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Blurry Text when Making a PDF in Mac OS (#3687)
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XL5  
#1 Posted : Thursday, March 10, 2011 1:07:55 AM(UTC)
XL5

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My text is razor-sharp when viewed from within ViaCAD.

However, when I make a PDF of my drawing using, File > Print > Print PDF my text comes out blurry.

I have tried various fonts, text is always blurry. The text is readable if you zoom in sufficiently. Other aspects of the drawing do not become blurry in a PDF.

In the printer settings, I even tried increasing the resolution (dramatically). However, I suspect that those settings are only valid when you are printing a hard copy.

In addition, some text simply does not appear in the PDF! You look at the ViaCAD drawing, there is the text. Make a PDF, no text!

Suggestions appreciated.
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Tim Olson  
#2 Posted : Thursday, March 10, 2011 10:18:35 AM(UTC)
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Can you post the .vc3 and .pdf file?
Thank you

Tim
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rockyroad_us  
#3 Posted : Thursday, March 10, 2011 6:36:54 PM(UTC)
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Make sure you view the pdf in Acrobat and not in a Browser. The browser tends to blur things.
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XL5  
#4 Posted : Thursday, March 10, 2011 10:43:11 PM(UTC)
XL5

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Tim,

Thank you for your kind offer.

This is a drawing I am not comfortable with posting on the web. If there is a way I can e-mail this to you directly, that would be better.


Rockyroad,

I normally view PDFs using Apple's Preview, but at your suggestion I tried viewing the PDF with Acrobat. I got the same blurry results.

One part of the equation may be that I am dealing with a very large drawing. The text characters are 4 to 6 inches tall. But again, they are razor-sharp within ViaCAD, and only become blurry when I make a PDF.

Is there some other, better way to make a PDF than using the print dialogue in the Mac OS? I have used other CAD packages that have a PDF making ability built-in.
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NickB  
#5 Posted : Friday, March 11, 2011 1:12:23 AM(UTC)
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This is an old and contentious issue that appears to effect some Mac users and not others.

The only work around I have found is to print to EPS (Postscript) in the print dialog, and then convert the EPS to PDF in Preview. Sadly the EPS output from the print dialog is also broken in that it will not support anything larger than 8.5 X 11, so that will not work for you. The other work around might be to try and export the whole drawing to Illustrator using the File / Export dialog, but again that is also sometimes buggy for some people. The only good news is that the output that appears blurry on your Mac will probably look fine on a PC, or even another Mac as this does appear to be a very system dependent bug (which is why it never gets fixed).
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billbedford  
#6 Posted : Friday, March 11, 2011 2:36:35 AM(UTC)
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What printer do you have connected?
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rockyroad_us  
#7 Posted : Friday, March 11, 2011 12:11:40 PM(UTC)
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I've noticed you said "Print > Print PDF". I don't have this on Shark FX as an option. But regardless of any program, you should have the option to PDF and do "SAVE AS PDF" in the print dialogue.
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XL5  
#8 Posted : Sunday, March 13, 2011 12:02:51 PM(UTC)
XL5

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Originally Posted by: NickB Go to Quoted Post
This is an old and contentious issue that appears to effect some Mac users and not others.

The only work around I have found is to print to EPS (Postscript) in the print dialog, and then convert the EPS to PDF in Preview. Sadly the EPS output from the print dialog is also broken in that it will not support anything larger than 8.5 X 11, so that will not work for you. The other work around might be to try and export the whole drawing to Illustrator using the File / Export dialog, but again that is also sometimes buggy for some people. The only good news is that the output that appears blurry on your Mac will probably look fine on a PC, or even another Mac as this does appear to be a very system dependent bug (which is why it never gets fixed).


I tried the blurry PDF file on a Windows XP, and a Windows 7 machine using Adobe Acrobat to view. The text was just as blurry in windows.

Other suggestions are welcome.
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XL5  
#9 Posted : Sunday, March 13, 2011 12:13:48 PM(UTC)
XL5

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Originally Posted by: billbedford Go to Quoted Post
What printer do you have connected?


The text in the PDF prints out "reasonably well" on the 4 to printers I have tried. My complaint is when the PDF is viewed on the computer, the text is readable but definitely blurry.
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lgrijalva  
#10 Posted : Sunday, March 13, 2011 8:51:20 PM(UTC)
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about the text, i used to have an horrible result on pdf print with shark, but this issue is more relate to the kind of font that you use, by default Shark use "plotter" font, avoid this one, at leas on a mac

I fix this by changing this one to Helvetica, arial or other font on the text tag on the inspector palette, try it and check the results,


This text issue it is not related to the poor line and vector quality of the pdf's generated by shark or viacad wide discussed on this topic:
http://forum.punchcad.com/showt...p?t=2929&highlight=print


Luis G.
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