Continue to Site

Welcome to MCAD Central

Join our MCAD Central community forums, the largest resource for MCAD (Mechanical Computer-Aided Design) professionals, including files, forums, jobs, articles, calendar, and more.

Register Log in

.pdf writer

V

vandewinckel

New member
Good Morning


I'm using wildfire 2.0. I'm looking for a good .pdf writer to convert pro/e drawing files for a customer release. I've tried PrimoPDF with some luck, but some of the text doesn't convert well. The .PDF writer doesn't have to be free shareware. I'll just looking a writer that work with pro/e.


Thanks


Steve
 
I would use Ghostscript/Ghostview. Nearly every other PDF writer is just a GUI to the Ghostscript engine.
 
Have you looked at this. It is what our company is switching to and the professional version is only like $50 (editable pdf)instead of the $450 from Adobe. There is also a free version for making pdf files, but I have not seen if it works with Pro/E yet. But it is worth a shot.


http://www.cutepdf.com/
 
baldwin_


I've used the wildfire 3.0 .pdf file they're not much better than the free shareware.


Thanks for your input. I'm looking at cutepdf and sourceforge, and ghostscipt.


I've also been testing pdfcomplete. Its seams to work well. Has anyone used pdfcomplete?
 
For PDF drawings, lately, I have just been using the save as PDF in WF4 - which works pretty good (other than a weird hidden line problem on some drawings). For a few drawings and in the past I did:

Win32
Print to a file using a postscript driver (save as *.ps). Then, use ps2pdf tool to convert. ps2pdf uses ghostscript and produces almost exact replica in PDF with with very optimal pdf code. In win32, you can get this as part of Cygwin (cygwin.com) and cygwin is also nice in many other ways (especially if you like Unix shells and tools)

Unix
Print to file using poscript driver. Then, use ps2pdf tool - which may have some dependencies to install first depending on your version of Unix - a general linux install usually has all the dependencies already there and perhaps ps2pdf already installed.

http://www.ps2pdf.com/ (online version found in google search, haven't used)
http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/doc/AFPL/6.50/Ps2pdf.htm (official home of ps2pdf command line tool)
 
I don't understand why you should have those problems. Aspecially with WildFire 3.
I suspect there is something with the font definition of the fonts you are using.


In order to have the line thickness right you have to use a pentable and enable the option "Use pentable" in the pdf export settings. The pdf export settings is the window that pops up when you press the create pdf button in WF3.
If you have font problems, click on the tab "Content" in the "pdf export settings" window.
Here you will find an option "Fonts". By default the option "Use TrueType fonts" is enabled. Now change this to "Stroke all fonts". This will make Pro/E to export the text not as a real text but to create the text as splines. Ok, the text isn't searchable text anymore, but at least the display will be correct.


These problems are not related to Pro/E or to most pdf creation software whether opensource or commercial, but are related to the way the fonts are defined within the truetype definition.


I hope this helps.


Best regards,


John Bijnens
KHLim : http://cad2cam.khlim.be



Edited by: orac
 
<div style="text-align: left;">I've always had trouble with the spacing for the hidden lines. I'm using Wildfire 4 and the spacing between the dashes of hidden lines is so big on small parts (around 100mm across) that the hidden lines appear solid. I've messed around with pen-table options, but to no avail.
</div>
Any pointers would be appreciated.

Sam
 
plot_linestyle_scale changes the dash-scale of the hidden lines when I hit the plot button, and I can then print to .pdf, but if I save as .pdf from within Pro/E the hidden line scale is not changed. Does it just work fine for you?

Sam
 
I had many troubles creating pdf from a drawing.
I normal use the button on the toolbar.


I have added the following settings to my config.pro that seem to have solved my problems.


pdf_linecap round
pdf_linejoin miter
pdf_use_pentable yes
use_8_plotter_pens yes


That together with a pentable did the trick.


Best regards,


John Bijnens
http://cad2cam.khlim.be
 
<h3 style="font-weight: normal;">I've changed the config.pro options as suggested but it makes no difference to the scale of the hidden line dashes. John, could you please supply the details for your pentable?</h3>
I've also found the following on the PTC website, which appears to refer to a slightly different problem but is related. Is the fact I'm on Wildfire 4 M010 the problem?

Sam
-----------------------

<div ="indent20"><table ="boundedTop alignTop">
<t><tr>
<th>SPR</th>
<td>1540901 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Status</th>
<td>Closed</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Severity</th>
<td>High </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Created Date</th>
<td> 22-Aug-2008 </td>
</tr>

<tr>
<th>Description</th>
<td>Axis and cutting lines are not correctly displayed and hidden line overlappe solid line while creating a PDF file.<wbr> </td>
</tr>
</t></table>
</div>




<h3>Affected Products</h3>


<table ="boundedTop indent20 alignTop"><t><tr>
<th>Product</th>
<td colspan="2">Pro/ENGINEER</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Module</th>
<td colspan="2">2D_INTERFACE</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Reported Release</th>
<td colspan="2">Wildfire 4.0</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Reported Datecode</th>
<td colspan="2">M040</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Affected Platform</th>
<td colspan="2">All Windows</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Resolved Release</th>

<td>Wildfire 4.0</td>

<td>Wildfire 5.0</td>

</tr>

<tr>
<th>Resolved Datecode</th>

<td>M060</td>

<td>C000</td></tr></t></table>
 
There isn't much to say about the pentable I use.


It only contains


pen 1 thickness .050 cm
pen 2 thickness .025 cm
pen 3 thickness .035 cm


I'm using WF4 M60 at the moment.


Best regards,


John Bijnens
http://cad2cam.khlim.be
 
In the institute I work for some people were using builds of WF4 prior to M50. We have seen problems with the dashed lines here also. I hadn't noticed it as I was using M50. It seems these problems (dashed lines appear as solids) are caused by a bug in the Pro/E builds. When we upgraded to at least M50 the problems were solved.


Best regards,


John Bijnens
http://cad2cam.khlim.be
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Sponsor

Articles From 3DCAD World

Back
Top