"save as pdf" looks terrible

Ok, so I've been reading a lot of posts about changing pen definition
files and such. It sounds rediculously complicated.

I never plot. I never print directly from Pro/e. Everything becomes
a pdf first (i guess this is just printing with the distiller) using
save-as then pdf.

My problem is that even jacked up to 600dpi, my pdf's are ugly. My
line widths for everything are just too large.

If I save-as to dwg and then create a pdf from dwg-editor (AutoCAD)
they look fantastic.

Is there any easy fix for this? Distiller options I can change? Or
am I going to have to futz with my table.pnt?

Anybody have a good table.pnt that I can have a copy of that makes
great pdfs?

 

Oh, and I can't seem to find my table.pnt file anyway. Supposed to be
at <loadpoint>\text\table.pnt but it isn't there.

 

Create a file with the following:

pen 1 thickness .005 in
pen 2 thickness .005 in
pen 3 thickness .005 in
pen 4 thickness .005 in
pen 5 thickness .005 in
pen 6 thickness .005 in
pen 7 thickness .005 in
pen 8 thickness .005 in

Name it table.pnt
Put it anywhere you want it.
In config.pro, include an option called PEN_TABLE_FILE and point it to your
table.pnt file; or,
create a PCF file for your printer and include the path. The options in the
file will read like this:

plotter POSTSCRIPT
button_name Generic Postscript
button_help Print to any printer that supports generic postscript format.
plot_drawing_format YES default
plot_segmented NO default
plot_roll_media NO default
plot_label YES default
plot_handshake hardware default
create_separate_files NO default
plot_with_panzoom NO default
rotate_plotting NO default
allow_file_naming YES
plot_name NO
plot_translate .13 .13 default
interface_quality 6 default
pen_slew 0.000000 default
plot_destination printer default
plotter_command windows_print_manager
pen_table_file h:\table.pnt
plot_sheets ALL default
paper_size D default
paper_outline NO default
plot_clip NO default
plot_area NO default

In the 'Help>Fundementals>Plotting and Printing', it tells what all these
options mean and do. You'll have to customize yours to work with your
printer, including creating your own custom plotter command.

The last thing I can think of that you need to set in your config.pro is the
option
pdf_use_pentable to yes.

David Janes

 

Yes, it is ridiculously complicated.

David Janes

 

Someone recently recommended this option for cleaning up pdf line weights
and other printing problems:
USE_SOFTWARE_LINEFONTS set to yes.

Has anything helped so far?

David Janes

 

Yeah, I did what you suggested and made a table.pnt that looked like

pen 1 thickness .003 in
pen 2 thickness .003 in
pen 3 thickness .003 in
pen 4 thickness .003 in
pen 5 thickness .003 in
pen 6 thickness .003 in
pen 7 thickness .003 in
pen 8 thickness .003 in

And it works pretty good.

I might try out the "sofware linefonts" thingy when I'm in the mood
to tinker