API print to pdf silent

Does anyone know how to print to a pdf silently using the API to specify a filename, using a printer driver such as cutePDF or Adobe PDF. This used to work once upon a time, but now the resulting file isn't recognized by Acrobat as a pdf. I think it changed when Solidworks added the Save As Pdf format.

If you're going to suggest that I use the SaveAs4 method with the pdf option, please save yourself some time and don't. I'm tired of SWX bugs with their pdf function and I just want to do it (what should be) the simple way.

TIA, Eric

Reply to
Eric
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Sorry, I havent looked into generating a PDF silently, but I have a few questions you might be able to help me with.

We plan to start using PDFs as our production drawing in about a month. I created a macro to use the "Save As PDF" option in SWX. Using a PDF print driver like ActivePDF is faster, takes 3 sec vs 8 sec using "Save As PDF" on the same drawing.

What other problems have you come across using the "Save As PDF" option? If it causes to many problems, I may have everyone use a PDF print driver option.

Please let me know your thoughts, thanks :)

Reply to
SW Monkey

I see three problems right now:

Word documents embedded within a SWX document print with a border around them. This is new with the switch from Bluebeam. You can get rid of this by right-clicking each Word doc and choosing "Sharpen Zoom State", which is fine, except that we have hundreds if not thousands of documents to do this on. One more workaround to remember...

I want to scale all pdfs to 8-1/2 x 11, but Save As pdf automatically prints at 1:1. Printing them full size screws up the header size and lineweights when we use Acrobat to print on 8-1/2 x 11 paper later. The header turns out tiny (useless) and the lineweights appear too thin. When I use a printer driver I just choose 8-1/2 x 11 paper size and the pdf turns out exactly the same as hard copies on letter size paper out of a printer.

Text in embedded Word documents is not crisp. This also is new with the Adobe Save As function. Printing using a pdf printer driver produces crisp text.

These issues wouldn't be that big of a deal if we were just using pdfs for archiving purposes, but we're moving toward the pdfs being the official document rather than the hard copy printout. We use a macro that silently prints to pdf and then prints a hard copy of the pdf using Acrobat. So we know the pdf file matches the paper print, since we're actually printing the pdf. (We got burned in the past when printing to paper, checking the paper print, and then printing to pdf

-- from time to time the pdf was different than the paper print. We no longer trust SWX to produce the same print twice in a row.)

Frankly, I would just as soon not experience SWX's learning curve of implementing Bluebeam and then switching to Adobe and then switching to ?? in the future. I could have saved hours of headaches and actually have what I want if SWX hadn't broken the silent print to pdf with a printer driver when Save As pdf was implemented.

Eric

Reply to
Eric

If you're using SW06sp2.1...API to save PDF is broken there. Because Bluebeam had so many problems I made SWub, download it from

formatting link
->SolidWorks ->SWxx-tools. It creates postscript file for you, then you can use FreeDist to convert it to pdf. Quite silent...

Reply to
Markku Lehtola

Markku, When using SWxx-tools, when does the post script file get made? Is it possible to automatically save a postscript file to a folder, and have something monitoring that folder for new postscript files. When a new one shows up, it automatically creates a PDF?

Im not very familiar with postscript files, but are there any disadvantages to using them vs making a PDF directly from SolidWorks using Bluebeam or Adobe?

Reply to
SW Monkey

SW Monkey kirjoitti:

SWub(BB) saves .prn every time you save the drawing (after the 1st save), so it keeps the pdf-files updated.

Is it

That's the idea, you can do that with SWub, GhostScript and FreeDist. they are all free. GhostScript handles the prn->pdf conversion, FreeDist is a really nice gui for it and it handles the folder monitoring etc.

I really don't know, never had any problems with them thought, but you might loose some stuff that you can do with Adobe, like weblinks.

Reply to
Markku Lehtola

Markku, I like the idea of creating postscript files and having the PDFs generated in the background. How can I save a .PRN file at a set time, say with a macro button? Id rather not have it generated each time I press save, since I dont need the PRN file until the drawing is released.

Reply to
SW Monkey

you can use the PrintOut2: swModel.PrintOut2 1, 1, 1, False, printername, 0#, True, filename

Reply to
Markku Lehtola

Markku,

You app uses the Bluebeam printer to generate the postscript file, correct?

Reply to
SW Monkey

SW Monkey kirjoitti:

SWup is using what ever ps printer you want to use (there's one really good on FreeDist site), SWup creates .prn (ps) files. SWuBB is using Bluebeam/Adobe (what ever SW is using) and creates .pdf files.

Markku

Reply to
Markku Lehtola

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