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cyn
Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 37
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 Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 6:33 pm Post subject: text to pdf displays a box at every "return" |
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| Text on the drawing looks great, but when converted to pdf, it seems every "return" key stroke turns into a visible box. Didn't realize this until I sent to a commercial print shop. Is there any way to avoid this? Thanks!
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huc
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 661
Location: ::caddpower.com:: (Aurora, CO)
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| Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 6:56 pm Post subject: |
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Went through this a few weeks back assisting a college trouble shooting the same problem for a client - problem was print driver related in that particular case. Typical culprits include:
- missing font or incorrect font installed
- obsolete or incorrect print driver being used
make sure the fonts are correctly assigned in the drawing to all the offending text blocks. Check the version of the print driver software being used and make sure it's the most current available for your operating system.
Those are the typical issues, and in all cases the problem is system or print driver related (i.e. not application/powercadd specific). If you have access to another computer, try creating the PDF on a different system to see if the problem repeats.
Hope that helps
Brian
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phansford
Joined: 18 Apr 2004
Posts: 565
Location: SW Ohio
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| Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 5:38 am Post subject: |
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Brian -
I have the same issue occasionally (alway in the title block - New York Font) but it only shows up on the printed version - Viewing the PDF on the computer - all looks fine.
And it does not happen all the time. So could it be a particular standard file I am using for stationary? I'll try to rework the font in the last file that did this and see if that corrects my problem.
BTW - I am using the Print dialog box in OS X to create my PDF's. And I only see the problem on PC drawings. (The only place I use New York)
Patrick
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MacBook Pro (2.4 Core Duo/667 MB RAM/256 Vram)
iMac (2.8 Core Duo/800 MB RAM/512 Vram)
OS X - 10.5.5
PowerCadd 8.0.5 (build HI17) |
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jasonlocher
Joined: 14 Apr 2004
Posts: 625
Location: Austin, Texas
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| Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 7:29 am Post subject: |
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I've had this problems with certain print shops too.
The solution was to export to TIFF and bypass pdf entirely. The shop I was having this problem with would use software to "burts" the pdf's to TIFF, and that instance was the problem. So cutting out the middleman fixed it, the files just got massive - especially if they are color. D size black and white was around 5MB, color was 30MB, but uploading via sftp made it a non issue.
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patrickm
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 340
Location: santa barbara, ca
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| Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 9:14 am Post subject: |
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I have had that problem occasionally when I used Apple's OS X "print to pdf" pdf printer. I haven't had that problem when I use Acrobat Pro to make the pdf's.
On a related note, one of my clients uses Chief Architect to do his architectural plans on a pc. When he sends me pdf's, they look fine. If I "place" one of his pdf's into PowerCADD and redline it and make a pdf from it (to send back to the client), the text becomes garbled on the pdf if I use Apple's OS X "print to pdf" pdf printer. If I make a pdf using Acrobat Pro, the placed pdf's text looks fine. This only happens with this one particular client, so I suspect he is using some odd font that Apple substitutes for.
(This is one more reason that I have been reticent to use Apple's OS X pdf printer instead of Acrobat Pro.)
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CJH
Joined: 24 Apr 2004
Posts: 327
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| Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 9:21 am Post subject: |
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| What version of OSX are you using? Older versions had some issues with printing pdf's using the built-in 'print to pdf' printer-I found I get the most consistent results using Acrobat Pro to print.
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Kent
Joined: 14 Apr 2004
Posts: 57
Location: Birmingham, AL
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| Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 11:26 am Post subject: |
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| Our office has experienced the same problem, print to pdf and the pdf file looks fine and then when we get the prints back there are squares in place of carriage returns. I worked with our printing company and they determined that it was how they sent it to their printer. If the file was sent as a color file it printer the squares and if it was sent as a b&w file it did not have the squares. We typically convert all colors in our drawings to black when printing out the final drawings so that you don't get the array of gray tones. You may want to talk about this with your printing company.
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cyn
Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 37
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| Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 2:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Kent wrote: | | Our office has experienced the same problem, print to pdf and the pdf file looks fine and then when we get the prints back there are squares in place of carriage returns. I worked with our printing company and they determined that it was how they sent it to their printer. If the file was sent as a color file it printer the squares and if it was sent as a b&w file it did not have the squares. We typically convert all colors in our drawings to black when printing out the final drawings so that you don't get the array of gray tones. You may want to talk about this with your printing company. |
We sent as B&W and squares appeared at the "return" key space. So I don't think it is a question of color. But you may be right about "how it's sent to the printer." It was suggested to me that it may depend on which computer was used to send to the printer at the Print Shop's end. If the particular computer does not have the Mac fonts we are using, and the font is substituted, it may not recognize "return" and substitute it with a rectangle. I am wondering if using a "soft return" (shift-return) would make a difference, as opposed to using the "hard return" (return)? Has anyone tried this?
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huc
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 661
Location: ::caddpower.com:: (Aurora, CO)
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| Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 5:52 pm Post subject: |
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missing fonts are a common culprit, particularly with print services as evidenced by it printing right from one computer, wrong from another. Embedding the fonts when creating the PDF can help prevent that problem but not every font can be embedded but you can use font book to check that out. Apple had an interesting, but short, note about a related issue when printing stuff from iPhoto with certain font types.
New York, like other city named fonts, are carry overs from early mac os days including Classic (OS 9,x). My best guess would be that particular font either isn't being embedded, or is missing some of the character set on the computer it's being printed from. Using a more current (i.e. non city named) serif font seems like the better move in the long run for a variety of reasons including printing IMO.
All the conditions I've read here still lead me to believe it is a font issue (either not installed and/or not embedded or the character set is incomplete on the offending system), or a print driver issue, or a combination of the two. Testing on local systems, and different systems, and exploring what is happening when different types of create PDF methods are used seems like the best way to trouble shoot the process. Using Apple's PDF-X workflow option may also help the condition since it's requirements are much more strict, in particular with respect to font embedding.
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Derek
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 570
Location: Melbourne, Australia
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huc
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 661
Location: ::caddpower.com:: (Aurora, CO)
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| Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 7:44 pm Post subject: |
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[quote="Derek"] | huc wrote: | | ...Does it only show if a font cannot be embedded? (Font Book v2.03) It would be very useful information for me, if I could find it! |
your screen shot says it all: if a font can be embedded then the property is 'yes' as your screen shot shows
I don't have any on my system with any sort of restrictions so they all say 'yes' to "Embeddable'
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Derek
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 570
Location: Melbourne, Australia
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| Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 8:00 pm Post subject: |
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..er, um, where does it say 'embeddable'?
I see:
Postscript name
Full name
Family
Style
Kind
Language
Version
Location
Unique name
Copyright
Trademark
Enabled
Duplicate
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huc
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 661
Location: ::caddpower.com:: (Aurora, CO)
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Derek
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 570
Location: Melbourne, Australia
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