Anyone use WIPEOUT or TEXTMASK?
Anyone plot straight to PDF?
Ever notice the wipeouts on the PDF plot come out as black boxes? This will happen with most plotter drivers, but there are a select few that will plot it properly.
Open the PDF in Acrobat Pro.
Save As a TIFF.
Open the folder in explorer.
Right click on the TIFF.
Convert to a PDF.
Save As the original file name.
Reduce file size.
Now try plotting. Viola, the wipeouts work the right way.
PS, if you use MTEXT and select the Background Mask under properties, it will work. It's the Express Tool TEXTMASK which uses a wipeout or the WIPEOUT that fails.
Did not know this. We were just talking about it earlier this week. You have saved me some research time.
Thanks
I use wipeouts, textmasks and mtext background masks all the time. The only driver I found for creating the PDF that works for these 100% of the time is the "PDF Plot - by Autodesk" that the Autocad install puts in your list of plotters.
This makes PDFs that display properly on screen, and plot correctly on my DesignJet 800 and laser printer (I don't know about other printers).
Every other driver, including Acrobat, that I tried had problems with wipeouts (black boxes, etc).
Jeff
I've found that using the background mask is easier than the text mask of wipeout. never have to worry about the dreaded "black box". FWIW....
There are lots of cool tools with the Express Tools.
[sarcasm]The trick is remembering where that AutoCAD install cd is so you can install Express Tools.[/sarcasm] 🙂
Haven't seen this issue since Acrobat v6, many years ago now.
I had it happen a while back with LDD2 and Acrobat10. The pdf looked fine on screen but the Oce printer at Kinko's put big black blocks everywhere. Telling their software to "print as image" reduced the black blocks to thin lines around the edges of the wipeouts. Works fine on my Designjet 800
Mebbe there's an easier way?
When your drawing is complete turn on frames and select all of the wipeout (raster) entities.
Change those raster entities to a color that plots with 0% screening (I use 255).
Turn frames off, make sure your draworder is correct for the masked entities, and plot to pdf. I use pdf995.
For my corner symbol blocks: pipe, pin, etc., I solid hatch the circle, square, triangle or whatever with color 255 @ 0% screening. Then lines needn't be trimmed at the corner symbols and the drawing will look spiffy.
SS
I have found that happens to attachments that are sent to my email
When the poor quality of the scan comes out as garbage or all black, it will usually print clear as an image
I plot masked text straight to PDf's all the time. No problem. I use PDFCreator.