JHEarcht

In VW11, it appears that the Text Note tool has been superceded by the Callout tool. The new tool is nice but I prefer a simple arc leader instead of a compound curve. So I copied the Text Note (Curved).vst file from VW10.5 into the VW11 PIO folder. When I click on the tool in VW11, I get the error message: "VS error occurred on this locked plug-in . . ." Is there a way to make the old tool work in VW11? Thanks, JE

Thanks Katie, You were right. I reinstalled QuickTime custom with all default items. This time, no error message in VW. I discovered that the default install does not compete with MediaPlayer for most MP extensions, as I had presumed. Good day, JE

VectorWorks 11.0, Windows XP To save time, I copied my VW10.5 Workspace file into VW11. Now several Plug-ins are struck-thru in the WS Editor and the menu items say: ". . .rsr not in Plug-in Directory." Charles Chandler posted to the ListServ that the names of several PIOs have changed from VW 10 in that the ellipsis dots are removed. However, in the PIO folder the files have the latest names. But they don't show up in the list of available menu items. The WS editor is in VW11. shouldn't it show the items in the VW11 PIO file? Is there a way to fix this without starting from scratch with a new WorkSpace? I will assume that your answer is NO, and create a new WS tomorrow. If that doesn't fix it, I'll be back. Thanks, JE

Katie, FYI, I have noticed some other text-related problems in VW 11. For example, in the Edit Viewport dialog, the end letters of labels are cut off: Annotatio ; Cro ; Design la . Cropped words appear in several other dialogs.Chopped-off text boxes are common on web pages. I assume this will be fixed in a future release. JE

Katie, I didn't have tiny text in Win98 and VW9.5. In WinXP and VW10 & VW 11, even with reading glasses, I have trouble reading the dialog boxes. Can I send you a screen shot to see if you can figure out what causes the tiny fonts? JE

Katie, The Windows theme has nothing to do with this problem. VW is the only app that has the tiny text. Only the standard dialog labels inside the box have the tiny text. The Headers are large fonts. My theme is already XP standard with one modification: to use large fonts. VW displays large fonts in some places, but not in others. Do any other Windows users have the tiny text problem? Thanks, JE

Katie, That's a bummer. I use QuickTime only for VW. I don't want QT to compete with MediaPlayer for other media functions. Is there a specific QT file association that VW is looking for? Thanks, JE

Tristan, I have always been frustrated with Acrobat's strange behavior with large sheets. After many discussions with Adobe and VW techs, I have concluded that it's partly a default memory limitation in the setup of Acrobat. In Windows XP I go to Printers & Faxes/Adobe PDF/right click/Properties/Layout/Advanced/Graphic/Print Quality/ change to 300dpi. Then to Device Settings/Font Subs/Available PostScript Memory/increase to at least 32,000kb. There's also a way to get large sheets in the sheet size list. But it's pretty complicated, and may not really matter to Acrobat. On a Mac, the process should be similar. These changes should help, but it's a workaround for inherent limitations. I don't know if the Pro version works better with large drawings. HTH, JE

Katie, I reinstalled QT6.5 from the VW11 CD. Under Custom Install I selected: Essentials, Still Image, Effects, Diagnostics. I had no registration number for QT. I use Windows Media Player as my default media app. So, under Browser/Mime Settings I selected only Still Images. Under File Associations I selected only Still Images. In VW 10.5 and VW 11 I still get the message that "Quicktime is not found". Any suggestions? Thanks, JE

Katie, My Windows theme is XP (modified) I had already selected 120 dpi fonts. Under Appearance I selected Large Fonts. This changed the Windows dialog fonts, but the VW text is still tiny. Under Advanced Appearance, all options use 10 pt fonts except one at 9 pt. The VW fonts appear to be about 4 or 5 pt. It seems to be peculiar to VW 10.5 and VW 11. Any other ideas? Thanks, JE

Vectorworks 10.5 & 11.0 on Windows XP: Some tool dialog boxes, such as MOVE, have tiny, almost unreadable text in the box. Box headers, menu & toolbar text and drawing text are OK. My 19" digital flat panel screen resolution is default 1280 x 1024 dpi. Advanced setting for display is Large size 120 dpi fonts versus Normal size 96dpi. Also ClearType is selected to sharpen screen text. Is there any way I can get the dialog box text back up to a readable size? Thanks, JE

VectorWorks 10.5 and 11.0 on Windows XP: Upon opening VW11, an error box displays saying: "Support for image compression formats is not available from QuickTime . . .reinstall QT . . ." VW10.5 has a similar message with slightly different wording. Quicktime 6.5 was installed from the VW11 CD and is working properly. How can I get VW to recognize QT? Thanks, JE

I should have mentioned: Windows XP. For what it's worth, I don't see a registry entry for Quicken in REGEDIT\Current User\Software. Does it matter? JE

When I first installed VW10.5 a few months ago, I got a message upon opening VW: "unable to create a resource preview image. Quicktime may be corrupt . . ." I got some help at that time to turn off the erroneous error message. But now I have installed a new hard drive and reinstalled VW10.5. And the message reappears. Quicktime 6.3 was installed from the CD and appears to working properly. I'd appreciate another suggestion to convince VW that Quicktime is OK. Thanks, JE

In VW10 the tab sequence seems to have changed from VW9. I used to tab to Linear Array and then to the X/Y Offsets. Now it tabs from Linear Array to Rotate Duplicate and then to Circular Array. So I have to stop and go back with the mouse to enter Linear offset dimensions. For me, this is not progress. And that's my 2 cents worth.

Katie, The scenario I described was true up thru VW9.5. I just checked and VW10.5 shows ARIAL in the list of fonts. In the past, I had to select ARIAL BOLD in order to get plain ARIAL. In any case, the recipients of my DWG export see AutoCAD Simplex (a poor match)instead of ARIAL, even tho they have ARIAL in their font folder. Ironically, ARIAL BLACK (a seperate font family) displays properly in AutoCAD. Based on past experience, I was just guessing that VW was mis-labelling the font. Can you find out what's really happening? I'll email a DWG file for you to look at.

VW 10.5, Windows XP, Dell Pentium 4 Katie, This is not a new problem. Since MiniCAD 7, some fonts have been labelled with a Style Name instead of a Family Name, i.e. ARIAL BOLD or ARIAL ITALIC instead of ARIAL. In VW it's not a significant problem until the file is exported to DWG with the wrong font label. Even when the recipient has ARIAL on his machine, AutoCAD is looking for a font family by the name of ARIAL BOLD. When the mis-labelled font is not found, AutoCAD substitues one of its default stick fonts. For that reason, I sometimes send a copy of the ARIAL font along with the file and ask the recipient to manually substitute it if the drawing is unreadable or just plain ugly. This is OK for engineers, but embarrassing for files sent to clients. So, as I understand it, the problem stems from VW's inability to distinguish between the font family and the font style. TrueType fonts often have seperate files for Font Styles. But MS Word only lists the Font Family in the font selector. It would be nice if VW would do the same. Thanks for your help. JE

Katie, Thanks for the response. But the problem is not packaged fonts. As I understand it, the problem is that VW mis-labels the font, so AutoCAD can't find a match. I use ARIAL specifically because it is a common font on most computers. Are the programmers aware that VW has a problem with font names on Windows machines?

VWA 10.5, Windows XP MY face is red! When I export VW files to DWG for clients, the Arial TrueType font becomes an AutoCAD stick font. The result is ugly and almost unreadable. VW often uses STYLE names in place of FAMILY names, so that may confuse the translator. However, in VW preferences "Arial Bold" shows "Arial" as a substitute font. So why does it turn into a stick font when opened in AutoCAD? Is there anything I can do to fix this? Is this a known bug? Thanks, JHE

I struggled with printing to PDF clashes and crashes all last year. [Vectorworks 9.5 and Acrobat 5.5 or 6.0 on Windows 98]. Nothing I tried ever worked consistently. Now I'm on VW 10.5 and Acrobat 6.0 on Windows XP. I haven't printed to PDF much yet, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Thanks, I'll try a PNG file next time if VW supports that format. However, my DRAWPLUS program seems to draw a metafile with both vectors and bitmaps. When I re-import the file as TIF or JPG it looks just like the original. There's still something here that I'm not getting.

Kristen and MikeB, Thanks for the feedback. My crude workaround has been to draw the object 10 times larger than the intended final size. But I still don't understand why an exported image can't be re-imported at the same size with the same quality as the original. Guess I'll have to pay closer atention to the pixel count.

quote: Originally posted by Kristen: Image quality is a combination of dpi and image size. You have to change both to get the quality of image you want. For example, if you want a 300dpi image that's 6"x8", you have set the height to 1800 and the width to 2400. Some programs let you set the image size in inches and then change the dpi to change image quality, which seems more intuitive to me. However, VW (at least VW8 and 9; I haven't tried 10 yet) requires you to set the size in pixels. You can get the image quality you want... it just requires a little more math.

In VWA9.5.1 (Windows98se) I export an object as TIF image with 300dpi selected. When I reimport the image it looks terrible. The original straight lines are now jagged. I tried the same thing in another graphic program and the re-imported file looks just like the original. My question is this: is VW lying to me when it says the file is being exported at 300dpi? Does VW always export images at 72dpi regardless of the setting I select? Is there anything I can do to export sharp-edged graphics from VW?