The Adobe® Portable Document Format (PDF) is an electronic document format that can be viewed on multiple platforms.
AutoCAD extends the ability of plotting drawings to paper to plot drawings to PDF files. This ability makes a PDF file the digital equivalent of a plotted drawing sheet that you can distribute electronically.
Because there are several mechanisms to plot drawings, there are many ways to create PDF files.
| To... | Use... |
|---|---|
| Export model space or a single layout to a PDF file | Plot or Export PDF |
| Export all layouts of a drawing to a PDF file | Publish or Export PDF |
| Export selected layouts of a drawing to a PDF file | Publish |
TrueView provides several options to trade off the file size of a PDF file with its quality and functionality. In order to simplify the configuration process and save you the trouble of dealing with multiple options, we created several presets. Each preset is preconfigured to have the functionality and quality required for a specific purpose, while keeping the file size to a minimum. We used plotter configuration files to implement PDF presets.
Plotter configuration files (*.PC3) let you configure a plotter and save the settings for later use. You can set up multiple configuration files for the same plotter, where each one is configured to produce outputs of varying quality. We extended this concept to create multiple configuration files for plotting to PDF, and use them as PDF presets. Each preset is a configuration file preconfigured for a specific purpose. For example, the PDF preset AutoCAD PDF (Web and Mobile) is configured to generate PDF files for viewing on mobile devices and Web browsers.
For a complete list of the PDF Presets and their default settings, refer to the topic PDF Preset Reference.
In an ideal world, PDF files should be identical to the corresponding paper plot. However, in a reality there can be differences. For example, if the PDF drawing uses fonts that are not available in a PDF viewer, the PDF viewer uses a substitute font. As a result the PDF drawing might look different from the paper plot. You can minimize such differences by capturing the fonts and embedding them into the PDF file. Fonts that cannot be distributed because of legal restrictions are not captured, even though you enable capture fonts.
PDF files come with capabilities that are typically not possible with paper plots. For example, you can search for text in a PDF file, even if you choose to convert the text to geometry. At the time you generate the PDF file, you can enable the capability to turn layers on or off in the PDF viewer. You can also quickly navigate to sheets or named views using bookmarks and hyperlinks.
Viewports that have a 3D Visual style applied to them are converted to raster images when you generate a PDF file from a drawing sheet. As a result, in the PDF file, the information about the layers within the viewport is lost. Furthermore, text within the viewport is not searchable, and hyperlinks are removed.
On the Adobe Acrobat Reader, if you use the default printer settings to print a PDF drawing, transparent objects and wipeouts might not print correctly. If the PDF file contains transparent objects, you may need to adjust some settings in Adobe Acrobat. Set Transparency Flattening to or reduce the Raster/Vector Balance in Adobe Acrobat. Refer to the Adobe documentation for more information.