Expert: Bill DeShawn - 8/6/2009

Question
Hi Bill,

Hoping you can answer this one as I've not been able to find anything on the topic...

I have a plotsheet with SEVERAL xrefs (some with wipeouts) attached.  I then create a pdf of the plotsheet using Adobe Acrobat at 144 dpi.  When I open that pdf in Acrobat it takes forever to regenerate each xref and continually reloads it if I scroll to the next page (in a multi-page pdf).  Do you know if there is a way to "flatten" the pdf so it loads as one image?

Thanks!

Answer
M:
I have experienced the same thing with wipeouts covering large portions of the drawing that we did not want the jursidiction to see until later in the permit process.  So, apparently what happens is that all the information behind the wipeout is evaluated by the printer driver, and then rewritten to be screened at 0%, or possibly some other method.  When this happens, it takes about 5 times as long to produce a sheet!  It actually would be quicker to create another layout (paper space) and manipulate the viewports so that they plot only what you want to see.  That can be done with VPLAYER or the LAYER PROPERTIES MANAGER, or stretching the viewport to cut off certain areas of the drawing.  But drawing large wipeouts covering up lots of information, as quick and easy as they are to draw, is not necessarily a productive way to get things done.  You could go out and mow the lawn, wash the car, make a pot of coffee, or do the laundry, and come back and the plotter sometimes is still thinking about it.  In my case, it eventually gets plotted, but the waiting time can make you scream at the plotter.

Here is an intersting option (I have not tried this myself).
http://groups.google.com/group/autodesk.autocad.print-plot/browse_thread/thread/...
In the autodesk forum, the poster who appears to be invested in the product is promoting something called JOYPRINTER.  It appears to be set up as a system printer (AutoCAD should be able to use it.) and will print to multi-page TIFF files.  Once the image file is created (which could take some time), it can be saved and imported into an AutoCAD DWG, scaled to correct size, and then should plot much faster than PDFs.  Now here's the thing.  At this stage you still don't have a PDF file that you can see page through quickly.  Therefore, it would be a good idea to print the image in AutoCAD to your Adobe PDF writer.  Then when you send the file to a blueprint company, they won't be having to wait so long to make sets for your clients.

Keep in touch
Bill DeShawn
http://my.sterling.net/~bdeshawn