked the Raster Graphics icon, look for a horizontal control bar next the the letters OLE: and slide the control tab from 'Best' to somewhere in the middle, usually one or two clicks left of Best works for me. This may effect the quality of your printout slightly. I have not noticed any problems with quality, however, for plotting to pdf for construction drawings that I have made. This second option is the best 'work around' I have found to CAD's ineptness to plot images and such.

[Tpoulin]

Thank you so much wlcmhm! That second option worked great. One more questions so do you know how to change that setting so you don't have to do it every time you print?

[wlcmhm]

Yes i do...... You should be able to set the printer properties through the page setup manager. Right click on your layout tab, click 'Page Setup Manger'. Then repeat setting the printer properties as you did before. You will need to go into the Page Setup Manager for each layout you want to print and set the properties as you want them, but once you've set each layout thru the Page Setup Manager, then you should be good to just print at will. Hope it helps. I've heard a rumor that this problem gets fixed in CAD 2012.....but like I said, just a rumor.......