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Tip: extremely quick way to send VectorWorks drawing by email


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My boss came across an interesting symbiosis between VectorWorks and Mail (Apple's email application) today (maybe it works with others as well, don't know):

Select any part of a drawing in VectorWorks and then copy and paste into a Mail message. It creates a PDF on the fly.

This could be extremely useful when you just want to someone on the other end of a discussion to see what you're talking about.

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Christiaan,

On a PC all you need to do is select Alt-Print Screen and the contents of the active window are copied to the clipboard which you can then paste to and email window in Outlook. The screen window image can be zoomed in on any particular detail and the image will be copied at the current screen resolution as a bmp. If you like to have the entire contents of the screen copied and pasted selet Ctl-Print Screen.

I've been using this for years in windows as a way just as you have found to send a quick email with a small Kb footprint size wise.

Good tip for the macites out there.

Pete A

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On a PC all you need to do is select Alt-Print Screen and the contents of the active window are copied to the clipboard which you can then paste to and email window in Outlook.

Except copying and pasting directly from VectorWorks into Mail creates a PDF, so it's a vector file which can be printed at its correct scale and without losing any resolution.

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Maybe but in VW select small area and CtrlC - Word 2007 CtrlV - there it is.

Again - big file - 75 townhouses fresh from AutoCAK - whole thing into Word - do not have email on this machine print to A4 beautiful

Dunno about accurate scaling though

Thanks though never knew about this

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So Christiaan said

This could be extremely useful when you just want to someone on the other end of a discussion to see what you're talking about.

So in the middle of a drawing you would just go oh quick send of the email.

Nah - Save first and use that file

Don't you reckon

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This must be one of the more difficult things for a Windows-user to understand: capturing a rectangular area on the Clipboard is a piece of cake on the Mac and has been for years. It is unfortunate that neither Christiaan or his boss have not known about basic OS features; that does not make Windows any better, though.

Yes, I reckon. You don't seem to.

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its even easier now, on a mac, command P, PDF, mail PDF and a second or so later Apple mail opens with the on screen sheet or designlayer, your drawing in pdf ready to send when you have given an address.

It can hardly go any faster. I can send a drawing in less then 1,5 seconds, Leopard, VW 13 and a Macpro.

Just found out today you can print as "mail PDF".....lol.

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It is unfortunate that neither Christiaan or his boss have not known about basic OS features

It's a disgrace really, but then I'm always coming across such things on a Mac I didn't know existed. What I really like about it is that it creates a PDF rather than an image file. It's always nice to think that someone actually thought about these things in the first place.

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For the benefit of the poor OS-challenged VW-users: Mac OS X uses PDF as the default printing mechanism, PNG as the default image file. One can create a (raster) PDF from any application by just saying "Print".

"Screen prints" are PNGs, which - IMHO - is a pretty good format.

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For us poor people out there who can't capture direct to pdf, well now you can if you wish. It's called FastStone Capture, it's free, and it integrates with Windows just about as nicely as you could wish. Aside from the regular copy to clipboard, it allows you to capture the screen direct to a file, including PNG and PDF formats.

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I use Fastsone Capture too - great little tool and Cute Pdf is ok too.

Another great little tool for resizing images is PicSizer.

And whilst on it Office 2007 has a downloadable Office Add In - Microsoft Save as PDF or XPS.

I run Vista Business on my Laptop but do not have Vectorworks installed on it - will have to install it and see if there are any differences between it and XP

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I know I am only new here but I did not think this was just a Mac only forum.

In a previous post I wrote

Of course not - really I think Windows is a piece of ????

I have been threatening for awhile to make the leap into the great unknown

Can you run CAK 2006 on a Mac?

Very obviously the Pdf function on a Mac is great and I see Windows users have only shared how we can have similar tools.

It depends too on how you work - I work with two machines running - my Desktop just for VW really and my Laptop emails. Internet, Word docs, bookeeping etc and of course CAK.

So copying and pasting from VW to an email just does not work but Faststone makes it a breeze especially because my computers are networked.

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