Pro-E line weights!!!

[LENNY]

Hi,

I've read many different posts now relating to controlling line weights in dwgs in particular when saving as pdf's, and I'm still none the wiser!

I like to use 'save to pdf' and then print to my local printer, however the dwgs are unattractive due to heavy, undefined lines.

I'm using Pro-E wildfire 4 on windows vista pc. I've tried a number of things including - adding 'pen1,2,3,..._line_weight' in config.pro and assigning various values. I've also tried creating a pentable and pointing 'pen_table_file' in config.pro to that location but when I do this I always get the following message in lower right hand corner when I save to pdf - 'C:\...pentable not found'...

Is there any simple advice anyone can give me? surely there must be an easy way to print high quality dwg in Pro-E....

thanks,

 

[dr_gallup]

Don't use "save to PDF". For some reason direct PDF creation does not follow any of the rules set up for printing. Create a printer control file for a generic postscript printer. Put all your paper size, pen table file, etc. entries there. Pro/E will create a postscript file that you can easily convert to PDF with any number of free utilities. You can set this up to happen automatically if you like.

Once you get it all sorted out it will print perfectly first time every time. I've been doing it this way ever since the Pro/Detail module first allowed drawing creation back in about release 8 and it has kept working through many releases and printers.

I've got it down to just typing one mapkey command and it's done.

 

[LENNY]

wow,

that sounds great, exactly what i need! only thing is i'm not very pc literate and dont think i could manage to set up the printer control file etc you mentioned... dont suppose u have any step by step instructions??

 

[dr_gallup]

Printer control files are just ascii text files, they live in the Pro/E <load_point>/text/plot_config folder. Here is mine for B size postscript files, obviously you will have to change as appropriate:

plotter POSTSCRIPT
button_name POSTB
button_help Plots B size output to HP 9050
plot_drawing_format YES default
plot_segmented NO default
plot_roll_media NO default
plot_handshake NO default
plot_label NO default
create_separate_files NO default
plot_with_panzoom YES default
rotate_plotting NO default
allow_file_naming YES
plot_name YES
interface_quality 3 default
plot_destination file_and_printer default
plotter_command windows_print_manager \\GVLPRINT\gvl_hp9050n
pen_table_file G:\solid\drw_files\postscript20.pnt
plot_sheets all default
paper_size_allowed B A
paper_size B default
plot_clip NO default
plot_area NO default
plot_access create

Pen table files are also just ascii text, here is the one referenced, it dates back to when plotters still had pens but still works with a laserjet:

!Pro/E geometry lines are white on the screen, plot with broad pen #2 (0.250mm)
!
pen 2 thickness .025 cm; drawing_color attention_color
!
!Everything else plots with fine pen #1 (0.125mm)
!
pen 1 color 0.0 0.0 0.0; thickness .0125 cm; half_tone_color
pen 3 color 0.0 0.0 0.0; thickness .0125 cm; dimmed_color
pen 4 color 0.0 0.0 0.0; thickness .0125 cm; edge_highlite_color
pen 5 color 0.0 0.0 0.0; thickness .0125 cm; letter_color
pen 6 color 0.0 0.0 0.0; thickness .0125 cm; highlite_color
pen 7 color 0.0 0.0 0.0; thickness .0125 cm; magenta_color
pen 8 color 0.0 0.0 0.0; thickness .0125 cm; section_color

 

[LENNY]

Really appreciate your help.

I'm slowly starting to make sense of what you're telling me. I created a postscript text file similar to yours above and also I created a table.pnt text file as above.

Why do you have reference to a printer '\\GVLPRINT\gvl_hp9050n' in above? I thought this method worked by creating a postscript file which i then opened up in acrobat as a pdf, so why the need for reference to a hp laserjet printer??

Also for some reason I keep getting the following error message when I print - "
C:\workbench\table.pnt not found" For some reason pro-e is not seeing/finding the table.pnt file i created... i must be doing something stupid??

 

[dr_gallup]

The user has the option to send it straight to the printer, to a file or both. That's controlled by this option:

plot_destination file_and_printer default

By default it will do both.

 

[LENNY]

Does anyone have a straight forward way of printing a
decent looking dwg directly from Pro-E? surely it can't be
as complicated as described above, can it?

whereas I appreciate the above advice, I really can't make
head nor tail of it...

Cheers

 

[John 62]

Turn the line weights off before you printin pdf.


Thanks

 

[LENNY]

how do i turn off line weights?

 

[nbaptist]

Lenny, I assume you have the save as PDF icon in your drawing setup file.

What we do to creat a drawing without all the heavy lines is this.

In the PDF Export Settings pop up, under the Color heading set to Monocrome, Line style, set to Solid Hidden Lines. Under the Content tab set Fonts to Stroke All Fonts.

Then Hit OK and the PDF will display print the PDF. The line weights are not so heavy handed. The only drawback is most drawing release departments have a hard time making file copies of this PDF!

 

[John 62]

I just tried line weight on then off. Made no difference.


Sorry

 

[kdmgooner]

Here we use Ghostscript to convert the postscript files to PDF. A set of mapkeys is available to our users via the PROE menu so producing a PDF is just one mouse click. Ghostscript is free and is easy to install.