My version of Microstation came with several Autocad-friendly line styles (such as chain double-dash and dashed triple-dot).
Within the drawing (.dgn file), they look, work well, and when printed out look great; however, when I use these line styles and try a print to PDF of the drawing, these particular lines become very thick and indistinguishable blurs. Suspecting the pdf driver to have lost something in translation, i noticed that only the 7 'regular' Microstation linestyles are mentioned in the driver.
Could it be that this is the problem, and if so is there a way to program the pdf driver to incorporate these AutoCAD-friendly line styles as a means of fixing the problem?
Any help would be appreciated.
The 7 linestyles mentioned in the driver are for the 7, non-continuous, built-in linestyles. Since they are built-in, all drivers must be told how to display them, or be told to use their own internal line styles.
Sometimes the way that the PDF driver is configured for line-join, line-miter, end-cap, etc. can cause certain linestyles to look worse than others. Also, some weight and linestyle combinations also can look less than desirable.
The weights are also part of a driver and can be modified. Also, plotting to the wrong size paper and scaling it when actually printed can effect the quality.
I have always made a plot test file with a bunch of sample weights, linestlyes, text and colors that I use to fine tune all plot drivers. When doing so, do not change too many things at one time as it the combination of two might cancel out an improvement that one by itself would not. At least with PDF, you aren't wasting paper each time.
Charles (Chuck) Rheault CADD Manager
MDOT State Highway Administration