I have not found a solution to the printing issue that Macs have printing PDFs. My SU and LO files (SU v.2020.0.373) are created on a PC. I export them to a PDF, as I have for many years. When my engineer prints them from his Mac, the viewports are blacked out. I have read that this has been fixed, but I am still having an issue. Does anyone know how to correct this? I know I can send a .DWG file and I did, but a PDF is easier.
What program does the engineer use to print the PDFs? Can you give a link to an example file that did come out blacked out?
My engineer is using Preview on the latest Mac OS.
That does look blackened. Is it possible to see the PDF?
Here is one page of the bigger PDF file. I removed the text for my client’s privacy.
I would like to note that my engineer can view the file just fine. The problem occurs within just the printing.
Blackout Print - DD 1.2.1.pdf (2.5 MB)
In some other thread similar behaviour was caused by something called a color profile. I understand they are a Mac thing used to calibrate screen and print output…
Thanks for the file. For any printer related issues I’ve seen you could do a Print, but choose Open in Preview, and any defects that would have been on paper show up there too. It looks ok for me when I do that.
A colleague printed the PDF, and it came out ok. The removal of the client text could matter, but probably not. He was not on the later Mac OS, but I am. I’ll try to get to the office tomorrow to do a print from my computer.
Some related issues were worked around by making the images be JPEG instead of PNG. Not that you would by choice use JPEG, but could you try an export using higher quality JPEG instead of PNG?
Thanks. My engineer and I have sorted out our current needs with a work around. I am trying to figure it out so it will work correctly in the future.
The client text printed okay. The issues where in the view ports and I notice the transparent background of a PNG also turned black. The PNG is easily dealt with, but the view ports are another matter.
Does it print OK from your own computer?
One workaround that I have used with problematic PDF files from AutoCad, Archicad etc. is to export them to a high-resolution image from a PDF editor (Acrobat Pro or PDF Xchange Editor or other) and recreate the PDF from that. Problems especially with printers are often caused by the PDF being overly complex, for instance when raster images and vector data are overlaid on the page.
That’s a great tip. Thank you. Although I do have some raster, hybrid and vector data overlayed, the problem exists with single view ports as well. I appreciate your workaround suggestion and will give this a try.
Yes, the original PDF file printed fine from my PC.
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