PDF not exported exactly on scale

Clemens Karlhuber

 Something odd I discovered today.

After exporting a PDF on scale I got heads up from a client who told me that the drawing was not on scale.

I could not believe it but after measuring the drawing in Acrobat I too could see that there was a difference between my layout and the actual pdf.

Measuring 2 Meters in scale 1:200 shows 1cm in layout but 0,95cm in the pdf. 

Exporting the pdf from DraftSight produces a pdf that is scaled right. That concludes that the dog and the layout is scaled correctly but the pdf export fails.

Any suggestions here how to fix this?

Thanks.

Tijs Vermeulen

This depends on the manner in which you create your PDF.
Please enter a support request, with attached drawing and a description on how to reproduce.

Just a quick idea: maybe something went wrong with paper size and/or margins, resulting in an overall re-scaling.
Can you check paper size and margins of the produced PDF?  Is it as intended?
It might also help to check PDF Export settings in BricsCAD (File> Export Options...).

Kind Regards
Tijs

Clemens Karlhuber

 Hello Tijs,

Thanks for your answer.

Meanwhile after struggling a lot I discovered that there is indeed a small difference in scale when you choose a paper- size without actually assigning a printer- profile or the printer is missing. 

I took over a A0 layout from AutoCad without having the dwg to pdf- printer configuration. Exporting the PDF right away resulted in a slightly smaller sheet thus everything was off scale. Had to install pdf- writer to make a custom layout with little margins and this time everything was ok.

I conclude that printing and exporting layouts coming from another program one should be careful and verify that everything is on scale.

An annoyance I found the impossibility to add custom paper sizes to Bricscad without assigning a printer.

Greetings

David Waight

Clemens,

I too have had size issues with exporting to PDF within Bricscad, but I am running a Windows version.

All my exports are done 1:1 and there is always a size discrepancy.

I have filed a support request (SR66164 - PDF Scale & Page Size Issue) and had some dialog with support, but as yet this hasn't been resolved.

The error I am concerned about is only with exporting and NOT printing, but there is also a slight variation in size when printing to PDF as well.

The feedback I got from that procedure (printing to PDF) was to increase the dpi of the output, but the programs I use to print to PDF, though having very high settings in their setups couldn't actually create PDF's with higher than 1,200dpi as recommended by support.

Most other programs I have used whether they are CAD or Graphics packages have the ability to create PDF's exactly the size requested, so I know it is possible.

My conclusion so far is it is either Bricscad itself or the PDF engine Bricscad uses to create the PDF programmatically that is causing the problem.

I know this doesn't help you immediately but hopefully it will trigger some investigation within Bricsys if more than one person is having the same problem.

Regards,

David Waight

Tijs Vermeulen

>An annoyance I found the impossibility to add custom paper sizes to Bricscad without assigning a printer.
It should be possible already.
Open the PRINT dialog, then click on the paper size dropdown - even if no printer is selected (printer selection shows "None").
Go to the top of the dropdown "Manage custom sizes...".
We are aware that this is too hidden.  In our current sources an additional button has already been added.

That said, it is still needed to select a printer in order to pick the custom size.
That is indeed an annoyance, especially when always printing to PDF, which is even recommended.
We are aware of that and plan to remedy it.

Regards
Tijs

Clemens Karlhuber

 Dear David,

Thanks for your reply.

It is actually great to hear that I am not alone with this problem.

I also tried to print/ export exact the same layout from the same dwg in different CAD programs and - surprise - they all were on scale like they should.

It seems that there indeed is something wrong with the PDF- engine build in BricsCad.

I'm going to do some experiments with third party PDF printers to see if this can be a workaround.

I'd really like to see a solution coming from the developers.

Thanks in advance.

rsalois

Actually, that's a normal thing, as far as I know. The process of exporting drawings to PDF is lame whatever tool you're drawing with. Maybe that's just a big thing with PDF exactly. I edit final document manually when it happens, you may use the same Acrobat for such purposes, I do so here https://form-cd-401s.pdffiller.com/ Both of them are recognizing layers well, so you choose the very piece exported wrong and scaling it. Not the the most convenient trick for sure, but I don't know any else