topic Re: Does anyone have a tip how to publish a decent PDF on Windows? in Documentation

Does anyone have a tip how to publish a decent PDF on Windows?

Anonymous — Fri, 19 May 2023 20:06:08 GMT

I know it has been discussed but I've not seen a solution. The problem is this:
When published from Windows PCs the PDFs take minutes to open - if at all - and our associates are complaining. Since I am the only Mac user I'm constantly asked to republish everyone's files. What's puzzling is that pdfTron can generate a prime PDF on Mac and a useless one on Windows. The file size from Mac is also comparably small - 1.2 MB and on Windows 4.9! What's the deal?

Re: Does anyone have a tip how to publish a decent PDF on Windows?

Barry Kelly — Thu, 25 Feb 2021 01:36:15 GMT

So you are publishing using "Print" to a 3rd party PDF converter (PDFTron)?

I find it is best to publish with the "Save" option and change the file format to PDF.
This uses Archicad's built-in PDF converter.

Barry.

Re: Does anyone have a tip how to publish a decent PDF on Windows?

Anonymous — Thu, 25 Feb 2021 11:19:33 GMT

+1 for Barry’s comment printing to PDF does not typically produce good PDFs on windows in comparison to built in save as PDF

regards
Scott

Re: Does anyone have a tip how to publish a decent PDF on Windows?

Anonymous — Thu, 25 Feb 2021 14:35:00 GMT

I am saving as PDF using the built in converter PDFTron PDFNet V6.40292 which is the same on Mac and Windows.

Re: Does anyone have a tip how to publish a decent PDF on Windows?

Barry Kelly — Fri, 26 Feb 2021 01:02:00 GMT

subatomic wrote:
I am saving as PDF using the built in converter PDFTron PDFNet V6.40292 which is the same on Mac and Windows.

I am not a MAC user but that does not sound like the built-in Archicad PDF converter to me.

In your Publisher Properties, do you have it set to 'Save Files' (not Print), and then just change the file format to PDF in the publisher set.

Barry.

Re: Does anyone have a tip how to publish a decent PDF on Windows?

DGSketcher — Fri, 26 Feb 2021 08:33:04 GMT

@Barry, on Mac the AC Publisher pdf convertor name is exposed as PDFTron. I haven’t installed any third party publishers and that is what shows up in the published file metadata. Never had any reported issues with my AC Published files being opened on Windows. Looks like a Windows publishing issue...

Re: Does anyone have a tip how to publish a decent PDF on Windows?

Anonymous — Fri, 26 Feb 2021 12:05:08 GMT

Exactly, as the title suggests.
Apple does not even allow 3rd party pdf printers. FWIW this is a Teamwork project and everyone uses the same publisher settings, which is of course save files.

Re: Does anyone have a tip how to publish a decent PDF on Windows?

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Mar 2021 16:11:18 GMT

No one? Not even from Graphisoft?

Re: Does anyone have a tip how to publish a decent PDF on Windows?

Lingwisyer — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 01:36:15 GMT

pdfTron is a PDF SDK, so it is probably something to do with the coding side of GS. If it was written using a language not common between the two platforms, maybe someone did not implement the optimizer in the same way. Only someone from GS could answer this, unless you can access the backend of the PDFs or something.

Ling.

Re: Does anyone have a tip how to publish a decent PDF on Windows?

Erwin Edel — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 09:48:21 GMT

I wasn't aware that there are differences between PDF publishing on MAC and Windows.

I do know that using a lot of random dot pattern vectoricial (or otherwise 'busy' vectorial) fills makes for heavy and slow PDF and have adjusted to using these a bit more sparingly over the years.

Not saying there should be a difference, but as a workaround for the time being that might solve some problems.

Re: Does anyone have a tip how to publish a decent PDF on Windows?

Eric Milberger — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 16:42:42 GMT

Avoid the vector as those files cn be opened and turned into a dwg file.
Dot files are safer

Re: Does anyone have a tip how to publish a decent PDF on Windows?

Anonymous — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 13:36:43 GMT

I'm still very interested in hearing from someone from GS