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GDI+ prevents correct font output in Windows?


Bret

Question

On Windows machines in our office, when I print to pdf (using pdfFactory), I have to turn off GDI+ imaging to make the fonts embed correctly. My print output results are as follows:

GDI+ imaging = ON:

- At an output setting of 300 dpi or lower, letters rasterize and become pixelated, and they cannot be selected with a text tool in the pdf.

- At an output setting of 360 dpi or greater, letters appear to be rendered as (chunky) polylines which also cannot be selected with a text tool.

GDI+ imaging = OFF:

- Text embeds correctly, regardless of resolution.

Any idea why this on-screen imaging setting affects my print output? Is this a bug?

(I believe this problem has existed at least since v2008. We've generally run VW without GDI+ imaging turned on in previous versions, since there was less functional benefit lost without it, but we'd like to take advantage of VW2012 features which require it.)

UPDATE: After reading the kbase article here, I thought I'd add that I see this with both older fonts like Arial and newer ones like Calibri.

Edited by Bret
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Resurrecting an ancient thread here because the problem doesn't seem to have been fixed, although it appears that default behavior has changed with v2015.

Am I correct in seeing that, when printing with GDI+ imaging turned on, non-validating fonts (including Windows defaults such as Arial, Calibri, Verdana, etc.) now rasterize regardless of document resolution? If so, this is kind of a fix...but not really.

This problem has persisted for Windows users for several years, and I've contacted tech support about GDI issues more than once (although it's been a while). Is there any plan to fix this?

(Also, here's a link to a later related post from 2012 with .pdfs showing the issue...)

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

If you're trying to use File > Print to create PDFs, yes it may do that. Fundamentals doesn't include the real Export PDF command that you would need to use to get control over your PDFs. No rasterization occurs during real PDF export unless you have the Rasterize Text option enabled in the Export PDF dialog box.

Printing to PDF is just the OS basically using a fake printer to create PDFs, you wont have any real direct control over that through Vectorworks.

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Since Nemetschek knows that the should-be-universal ability to create clean .pdf output is broken when VW's GDI+ implementation interfaces with other programs or the OS, is there any hope that they might provide the "real Export PDF" capability to Fundamentals users?

To head off the anticipated response of "Buy our more expensive software," none of the Design Series options provide additional features which are useful to our engineering office aside from the printing capabilities. Because of this, it's a lot to ask that we pay to upgrade every seat just so that we can use GDI+ and still have plans which print/export correctly.

(This has been a frustration of ours for some time, but I know that, as Windows-based Fundamentals users, we're small fries in the VW universe...)

P.S. To clarify/update, Windows has no Print to PDF option, so it's not a direct OS thing. We've been using the pdfFactory software printers to create files, and the VW-to-pdfFactory file creation is where the problem occurs.

Edited by Bret
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