Layout Printing Issues
-
Hi,
I've exported a Layout file to pdf rendered as a raster image and some of the dimension and text font in some of the scenes/views I've linked to Layout really drop out and shrink in line weight and size, other scenes/views are are fine. If I process the Layout scene/view as a vector or hybrid image everything comes through fine and I can print with no problems and things are legible and at the size and weight they should be on my large format printer.
The problem comes when I email the vector/hybrid pdf to the local printing house to print the drawing; the vector and hybrid images in plan section turn to a heavy illegible black mess - you can see it's a plan but the lines get really heavy and bleed together.
The image/scenes styles are all the standard SU "Engineering Style" with the line weight set to .25 to preserve detail, though a .5 line weight works as well. All scenes and views are Ortho Projection and to scale.
The export pdf Output Quality is set to High.
The original SU file was done on a Mac platform in SU 7.0 (not pro) but then the SU file is opened, edited, and done in Layout on a Windows XP platfrom
-
Is there some reason that the font and text sizes wouldn't be consistent across all of the scenes/views (they are all the same in SU) when rendered as a raster image and exported as a pdf?
and -
Is there some known reason why the vector and hybrid rendered images are printing so poorly when sent as a pdf to a commercial printer, but ok on my large format printer?
If anyone can shed some light on this it would be greatly appreciated; thanks.
SketchUp version: 7.1.6087 Pro
Operating system:Windows XP -
-
Sounds like your printing house has the problem to me. When you make a pdf from layout in vector/hybrid modes those lines should stay the same, that's one of the point of using vector art, it's resolution independent and the lines should remain true to the created pdf, if you do a test print before you send the files to the print house you should be able to gauge the quality of the lines even if the file is scaled up or down.
The neat thing about hybrid/vector files is that you can open those pdf's in illustrator and play with the lines there. It's not processed perfectly when you open it but the point is that illustrator recognizes the lines in the pdf as vector lines and retains their thickness from the pdf spot on (I just tested to make sure).
Have you tried reducing the file size of pdfs? Because if they are too big, the print house might try to process them in some sort of backwards way that messes everything up. Vector/Hybird pdfs turn out to be huge files and just the native 'reduce file size' command in acrobat reduces them significantly. I've had 5 meg file become 5 megs with no loss of quality.
jsteacy
-
I run into problems exporting LO file in PDF
How it's possible that the two exporters have such a huge difference?
Correct is the jpg one.
Any advice is welcomed
-
Just so I'm clear, is this missing model / view the only difference between the jpg & pdf? Can you copy that model onto another page or another document and export to pdf successfully? Is the model raster or vector rendered, and will it succeed if you change the rendering?
b
-
@bjanzen said:
Just so I'm clear, is this missing model / view the only difference between the jpg & pdf? Can you copy that model onto another page or another document and export to pdf successfully? Is the model raster or vector rendered, and will it succeed if you change the rendering?
b
[attachment=0:38o25t05]<!-- ia0 -->Missing.png<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:38o25t05]The biggest problem is that the soft grid upon the facades appear too strong in pdf (without trasparences applied), and even some lines of the plants (yes, copying it into a blank document solve the problem)are not well rendered in pdf and are printed incorrectly.
BTW everything in the model but grid and texts are jpg pictures inserted. So the LO file has no skp model linked. -
Do me a favor and trim down the document that shows exactly what you mean in one location, or circle it like I did in red in LayOut. I think I'm seeing it, sorta, but I want to be sure.
Also by "plants" do you mean "plans"? And are these renderings not from SketchUp, or why are you using jpg's instead of just inserting the model?
b
-
@bjanzen said:
Do me a favor and trim down the document that shows exactly what you mean in one location, or circle it like I did in red in LayOut. I think I'm seeing it, sorta, but I want to be sure.
Here the grid's colour is too strong@bjanzen said:
Also by "plants" do you mean "plans"? And are these renderings not from SketchUp, or why are you using jpg's instead of just inserting the model?
b
Sorry for my english...
yes by plants I mean plans
And yes these renderings are not from sketchup (since it has not yet a render engine) -
Thanks for the clarification, and no need to apologize for English or spelling.
These are our grid lines (File->Document Setup->Grid), right? I'm seeing it as well, and I'm trying to find you a workaround but I'm not seeing one. The thickness isn't set-able, and there appears to be an opacity bug (I was thinking that you could adjust opacity to get a better look, but the bug prevents that). I'll think about this some more for a better workaround, but this is a bug and I'll file it. Thanks.
-
Just so others on the group could see this, I took that last PDF image, and converted to JPG (ImageViewer.app on Mac), and the lines lightened. I converted back to PDF, and they stayed light. I've attached the PDF. But is that output acceptable, and are you on PC? I'll try PC + GIMP.
b
Portfolio curriculum vitae cropped PDF2JPG2PDF converted.pdf -
Looking at this closely, and since you've gone to the work of doing a very nice quality rendering, I'm guessing the PDF->JPG->PDF conversion will be lacking. The last (maybe) question I have: Is the intended output the PDF document or printed output? Sorry I don't have any better answers for you at this point.
b
-
Adjusting the grid opacity is a regression bug. I just tried it in 2.0 and it worked, but LayOut doesn't respect grid line opacity settings in 2.1. Ouch. Sorry.
b
-
@bjanzen said:
Adjusting the grid opacity is a regression bug. I just tried it in 2.0 and it worked, but LayOut doesn't respect grid line opacity settings in 2.1. Ouch. Sorry.
b
Sorry, I didn't tell you before... I did the grid (because the spacing is not really the same between x and y) using LO lines and setting their opacity to 10 (the color is black).
I discovered a bug accidently
But however, as I wrote in the first post, exporting my work in jpg the resulting images are exactly what I want them to be (and the same as I see in my monitor, that's ok).
I was just wondering how PDF has not the same output image as jpg. That was all.
BTW many thanks for your helpfull advices!
Advertisement