RobiNZ CAD Blog

From DWF to PDF with transparency

While Design Web Format (DWF) is better for drawings, and models, you sometimes still do need to make PDFs. If you already have the DWF the simplest way to do this is ‘print’ to PDF from the DWF file. Many machines already have PDF writers, installed by other software, but if not get the excellent free CutePDF Writer. This works really well, often better than direct PDF output from the apps, with one little hitch. Some mark-up tools, like area measure, in Autodesk Design Review use transparency (below left) and some PDF writers output it as solid (below right). The... Read more →

Foxit PDF Preview Handler for Windows & Office

One thing missing after my move to Windows 7 was a decent PDF preview in Outlook. The default Office 2007 install gave an error referring to the Windows Vista PDF Preview Handler. The solution was Tim Heuer’s PDF Preview Handler for the excellent Foxit Reader. Thanks Tim & Foxit! Foxit PDF Preview Handler - timheuer.com The Foxit PDF Preview Handler is a piece of software written by myself with sponsorship from Foxit Software (providing the license so that we all can enjoy). Read more →

MindManager 8 Integrated Browsing

Continuing the theme of integrating outside sources the MindManager 8 Browser Pane also functions as a... wait for it.. Browser! Internet: Below you can see a topic hyperlink has launched the Brows... Read more →

Foxit PDF Reader 2.3 not foxed by PDF drawings with hatch

Foxit’s remarkable little free PDF reader was always good for documents – better than Adobe’s I reckon – but sometimes choked on drawing PDFs with dense hatch patterns. This was seen as an endless dra... Read more →

Giving up with Adobe Reader...

This post on Beth’s blog reminded me why a few weeks ago I removed Adobe Acrobat . My machine slowed down then appeared to almost freeze, yet all the app’s I was using were working fine. It turned out... Read more →

Scoble's video demo of Adobe Acrobat 8

Robert Scoble has exclusive Adobe Acrobat 8 videos on-line. He interviews Rick Brown, Adobe’s director of product management for its knowledge worker business unit, about the future of Adobe Acrobat a... Read more →

PDF death match?

This is an old article (July 2005) which, for some reason, just showed up in my “Most Viewed Articles” RSS feed from Architecture Magazine . It’s one of those silly “we’re better than you, no you’re not…” articles but still worth a read if you haven’t seen it. PDF death match - architecturemag.com For CAD I prefer DWF and we use it on the intra-net but still sometimes need PDF. Sometimes there is someone in the project who can’t/won’t view DWF. In a corporate world of locked down managed users a viewer is more than a download/install away even if... Read more →

3D Dwf on its way!

For me the PDF/DWF battle is over as we have adopted DWF as the CAD sharing format for our Intranet. However the inclusion of 3d will be a great advance for the format. Will be interesting to watch this progress. WorldCAD Access: DWF Goes 3D! Read more →