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I Want to create an editable PDF file from V8 XM

Andrew Short
I have been asked by a govenment agency we do work for to send them pdf files that they edit if need be. Is there a way of creating a pdf in Microstation that you can edit the text once you have created the pdf ?
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  • Andrew,

    depending on your MicroStation Version there are different ways to achieve this.

    With MicroStation J you would need a Windows PDF printer, i.e. Adobe Acrobat Standard or higher. Be aware that there are many commercial substitutes, such as Nuance PDF Converter Pro, PDF-XCHANGE Pro, Nitro PDF Professional,  Jaws gDoc, etc. and plenty of freeware substitutes, such as PDFCreator.

    For a market overview Wikipedia provides a extensive List of PDF Software.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PDF_software

     

    In MicroStation V8 or higher you can use a native Bentley driver (Bentley has licensed Adobe Acrobat Technology) to produce a PDF. Depending on your MicroStation version the name of this Bentley driver is PDF.plt or PDF.pltcfg.

    In the plt or pltcfg file you should make sure that Text in the PDF is searchable.
    To achieve this, make sure, that in the plt the following command line is active:

    CmdName /appname="pdf" /command="SearchableText" /qualifier="on"

    HTH

    Gunnar

  • in reply to Gunnar Gantzhorn

    Hi Gunnar

    Thanks for your support so far. I'm still having a few problems. I am using Microstation V8 XM and Adobe Acrobat Professional V7. I have amended a .plt file which does make the pdf file editable but it also changes the look of the fonts that are being used'

    I have attach two pdf files so you can see the difference, the line wieghts are not a problem as i can change the without any problems but its the fonts i have a problem with. If you have any ideas on this it would be great. if you want the .plt driver to look at just let me know and i will forward it onto you and on that note is there a way of having the same info from a .plt driver on a .pltcfg driver.

    Thanks

    Andrew

     

  • Offline in reply to Bear
    Look very much like a font change. Any chance you could email the plot file you used? You should have my contact details.



  • in reply to Andrew Short

    Andrew,

    being unfamiliar with your files it is hard for me to detect the difference on screen in the PDFs of different drawings. Can you please use PDF markups to highlite a typical example of your problem?

    Using MicroStation XM IMO using the Bentley driver is easier and provides better results than using the Windows Acrobat driver. Seems that you do that now. PLT and PLTCFG can do the very same thing. PLTCFG is Bentleys new way of doing it and it seems to have even more options than what we had with PLT but the main thing is another user interface. (For good and bad)

    What kind of fonts are you using? MicroStation fonts or Windows TrueType/OpenType fonts or even AutoCAD SHX?

    Regards

    Gunnar

  • Offline in reply to Gunnar Gantzhorn

    Hi Gunnar,

    Been looking at this is bit. The issue seems to be that pdf.plt and pltcfg will not give you editable text. Only searchable. you can use:

    FONT("USE GDI FOR TRUE TYPE FONTS") /Sizeratio=1.2

    to remap the font so it can be edited, but there are some size issues straight out of the box that are causing issue, thus the Sizeratio addition. It's getting there, but does look different to the font as it stands in MS.



Reply
  • Offline in reply to Gunnar Gantzhorn

    Hi Gunnar,

    Been looking at this is bit. The issue seems to be that pdf.plt and pltcfg will not give you editable text. Only searchable. you can use:

    FONT("USE GDI FOR TRUE TYPE FONTS") /Sizeratio=1.2

    to remap the font so it can be edited, but there are some size issues straight out of the box that are causing issue, thus the Sizeratio addition. It's getting there, but does look different to the font as it stands in MS.



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