Using Bluebeam To Print Adobe Produced PDF's

If you have a PDF that was produced using Adobe In-Design or Illustrator, there is a special way to send those documents to the printer/copier from Bluebeam. Granted, there may be things that we can do differently in In-design and/or Illustrator in the future, but for now there is a problem. My first suggestion is to use Adobe Reader to print Adobe created products, but if you would like to use Bluebeam as your main means of printing PDFs to the printer the rest of this article is for you. The reason why documents tend to get "stuck" can lead to a long boring conversation, so I will get to the point.

To print PDFs made with In-Design and/or Illustrator:
1. While in the print dialog box in Bluebeam, click on the "Advanced" button in the lower left corner.

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2. While in the Advanced Printing dialog, find the "Printer Engine" option and choose "Image" in the drop down menu.
3. Click "OK", and this will be the default once a document is printed using this setting.
Note: This will also convert colors (my guess is RGB to CMYK) for printing and will affect how those colors appear when printed.

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Some other printing issues with Bluebeam.
1. Documents created with In-Design and Illustrator that have gradients or fills, will either leave them out or will print parts of the gradient or fill. Choosing "Image" will not solve this problem.

2. When printing documents with Bluebeam that you have added any type of content to, you will need to choose the "Document & Markups" setting. Choosing "Document Only" will only print the original PDF document and "Markups Only" will only print the markups.

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3. Documents made with Bluebeam 8.5 cannot be viewed with Adobe Reader 6.0. So please advise your clients and consultants accordingly if they are having issues opening and reading your PDF. 

To be fair, Bluebeam is a great product and it is not always this programs fault for things getting "stuck" in the printer. There are a myriad of issues that can cause these types of problems, but these are just some known issues that you should be aware of so that it does not affect your printing time.

Creating PDF's From AutoCAD - Method 4 : Using Plot

 1. Select the tab you would like to Publish. "Right-click" on the tab and select the "Plot"

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2.Select the "DWG to PDF.pc3" in the "Printer / Plotter" dialog to plot the drawing to PDF.

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3. Select your appropriate paper size.

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4. Then select your appropriate pen settings and click "Ok".

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Creating PDF's From AutoCAD - Method 3 : Using Publish

A third method of making PDF's from AutoCAD uses the "Publish" command.

1. Select the tabs you would like to Publish. "Right-click" on the tabs and select the "Publish Selected Layouts"

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2. Within the Publish dialog, select the "Publish Options"

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3. Within the "Publish Options" dialog scroll down to "General DWF / PDF Options" and find the "Type" setting. This will allow you to make a lot of single-sheet PDF's or one multi-sheet PDF. (Note: It does not matter what your publishcollate variable is set to, it will still make a multi-sheet PDF.)

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4. Next. scroll down to "Layer Information" and set that to "Don't Include" and click "Ok". The reason for turning off the layer information, is that if the person you are sending it to does not have an up-to-date print driver it may not print the layers correctly and also may cause confusion if a client or consultant accidentally turns some layers off.

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5.  Under the "Publish To" section of the Publish dialog choose "PDF" if it is not already selected.

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6. Click "Publish" to save the PDF to your desired location.

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Creating PDF's From AutoCAD - Method 2: Using Export

This method is probably the most versatile of the 4 different methods of making PDF's. The reason for this is because it is possible to print a single layout, multiple layouts, override layout paper sizes, scale, and pen weights.To export a drawing to PDF please follow the steps below.

Method 2 - Export the Drawing to PDF

1. Use the Command: "ExportPDF"
or...
Click the "Application" button (The big button with the "A" on it) and scroll down to Export->PDF

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2. While in the dialog, first set the options by clicking on the "Options" button in the far right side of the dialog box.

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3. While in the options dialog box, scroll down to "Layer Information" and select "Do Not Include". The reason for turning off the layer information, is that if the person you are sending it to does not have an up-to-date print driver it may not print the layers correctly and also may cause confusion if a client or consultant accidentally turns some layers off.

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4. Choose where to save the PDF and click "Save".

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5. Optional: You can change the setting to export the current layout only or all layouts.

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6. Optional: You can choose to export using the current page setup or you can choose another page setup like plotting 1/2 size. From this location you can also change the pen sizes, paper sizes, and scale.

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Creating PDF's From AutoCAD - Method 1: Using Sheet Set Manager

With the advent of AutoCAD 2011, we have changed how we make PDF's. No longer will we use 3rd Party programs such as Bluebeam and Adobe to make PDF's from AutoCAD. Instead Autodesk has provided a PDF maker built into AutoCAD that has proven to be more reliable than the 3rd party applications. There are now 4 different ways to make PDF's of your AutoCAD drawings.

Method 1 - Sheet Set

1. From the Sheet Set Manager, find the publish button in the upper right corner. Click the down arrow to show the publish options for the sheet set. Select "Sheet Set Publish Options" from the drop down menu

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2. In the "Publish Options" dialog find the "File Format" option and set that to "PDF"

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3. While in the properties dialog, scroll down to "Layer Information" and set to "Do Not Include" and click "Ok". The reason for turning off the layer information,  is that if the person you are sending it to does not have an up-to-date print driver it may not print the layers correctly and also may cause confusion if a client or consultant accidentally turns some layers off.

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4. Once those settings are set for the Sheet Set, find the PDF icon in the upper right portion of the Sheet Set palette. This will print the selected sheets to PDF. (Optional: right-click on the selected files and select Publish->Publish to PDF.)

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How To Use Print Screen

Have you ever pressed the "PrtScn" or "Print Screen" key on your Windows keyboard and wondered what it does, since it never seems to do anything? Not so long ago, it used to send whatever was on the screen to the printer. The "Print Screen" button actually sends the printable image to the "clipboard" to paste into any graphics program. Not only is this extremely useful, but there are three variations of "Print Screen"

1. Pushing the "Print Screen" button alone will take a snapshot of all the active programs on your screen(s). This means if you have 2 monitors it will copy both screens to the clipboard. This is important because if you paste this into an email, more than likely the recipient will not be able to read it. It will look like the image below.

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2. Using "CTRL+Print Screen" will copy entire contents of the active screen to the clipboard, or in other words, the last screen you clicked on (assuming you have two screens). An example of this is shown below.

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3. Use "ALT+Print Screen" to copy the active dialog box to the clipboard. You can make a dialog box active by clicking on the box (or window) you would like to make active.

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CAD Cartoon

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