Matthew Giampapa

Adobe Distiller is a component of the Full Acrobat package on both platforms. It is really a postscript post processor which will generate the pdf. Typicaly, Acrobat will come with two ways of creating pdfs, The distiller which is recomended, and PdfWriter, which is a Quickdraw based print driver which will also create a pdf. Print2Pdf, is a shareware product you can find at www.jwwalker.com at the bottom of the page are a number of links to other alternative pdf creation tools. Matthew Giampapa Technical Support quote: Originally posted by DWHarper: I will look into the Adobe software, thanks for the tip. One thing that I have discovered; Adobe Distiller is a PC not a MAC program. I am not sure which Adobe package would be appropriate. I believe Adobe Acrobat? I will let the "message board" know what I find out. To me, this will be the easiest way to plot my drawings at Kinko's and it will allow the Architect that I am working with to easily plot out at her office. Anyone else on this board operate in this manner? Dave H.

Make sure that QuickTime 4.1.2 or higher is installed along with the QuickDraw 3D component (This is not a default in version 5+) Matthew Giampapa Technical Support quote: Originally posted by Niall: Tried to run VW 8.5.1 on Windows 98 but keep getting a Runtime Error just after the palettes are displayed. Could someone shed some light? Regards Niall Mullan

ATI is a Canadian graphics card manufacturer. You can find them at www.ati.com It will probably be helpful to see what chipset your video card is based on. To do this in windows you will need to look under display adapters in the device manager. On a Mac you would run the Apple System profiler, then go to the device tab, and look at the display settings. For some reason OEM ATI products are frequently identified as ATY instead. However in 99% of cards the reference drivers from the ATI website will work for the corresponding OEM model. Matthew Giampapa Technical Support

Typically this is the video driver causing this type of problem. If you are using Windows 95/98/Me, you should open the system control panel and click on the performance tab. There will be a button on the bottom labeled graphics, click this and you will see a slider for the acceleration level of your card. Slide this all the way to the left and restart the system. If this resolves the problem, you can then try to notch the slider up until to you find the highest working setting. In windows 2000 and XP, you will need to go to the display control panel, click on the settings tab, click the advanced button, and then go to the troubleshoot tab. Matthew Giampapa Technical Support quote: Originally posted by Weirdone: I have Version 9 loaded onto my PC and there seems to be a problem with keeping the screen clear especially when I'm in a pan function (hands everywhere!) or draw tool (the snap text remains on the screen). How do I set it so I don't get this messy screen?

Bruce, What you need to do is create two links and then turn them into a symbol. You can then duplicate the symbol as an array without causing your file size to balloon. I did a 100 link chain this way and the file went from 143k to 186k when I did the duplication. The line based renderers are not idea for this kind of work, they do not handle large numbers of curves perticularly well. You may gett a better rendering if you turn your 3d conversion resolution down. This will be much simpler for it to Render. Alternativly you could also try to use the OpenGL and/or RenderWorks modes. Matthew Giampapa Technical Support

There should be no change in this functionality between version 8.5.2 and 9.0.1 or 9.0.0. All you need to do is go to the window menu and select the document you wish to be active. Have you modified the default workspaces? or are you using an old workspace which you converted from version 8? Most likely all you will have to do is open up the workspace editor and add the document windows item from the window menu section back into your current workspace. Matthew Giampapa Technical Support quote: Originally posted by seismiczone: As an structural engineer I have 3-5 2 meg. files open while working. With V8.5 there was never a problem switching between these files with a simple click on the window drop down menu and selecting the file I wanted to view. I cannot do this w/9.0, Why? It's a royal pain. I must have multiple files open. Now I have to minimize and maximize files to switch between files.

Mike, That message is specific to VectorWorks Architect. Many of the Architect tools and command have the ability to be customized in some way. These customizations correspond to a group of preferences, be it the VectorWorks defaults or any of the custom sets pre made for you. To choose a set, make sure you are in your Architect workspace, go to the file menu and select Architect Preferences. Then VA Set Project Prefs. Select a set and click the done button. All of these sets start off identical to the VectorWorks defaults. Alternatively you can also begin your document by using the setup assistant which will set this for you. Matthew Giampapa Technical Support quote: Originally posted by mike46: Hi Has anyone any ideas why i am getting a vectorscript message that reads " preferance set not chosen for this document " when ever i select the simple window or door plugin tool this has just started since uprading from 9.0 to 9.01 Thanks Mike [This message has been edited by MikeS (edited 08-23-2001).]

At this time VectorWorks does not support the G4 Altivec unit directly. However Apple's openGL implementation which we use, is Altivec optimized. Using a other wise equal G3 and G4 computer, the G4 should perform much better in software based openGL rendering. Matthew Giampapa Technical Support quote: Originally posted by smithlb: I moved up to 9.0 when switching from a G3 driven powerwave to a G4 Laptop (400MHZ). I have not noticed any significant difference. The files I worked onin 8.5 wwere large and cumbersome. The lap top handles it much better. I also have more ram and allocated more to the progam. that improved my response time significantly. I wonder if 9.0 uses the vector processor on the mac.

Not to my knowledge. However you can adjust the 2d aspect by using the set Origin command in the page menu. Matthew Giampapa Technical Support quote: Originally posted by Martin: Thanks Matthew! Is there a way to move the ground plane as well? I am using VW8.5.2. Thanks again!

Martin, Most objects in VectorWorks can be measured from both the working plane or from the ground plane. Throughout the program measurments from the working plane are denoted using the unit vectors i,j, and k. To switch an object from being measured from teh ground plane to the working plane, select it and look in the object info pallet by the coordinate information. You should see two buttons, one with a blue grid and one with pink grid. The blue grid represents the ground plane, and the pink grid represents the working plane. Matthew Giampapa Technical Support

It has come to our attention that the VectorWorks Architect and Landmark 9.0.1 combination product is shipping with a slight glitch in the Landmark workspace. In the Organize menu the Landmark Task Manager will appear unavailable. To correct this you must use the Workspace Editor to remove the Landmark Task Manager and add the regular Task Manager which has incorporated the Landmark functionality. For instructions on how to edit your workspaces, please see appendix B in the VectorWorks 9 documentation. Matthew Giampapa Technical Support

For most of our US users this is simply a cosmetic error. Basically there was a problem with a batch of CD's from the print house we use. No more bad mac cd's are being sent out. Unless you actually have a physical dongle, then it is safe to ignore the message and click past it. If you have an Industry series product you may now insert disk 2 and proceed with he installation. Matthew Giampapa Technical Support quote: Originally posted by jdbowers: We just received the update CDs for mac. I seemed to be installing fine until the very end when i got a message saying "Error opening MacHaspUsbDD 1008:6,-43 File not Found" We have OS 9.1 and still have VW 8.5.2 Architect loaded (in addition to VW9) Any suggestions? Jason Bowers Limbacher and Godfrey Architects

quote: Originally posted by Colman Stephenson: I am experiencing problems export bitmap files including jpeg and tiffs. 1. In some files an area far larger than the extent of the objects and the current extent of the page is exported. 2. Sometimes images are badly scrambled. I am using VW 8.5.2, OS 9.0, 160Mb of built in RAM. I have recently upgraded to Quicktime 5. Could this be a source of the problem? C. This is a know bug in the image importing code when dealing with large images. In order to work around it you need to use a 3rd partty program to convert the image to PICT format and then import it using the import PICT command. Matthew Giampapa NNA Tech Support

quote: Originally posted by alan: I installed Quicktime five and couldnt run VW 8.5.2 at all. I have a G4 667 and I ended up deleting QT5 and re-installing 4 Quicktime 5 is fully compatable with VectorWorks, however you must make sure that you install the QuickDraw 3D component of QuickTime Matthew Giampapa NNA Tech Support

quote: Originally posted by Donald Wardlaw: What has worked for me is to use the Adobe PS driver, much as a previous post suggested. Make sure you have the latest one from the Adobe site. I'm getting good reliable results with it. donald Well since you have already purchased Adobe Acrobat, throwing more $ at the problem may not be the best thing to tell you. However there is always the shareware PrintToPDF which can be found at http://www.jwwalker.com

quote: Originally posted by Colman Stephenson: Thanks for that suggestion but I'm afraid it didn't work. Version 5.0 has the same font warning options. Mine were alread set to "Warn and Continue". Nevertheless I switched it to "Ignore" and I continued to have the same problem. In any case the problem does not occur with other applications, which is why I suspect VW, although I know other people produce PDFs from VW all the time. Your input is much appreciated in any event. Colman Stephenson Sorry to hear that, well the only other thing I would probably try, is to use the Desktop Printer Utility, to create a translator... a driver that just outputs to the file. Since this is really just based on the Laserwriter 8 dirver, I think its just another way of doing somthign you already tried. Well anyway, be sure to try and set it to not incude fonts, and also try a level 1 postscript file. These options can be found in the "save as file" option of the print dialog pulldown.

quote: Originally posted by yoyo: Even QuickTime didn't solve the problem. As to this time I tried: 1. uninstalling and reinstalling both RW and VW 2. Fooling with regedit, as jack instructed. 3. reinstalling QT and then reinstalling VW and RW. 4. Deleting all regedit entries of VW, RE and even Diehl graphsoft, uninstalling both, and reinstalling both. 5. e-mailing tech support and getting the advice: check that your RW installer is pointed to the VectorWorks folder, while installing (It did). After all of that I'm still in the old situation - RW is not asking for serial. any suggestions other the favorite WIN universe solution - format? Thanks Yoav When you install RW, hit the browse button in the installer to change the installation directory, and remove the trailing "/". This may sound simple, but in many cases it does solve the problem.

quote: Originally posted by jhutchison: It happens with files that have references in them. Files that do not have references export fine. I did some checking on this in the Master Bug List, and it is a confirmed bug. It's just not you. Hopefully to be squashed soon. If you have the time, please send in a copy of your files to tech@nemetschek.net, and I will forward them to the person working on the problem.

quote: Originally posted by Colman Stephenson: Can anybody help? I have recently purchased Distiller 5.0 but I am unable to produce PDFs from VectorWorks. Postscript files which are generated from VW (either through LaserWriter or AdobePS) fail with the error message given at the end of this post. The problem is specific to VW. All other applications are fine. I have tried with the option "Print Postscript only" checked and unchecked. I have tried using the virtual printer and using the "create Adobe PDF option". I am using OS9.0.4 on iMac with 96Mb Thanks in advance to anyone who help cure this problem. Colman Stephenson Julian Harrap Architects, London UK -------- This is a typical error message : %%[ Error: limitcheck; OffendingCommand: findfont ]%% Stack: /Font /Times-Roman /f14 %%[ Flushing: rest of job (to end-of-file) will be ignored ]%% %%[ Warning: PostScript error. No PDF file produced. ] %% I believe that error simply mean that the system is not locating your Times New Roman font file. While I am not familiar with Distiller version 5, in version 4 you could set it to ignore font errors . 1. In Acrobat Distiller, choose Settings > Job Options. 2. Click the Fonts tab. 3. From the When Embedding Fails pop-up menu, choose either Warn And Continue or Ignore. With either option, Acrobat Distiller will substitute the font and continue processing. If you choose Warn and Continue, Acrobat Distiller will notify you that it cannot embed a given font.

quote: Originally posted by jhutchison: I keep crashing while exporting to v8 from Architect 9. I have a G4-450 with 120RAM allocated to VA9. Does this happen with all VA9 documents? or just a specific one?

Well, assuming your doors arn't placed in the celing layer itself. You may want to make sure that your layers are set up to have different hights. You can set this using the layers... command in the orginaize menu. Of course, im just learning VW myself, so I may be entirely misconstruing your problem. quote: Originally posted by jhutchison: Ok---here's a tough one. I have a small project. I want to put both the floor plan and the Ceiling plan on the same sheet. I can do this via a layer link-HOWEVER- The doors show up on the ceiling plan. If I turn the door class off, they turn off in the floor plan as well (obviously). How can I separate the 2 without having to draw 2 completely different plans? There's got to be a way.

quote: Originally posted by DaveHi50: Thanx RGyori, I dont have a problem with text rotation- my problem is with imported pict or images that are place on a page. What version of windows are you using? the NEC superscript 870 has terrible support under NT4, but it's Windows9x support is halfway decent. To me it really does sound like a driver issue with the printer and not VW. You can try and update your drivers at http://support.nectech.com/printers/ssnew/ss870/index.htm or you may want to try and use some kind of intermediary drint driver. You could install a postscript driver onto your system and print directly to a .ps file. Then you can send this to a software renderer such as GhostScript, or Adobe Acrobat Distiller which should then print your document correctly. If that does fix the problem, then it certianly confirms that it is a NEC print driver issue. -Matthew Giampapa