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Converting your Sketchup plan to PDF video tutorial

Discussion in 'Sketchup Tutorials' started by 3DMON, Jul 24, 2009.

  1. 3DMON

    3DMON Moderator Staff Member

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  2. Crash

    Crash Moderator Staff Member

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    Outstanding tutorial, 3D! I have been doing a similar workflow using the PDF writer that comes free with Adobe Acrobat Pro, but let's face it, how many people are gonna lay out the dough for that application? LOL I use CutePDF on my netbook for saving stuff on the fly and was not even aware that it would function the same as the more expensive program I've been using.

    Thanks for posting this!
     
  3. Anonymous

    Anonymous New Member

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    Cool! I didn't know you could create an untiled pdf with CutePdf - Excellent! :cool:
     
  4. kyyu

    kyyu Active Member

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    Cool, it worked. I tested it with a single tiny picture. The best thing is you can do it from any program. Thanks for posting the tutorial, 3Dmon! Until this, it's always been a mystery, even with the various methods floating around. Something about it always kept me away.

    I used to find it impossible to check tiled plans. But I found an easy way to do it in Adobe Reader. Look at the picture below. Open up the page index window (top left corner has a page icon). Right click to increase the page icon size. And resize the index window, so the pages are arrange in the correct pattern. Now you can see the full plan and if you click on any part, you can see a close up of the page on the right. You might also want to press the show only one page button, the button with the 4 outward pointing arrows:

    Attached files [​IMG]
     
  5. kyyu

    kyyu Active Member

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    3dmon,

    I am trying to test the method on a large plan, but the Scale data boxes are all grayed out. Any ideas?

    Attached files [​IMG]
     
  6. 3DMON

    3DMON Moderator Staff Member

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    Thats weird Kwok.
    The only thing I see different between ours is the collate button on yours is checked. It's in gray so you can't uncheck it either. I don't think that is the issue though.
    I wonder if it has something to do you main printer settings?
    You know how when you first go to print it comes up as your main printer. Maybe those settings are somehow interfering with Cutepdf.
    After you put it Cutepdf did you try to close and reopen the print window?

    I'm as stumped as you on this one.
     
  7. kram242

    kram242 Administrator Staff Member

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    This is fantastic! thank you 3DMON! This will no doubt help so many people who would like to make their plans in Sketchup and cut them out. Not to mention all the free plans here on the Phlatforum that are ready to go.
    Outstanding job!
    Mark
     
  8. kyyu

    kyyu Active Member

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    Well, I played with the surfer dude drawing again, but can't figure it out. So I decided to open a fresh sketchup window and do a quick test. Drew a 40" long rectangle. And that worked, just fine. So, that means there is nothing wrong with my system. Which is good enough for me. Just something weird with that one drawing.

    -Kwok
     
  9. 3DMON

    3DMON Moderator Staff Member

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    Interesting.
    When I did Mark's Surfer I copied and pasted it in a new file and worked it from there.
    Maybe all the groups and stuff did something with it.
     
  10. 3DMON

    3DMON Moderator Staff Member

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    I'm glad you guys have found this useful. Hearing all the kind remarks makes it worthwhile to do this kind of stuff :) .
     
  11. kyyu

    kyyu Active Member

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    You know, I did copy it over to a new file. Just got an interesting development. I went back to check the surfer dude drawing again and the scale is still greyed out. But it kept the setting from my test rectangle drawing. It's now set to 1:1, but greyed out. So I can generate the pdf now, even in this defective state.

    -Kwok
     
  12. 3DMON

    3DMON Moderator Staff Member

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    Thats weird man.
    That hasn't happened to me once.
    Your puter's just messed up :lol: .
    At least it's keeping the setting in there.
     
  13. AnyAirRc

    AnyAirRc Moderator

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    kyyu: I noticed that your print quality is set to draft and the use high accuracy HLR is un-checked. This may be the problem??
     
  14. kyyu

    kyyu Active Member

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    I just tried changing the print quality and checking the HLR, but no difference. Here is a screen shot of the 40" test triangle, with shows it working with the current settings:

    Attached files [​IMG]
     
  15. kyyu

    kyyu Active Member

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    How about this. You guys can give this strange file a try and see if you get the same thing:

    Attached files pdf test.skp (830.8 KB)Â
     
  16. 3DMON

    3DMON Moderator Staff Member

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    I found your problem.
    Your in perspective and you need to be in parallel projection.
    Whew, glad that was solved. Now I need to go back and see if that was included in the video...I don't think it is. :roll:
     
  17. kyyu

    kyyu Active Member

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    Cool, I glad it's solved, too! Thanks.
     
  18. rayclark

    rayclark Member

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    Thanks for the tutorial Shaun. Very helpful. Have a question...How did you put the icon up on the toolbar for the Edge style to turn on/off profile? I can't seem to locate how to do it.

    Thanks

    RC
     
  19. 3DMON

    3DMON Moderator Staff Member

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    Hi Ray,
    It was made with a custom toolbar plugin I downloaded from Ruby library depot.
    I will try to find it and post later on how I did it.
     
  20. gutboy17

    gutboy17 New Member

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    Does anyone have a free PDF creation program resource, much like CutePDF, that will work for Mac computers?
     
  21. kyyu

    kyyu Active Member

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    I don't have a mac, but what you want to search for is a "pdf printer driver". Could it already be a built in feature, like it saids here: http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/anythi ... 0-5-a.html

    -Kwok
     
  22. catrancher

    catrancher New Member

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    If you're running Mac OS X, you've already got it! Just choose "Print" off the file menu and in the lower left hand corner of the resulting dialog box, there'll be a button that says "PDF". Click on that and one of the many available options will be to "Save to PDF". It's a native format for Mac OS X.

    Tom [​IMG]
     
  23. gutboy17

    gutboy17 New Member

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    Thanks for the help on the Mac PDF issue.

    Another question about PDF generation (not necessarily a Mac issue). How do you eliminate the "blank" pages. No matter how I try to situate the parts I seem to get some blank sheets (mostly at the starting upper left corner).

    Thanks
     
  24. 3DMON

    3DMON Moderator Staff Member

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    One way is to tell it not to print those pages. Pages 2-10 instead of 1-10.
     
  25. gutboy17

    gutboy17 New Member

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    I would do that myself, but I'm looking at making plans to be purchased and I don't think it would be appropriate to have those kind of instructions in the mix. I'm thinking I'm going to have to get some PDF editing software. Thanks.
     

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