Searching for AutoCAD, I find several threads where other users appear to be successfully printing DWG files with PDFCreator.
When I attempt to ADD a DWG file to the PDF Print Monitor, using Document > add, PDFCreator responds with a pop-up window which states:
PDFCreator It is necessary to temporarily set PDFCreator as defaultprinter.
When I look under Options > Formats, I see DWG files do not exist.
I have looked at many other programs to convert DWG to PDF, but they all appear to be shareware with limited useage or limited file adding capacity (e.g. 3 files at a time).
Am I misunderstanding what others appear to be achieving with AutoCAD DWG files and PDFCreator, as in creating or printing converted DWG files to PDF, or is this simply NOT an option with PDFCreator (where the threads I found are just an illusion)?
I downloaded and installed it yesterday, and it works well. This is on an older Windows2000 machine, with AutoCAD LT98 installed. I switched the default printer over to PDF creator, and printed the drawing as usual. The resulting PDF was all red, but I'm sure I can find the pencolor settings to make it black.
It sounds like you don't have a program to open the DWG file itself, like AutoCAD?
I would have replied sooner, but I did not receive an auto-notification and after posting my "bump" thread I had lost faith that anyone was going to reply.
I do have AutoCAD and am the owner of the full version that I paid over $2500 for in the 90s.
I manually set my printer to PDFCreator and it did not resolve the problem.
After opening PDFCreator - PDF Print monitor, the green light is lit on its printer icon.
Since posting my "bump" thread, I tried a Print Test Page, and successfully emailed it to myself, but I could not Print Test Page to my printer. The "Testpage - PDFCreator" shows up under Document Title . . .
PDFCreator Testpage PDFCreator 0.9.9 Date: 04/06/2010 1:53:55 PM Authors: Philip Chinery, Frank Heindörfer Homepage: http://www.pdfforge.org/ Pdfcreator.exe: Version: 0.9.0.9; Size: 2,977,792 Bytes Pdfspooler: Transtool.exe: Version: 3.1.0.0; Size: 606,208 Bytes Computer: MARTINS-PC Windows: Windows XP 5.1 Build 2600 (Service Pack 3)
. . . Adobe PDF Reader opens with the PDFCreator Opensource file, and when I click on the Adobe PDF Reader print icon, the Print window pops open, and under the Advanced... (radio button), all the PDFCreator Advanced Option appear correct, as its' defaults, and when I click the OK radio button, my printer icon shows up in the System Tray - the PDFCreator tab, in the Task Bar, momentarily blinks a few times - and after PDFCreator believes the Document Title has been printed, the printer icon in the System Tray disappears, and yet nothing has been printed to my printer.
The shareware program, Any DWG to PDF prints fine but is only good for 30 printings - with my printer as the default printer - therefore, I believe my printer is communicating properly with software running within my desktop.
you can goto http://usa.autodesk.com and donwload DWG True View from AutoDesk(freeware) and you can print to PDF from there. Is a matter of fact you can print to pdf with their own driver
All, why aren't you plotting directly from AutoCAD to PDFCreator? My limited understanding of Print Monitor is that it has limited support of file types you may directly-queue into it. In fact a couple years ago we used to drag-and-drop ~80 .doc's in there to batch-process them to PDF and Print Monitor doesn't seem to be able to do that anymore. I've stuck with the virtual printer on my end because I don't 'get' PDF Print Monitor.
That said, plotting directly to the virtual PDFCreator printer is the method we're using and although it has its quirks, compared to a more AutoCAD-centric Océ .pc3, it's quite easy. Understandably this does not batch many DWGs to PDF at once, but our business systems are constructed so that we have never needed to either.
Just starting with PDFCreator, but users here currently use CutePDF (Free, similar to PDFCreator, but not opensource and no facility to autoname PDFs). Or they use the inbuilt AutoCad facilities in newer versions to produce PDFs direct. That usually produces the best results, but needs tweaking if certain fonts are used. CutePDF and (PDFCreator also I think) have problems with the Autocad "wipeout" message box printing solid black.