PDFs as graphics and graphics out of SolidWorks

[Combs, Richard]

Linda G. Gallagher wrote:
 
> These are not rendered, just the line drawings. Guess I 
> should have said that. Sorry!
>  
> I got another message offlist about changing my Distiller 
> options. Duh!! I did that, and the .tif in the PDF output 
> from FM now looks quite good.
> Thanks, Michael.
>  
> The process that Art suggests might be an alternative, but 
> sounds a bit onerous. I'll try it if I need to, but hope I won't.

Well, the .tif will look better with no downsampling and less
compression, but it's still a bitmap (raster) file format. In your PDF
output file, try zooming in and see what happens. 

You're starting with a vector (line) drawing, which is scalable. PDF,
being a variant of the PostScript language, treats vector drawings as
such, so the PDF is scalable, too. Converting that lovely scalable
vector drawing to TIFF or JPEG format (bitmaps) is not a good idea.

I'd recommend printing the drawings to PDF, as Art suggested. If you can
work with the person who created the drawings, it might be possible to
get rid of some of the bloat upfront (metadata that's preserved by
Acrobat, hidden lines or objects, etc.). 

A custom joboptions file may eliminate or minimize the need for
postprocessing the PDF in Acrobat (might need to experiment a bit
initially). And the postprocessing could be as simple as opening the
PDF, selecting File > Reduce File Size, and saving. 

HTH!
Richard 


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Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
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rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-777-0436
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