The Community for Architects, Landscape & Lighting Designers

Exporting Walls to Autocad and saving PDFs.

Hi all,

I kind of visited this before but still seem to be having problems. When I export a 3D drawing (top/plan view) to DWG (autocad) the recipient reports that there are a number of walls lines on top of each other when opened at his end. I'd appreciate it if someone could tell me if this can be resolved easily before exporting.

I'd also appreciate some feedback on the best way to save a drawing as a PDF. Should I export pdf or print-save as pdf? Some PC users are having problems opening my pdfs as some elements on the page are a little garbled. Not sure if it's my problem or theirs.

Thanking you all in advance.

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Paul Maggs on August 10, 2010 at 12:26pm

Hi I have found export/import to autocad is not really compatible, you always have a lot of work to do to ghet exactly the same result on each system. Export to pdf I found ok but some of the text is not taken over correctly, rectified this by changing the font and always using capitals. Also cheque printer margins are zero so that page scaling on any printer does not occur. PC user will always have problems just by using a PC!

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by John Keating on August 12, 2010 at 1:54pm

Thanks for the reply, Paul. I'll keep experimenting as I'm trying to get the exports as near to perfect as I can - don't want VW to get a bad name from the PC hordes!

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by David J. Barici on August 11, 2010 at 6:20pm

Hi John, PDF is easy, simply print using a pdf printer driver. Set your page to the size you want, make a viewport with the layers and classes set and print just as you would to paper. If you print a model it's full life size scale, I don't think anybody has a printer that big.
As for dxf/dwg export set the model image to what ever you want the receiver to see and leave the defaults set. works every time. If the receiver is having troubles, classes go over as layers, they simple need to turn off the layer they don't want. I've found that people who complain about the file they get, usually don't know how to use Autocad.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by John Keating on August 12, 2010 at 2:00pm

Thanks for the reply, David - I'll do some more experimenting. I agree with you that many autocad users are not fully au fait with the software. We'll just have to battle on.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Donald Ward on August 19, 2010 at 2:25pm

Exporting to DXF/DWG Video Tech tip.

http://kbase.vectorworks.net/questions/451/Exporting+to+DXF%7B47%7DDWG

Although this was created using VW-2008 the settings still apply to VW-2010. You will notice that some new options have been add for exporting to DXF/DWG in VW-2010. I hope this helps.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Bob Holtzmann on August 21, 2010 at 2:23pm

Export to PDF is the way to go, I guess because it has better control over things like resolution, and you can bind a set into one PDF. PC users should have an updated Acrobat Reader to view them.

DWG drawings (or Autocad) will always have a user base, usually for Civil / HVAC / Structural engineers. And keeping them happy with Vectorworks DWG export is not a done deal. That's why I'm looking for a reasonably cheap and good DWG editor to clean up lines and layers. I think I might settle on either Draftsight or ARES, as soon as Mac versions are released -- but I haven't tried them out yet. The price is good, though, 0 - $100.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Vincent Cuclair on August 25, 2010 at 12:07am

To overcome the font problem you can check the box 'rasterize text' in the Export PDF command, this makes all text a bitmap and there will be no font issues on the receiving end.

If you have simple plans/sections/elevations the best way to export to dwg is to choose the simplest dwg format eg. dxf 2001/2002....and choose all the options that simplify the export ie. decompose 3D symbols, uncheck all the 3D export options, if you want to include fills make sure they are in their own layer so that the receiver has an option to hide the fills if they 'are in the way' etc etc....
...if you on the other hand have 3D models, many colors, fills, textures etc you want to export your best bet are the default settings.....

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jim Duxbury on May 12, 2011 at 6:21am

I had a problem with text getting garbled when exporting to PDF as well. It was having problems with a Helvetica Open font type, this just got resolved with the resent MAC Snow Leopard OS update. Exporting makes for a smaller PDF file from what I have seen.