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

Paul King
Advisor
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?
PAUL KING | https://www.prime.net.nz
ArchiCAD 8-27 | Twinmotion 2023
Windoze 11 PC | Intel Core i9 10900K | Nvidia Gforce RTX 3080 | 32 Gb DDR3 | 2x4K monitor extended desktop
7 REPLIES 7
Barry Kelly
Moderator
Maybe you have the "hairline" option ticked in the PDF settings.

Barry.
One of the forum moderators.
Versions 6.5 to 27
Dell XPS- i7-6700 @ 3.4Ghz, 16GB ram, GeForce GTX 960 (2GB), Windows 10
Lenovo Thinkpad - i7-1270P 2.20 GHz, 32GB RAM, Nvidia T550, Windows 11
Paul King
Advisor
Thanks Barry, good suggestion - but no, hairlines is not ticked.

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

Cheers
Paul
PAUL KING | https://www.prime.net.nz
ArchiCAD 8-27 | Twinmotion 2023
Windoze 11 PC | Intel Core i9 10900K | Nvidia Gforce RTX 3080 | 32 Gb DDR3 | 2x4K monitor extended desktop
Barry Kelly
Moderator
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.
One of the forum moderators.
Versions 6.5 to 27
Dell XPS- i7-6700 @ 3.4Ghz, 16GB ram, GeForce GTX 960 (2GB), Windows 10
Lenovo Thinkpad - i7-1270P 2.20 GHz, 32GB RAM, Nvidia T550, Windows 11
Paul King
Advisor
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.
PAUL KING | https://www.prime.net.nz
ArchiCAD 8-27 | Twinmotion 2023
Windoze 11 PC | Intel Core i9 10900K | Nvidia Gforce RTX 3080 | 32 Gb DDR3 | 2x4K monitor extended desktop
Minh Nguyen
Graphisoft Alumni
Graphisoft Alumni
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

Minh Nguyen
Technical Support Engineer
GRAPHISOFT

Paul King
Advisor
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!
PAUL KING | https://www.prime.net.nz
ArchiCAD 8-27 | Twinmotion 2023
Windoze 11 PC | Intel Core i9 10900K | Nvidia Gforce RTX 3080 | 32 Gb DDR3 | 2x4K monitor extended desktop
Minh Nguyen
Graphisoft Alumni
Graphisoft Alumni
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

Minh Nguyen
Technical Support Engineer
GRAPHISOFT

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