topic Re: PDF export pen weights issue- all lines always exported with hairline weight in Collaboration with other software

PDF export pen weights issue- all lines always exported with hairline weight

Paul King — Wed, 22 Apr 2020 07:46:42 GMT

HI, whether printing a drawing to PDF using system PDF print driver, or publishing to PDF , it appears that ArchiCAD ignores layout pen settings and produces only hair weight line work output by default.

How can true pen weight be reflected in PDFs?

Re: PDF export pen weights issue- all lines always exported with hairline weight

Barry Kelly — Wed, 22 Apr 2020 08:15:26 GMT

Maybe you have the "hairline" option ticked in the PDF settings.

Barry.

Re: PDF export pen weights issue- all lines always exported with hairline weight

Paul King — Wed, 22 Apr 2020 13:28:48 GMT

Thanks Barry, good suggestion - but no, hairlines is not ticked.

Do you get true line weights in PDFs from AC22 & 23?

Cheers
Paul

Re: PDF export pen weights issue- all lines always exported with hairline weight

Barry Kelly — Thu, 23 Apr 2020 00:48:34 GMT

Paul wrote:
Do you get true line weights in PDFs from AC22 & 23?

Yes.

Maybe check the drawing settings (the one you place on the layout) to see if it is set to use colours "defined by pen set".

Barry.

Re: PDF export pen weights issue- all lines always exported with hairline weight

Paul King — Thu, 23 Apr 2020 10:49:25 GMT

Hi - another good thought - but all layout pen tables (including ArchiCAD default) generate hairline PDFs for me - ignoring the pen weights visually showing in the layout view, though respecting the pen colours.

Re: PDF export pen weights issue- all lines always exported with hairline weight

Minh Nguyen — Sun, 26 Apr 2020 21:30:25 GMT

Hi Paul,

Thank you for sharing the issue and I am sorry about the experience!

With a blank template file, I was unable to replicate this issue. There are a few things that I would like to check:
- Which ARCHICAD version are you using? Please make sure that you are using the latest update (AC23 update 1 and AC22 update 4 have been released recently)
- Try to open the PDF using another PDF reader, or another machine/screen to see if the PDF is displayed correctly
- Try to publish to PDF from another machine

If you still haven't been able to get a correct result from the tests above, I suggest creating a new file from a blank template to see if the issue persists. If we see a correct result from this export, that means there must be something wrong with the current file that you are working on. If that's the case, I may need to have a look at your file to see what is causing the issue.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Best regards,
Minh

Re: PDF export pen weights issue- all lines always exported with hairline weight

Paul King — Tue, 02 Jun 2020 11:41:48 GMT

Try to open the PDF using another PDF reader

Hi thanks Minh

I discovered that viewing the same PDF file using Microsoft Edge browser (the Chromium version) as the viewing ap resulted in expected line weights showing, while viewing file using the Google Chrome browser, as well as via my own installed PDF editing/viewing app (PDF-XChange Editor) shows only hairlines for PDF output.

I would have expected Edge and Chrome to generate similar display given that based on same Chromium core, so a bit weird.

At least I know that the fault is not in the PDF files themselves now!

Re: PDF export pen weights issue- all lines always exported with hairline weight

Minh Nguyen — Tue, 02 Jun 2020 17:58:16 GMT

Hi Paul,

Thank you for the feedback! Although the new Edge and Chrome are using the same core, I believe Microsoft has some tricks up their sleeve in order to attract people toward Edge. Anyway, I'm glad that you have found the culprit!

Have a great day!

Best regards,
Minh