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PDF - Exporting / Importing password required


t_and

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Hello everyone,

At the moment I'm using the Student version of VW 2016.

Thing is, I do my works with VW and then my presentations with Indesign. Thing is, when trying to import a pdf exported from VW, indesign says "This document is protected with password".

Is this because of the student version? I used the exporting in the office where I used to work, and this never happened.

Anyway, is there a way to ask VW for this password, or for being a student I'm not allowed to import exported PDF's to do my presentations?

Thank you very much.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

There is unfortunately no actual password, its a random code generated during PDF export on student versions to stop removal of the watermark.

Normally only PDF editing applications will give this error however, and exporting it as an image would allow you to include it without issue in a powerpoint presentation or something similar.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

You cant edit the PDFs, but you can place locked PDFs into a presentation without editing them in Indesign or Acrobat first.

I do not recommend that you use JPEG format exports for a presentation since it's compression is generally low quality. Instead:

Under File > Export > Export Image File, on the bottom right, select PNG as the image type and then below that set it to Full Color. After doing so, youll notice on the left a DPI setting, this defaults to 72 which is generally too low. Set this to something like 300 or higher, then when you export your image (either the whole page or a marquee-ed area) you will lose no quality.

If your images are REALLY large you may need to go higher than 600 DPI but generally 300 DPI works just fine.

  • Like 1
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This is not the only exception with the student version.

Sorry to gripe but we pay for 74 seats at the edu price and the students, who are future customers, get constraints on their software. Autodesk give a 3 year license with no restrictions compared to 1 year, a poor update process and restrictions. I find the whole process frustrating and have to deal with disillusioned students on a regular basis. Add to this that we are at the bottom of the pile for support (apart from Jim on here who is great) and it is not great marketing.

  • Like 2
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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

What else are you running into other than watermarking at the moment? I'm aware of a few items but I'd like to get a list together and submit it as a more cohesive set of changes.

There are a few things (I think STL and 3DS export most recently) that were unintentional omissions or are coming in service packs, but those are probably not what you mean.

  • Like 1
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I believe that the watermark is fair and should not be changed. Not being able to trade docs with non edu users without the watermark being carried across is entirely sensible.

Export 3D PDF would be great for the students so they can show their work to prospective employers. I asked for this as soon as 2016 came out and I think you were going to look into it (its on a much earlier thread somewhere).

I have a raft of issues but seriously I don't want it to look like a list of complaints.

Overall we are very happy with the software, employability is great here in the UK for students.

(A lot more could be done by you guys to make the experience much better and your competitors are certainly doing that).

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  • 3 years later...

I don't have a problem with student versions having the watermark.  The problem I have is that when I copy anything... a symbol, a section of a drawing... anything... from a watermarked file... I end up with the watermark for life AND... I can longer Export to PDF without this non-password password problem.  And printing to PDF works only if you have days to wait for it to work.  I light many shows when the set designer is an academic... it's a problem for me!

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  • 2 months later...

As a student, not being able to put my work into my portfolio is incredibly frustrating and will pretty much guarantee that I will steer clear of Vectorworks products in the future. It might be worth re-evaluating what the goal of student software is. If it is to attract future users than I don't believe it is accomplishing that.

 

 

  • Like 1
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  • 1 year later...

It would be amazing to allow EDU files to be opened with a licensed version of VW and for the PDF to be exported without a lock on, and all elements within that file also not carrying over watermarking. 

I build up an entire symbol library on my student version, and when I came to use my employer's (on a placement year) licensed VW I could not use any of my custom symbols as they carried over their watermarks to the worksheet. 

I've also made an entire VW file on my EDU account by accident - instead of using my employer's VW, and there is no way to remove any of the watermarks or PDF protection. This meant all my work was entirely wasted. 

It'd be great to allow licensed users to remove restrictions on symbols and for PDF exports.

  

  • Like 1
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  • 1 year later...

I'm having trouble exporting to png as some layers end up greyed out. I've tried changing the layer and class settings etc and can't work it out, but can't use the PDF as I'm not able to open it in Photoshop due to the password. How do I get around this?

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