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Better quality PDF? (#3323)
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misterrogers  
#1 Posted : Wednesday, September 1, 2010 5:09:08 PM(UTC)
misterrogers

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Joined: 8/14/2009(UTC)
Posts: 444
When I "print" to PDF, it always looks "chunky" and not-smooth.

What options are available in Shark v7 to be able to get a smooth anti-aliased appearance on-screen?

Here's an snapshot example of what my PDFs look like. All the lines are supposed to be 1 pixel thick. In shark they are nice and thin and readable, but then once I print to PDF it looks like this.. VERY UNUSABLE. It's causing me to have to make multiple section views that normally would be unnecessary.

Thanks
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NickB  
#2 Posted : Wednesday, September 1, 2010 5:24:31 PM(UTC)
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Sadly this has been an issue that has been disscussed way to many times over the years. The most recent long thread is [URL="http://forum.punchcad.com/showthread.php?t=2929"]here[/URL].

Some people deny that a problem exist, some say it is driver dependent, and others like me have just thrown their hands up and live with the awful quality. One thing I have found is that if I print to PostScript rather than PDF the quality on my mac is substantially better. The problem with printing to PS is that I cant print anything larger than 8.5 X 11 on my mac.
Shark FX 9 build 1143
OS X 9.5
3.6 GHz Core i7, 8GB, GTX 760 2GB

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jdi000  
#3 Posted : Wednesday, September 1, 2010 5:25:35 PM(UTC)
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Originally Posted by: misterrogers Go to Quoted Post
When I "print" to PDF, it always looks "chunky" and not-smooth.

What options are available in Shark v7 to be able to get a smooth anti-aliased appearance on-screen?

Here's an snapshot example of what my PDFs look like. All the lines are supposed to be 1 pixel thick. In shark they are nice and thin and readable, but then once I print to PDF it looks like this.. VERY UNUSABLE. It's causing me to have to make multiple section views that normally would be unnecessary.

Thanks




Hi


Are you on mac or pc? I would recommend that you use line weights instead of pixels, light lineweight pdfs look better! I would crank up the dpi of the pdf output.

In the pdf viewer you can turn line weights off and that shows you what a light line would look like.

Regards

Jason
Windows 11, 10
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misterrogers  
#4 Posted : Wednesday, September 1, 2010 5:28:18 PM(UTC)
misterrogers

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Joined: 8/14/2009(UTC)
Posts: 444
Hi Jason,

Thanks for your speedy reply! I'm using a Intel Mac OS X 10.5.8.

How/where do you turn up the dpi?

Thank you
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jdi000  
#5 Posted : Wednesday, September 1, 2010 5:53:40 PM(UTC)
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Originally Posted by: misterrogers Go to Quoted Post
Hi Jason,

Thanks for your speedy reply! I'm using a Intel Mac OS X 10.5.8.

How/where do you turn up the dpi?

Thank you


Here is a article on hi res pdf's

http://www.adobe.com/products/p...ipt/pdfs/highres_mac.pdf


It seems that mac used to create a ps file first then dump to pdf distiller, try exporting file as ps then open ps and save as pdf?


Jason
Windows 11, 10
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misterrogers  
#6 Posted : Wednesday, September 1, 2010 6:11:53 PM(UTC)
misterrogers

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Thank you. I'll give it a whirl.
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jdi000  
#7 Posted : Wednesday, September 1, 2010 6:32:18 PM(UTC)
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I guess the mac has the built in pdf generator but if you own another adobe product it generally installs a pdf distiller/print driver, on the pc there are many pdf print drivers that are free, but you can control the output in those drivers where as I don't know if mac built in driver can do that?

So the question is the pdf output on the mac controlled by the pdf built into operating system, or does the program that outputs to pdf have any option to send to the system?



It seems as the option on the mac are more limited than the pc for pdf generation.

Mac has built in pdf generator free, pc has many free pdf print drivers and then there is the paid versions of Adobe you get if you own a adobe product.


Regards

Jason
Windows 11, 10
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misterrogers  
#8 Posted : Wednesday, September 1, 2010 7:07:18 PM(UTC)
misterrogers

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Joined: 8/14/2009(UTC)
Posts: 444
I tried changing my line weights from 1 pixel to 0.05 mm. There is a noticeable difference, and the PDFs are much clearer now!

The only problem, and maybe you can shed some light on this, is that when I saved "new" styles (with new 0.05 mm line weights) to the Inspector, I can see them in that file, but once I quit Shark and re-open a new document (not the same one that had the styles), all my styles are gone.

The only way I can see them again, is to open that original file and then even if I simply close it and go back to another new file without quitting, then I can see the styles.

My question is this: How can new styles be saved universally, so they are accessible all the time in any/all new or old documents?
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jdi000  
#9 Posted : Thursday, September 2, 2010 4:17:47 AM(UTC)
jdi000

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Hi misterrogers

>>>>>My question is this: How can new styles be saved universally, so they are accessible all the time in any/all new or old documents?>>>

Pen styles are currently only saved with file, instead of globally like dimension styles. The work around I use is to create all your styles in a template like file, and just open that file and minimize and keep open then the styles are avaliable as long as that file was opened.


Maybe the startup.dat file could be used for this situation as well?


Regards

Jason
Windows 11, 10
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misterrogers  
#10 Posted : Thursday, September 2, 2010 8:11:40 AM(UTC)
misterrogers

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Joined: 8/14/2009(UTC)
Posts: 444
Thanks Jason, I guess that's the only way. Seems like a very easy thing to be able to do - universally accessible styles saved in one file that are available at any time in any file.
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