OT: ANN: Linking to AutoCAD PDFs

["Rick Quatro" <frameexpert@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Framers,

I have a solution that some Framers may be interested in. First, here is
some background. A client has a large set of AutoCAD drawings that are saved
as PDF files. These drawings are labeled with part numbers. The client has
FrameMaker documents that refer to the part numbers on the drawings. These
documents are distributed as PDF files, along with the AutoCAD PDFs.

The client would like the user to be able to click on a part number in the
PDF and have it open the AutoCAD PDF and center the corresponding part on
the screen. Currently, they are using MicroType's SP TimeSavers to build the
links from the main document PDF to "named destinations" in the drawing PDF.
A named destination is a particular view in a PDF document that can be
linked to from another. For example, when the user clicks on part number
"12345" in the main document, the drawing needs to open with part number
"12345" centered on the screen at a magnification of 150%.

The problem is that the AutoCAD PDFs do not contain named destinations when
they are created. Currently, the client is creating the named destinations
in the drawings "by hand" using Acrobat's Destinations palette. This is a
very slow, manual process that must be repeated for each AutoCAD PDF.

My solution involves a special comma-separated text (CSV) file generated by
AutoCAD for each PDF file. This file contains each part number and its x and
y coordinates on the drawing. I use a custom FrameScript script to read the
CSV file and add the appropriate named destinations to the AutoCAD pdf. No
post-processing work in Acrobat is required.

The script operates at the folder level; the user is prompted for a folder
of PDF files and corresponding CSV files. The folder and all its subfolders
are processed. The new PDFs with named destinations are saved in an Output
folder, preserving the original AutoCAD PDFs. Interestingly, in my tests the
new PDFs with named destinations were 25-30% smaller than the original PDF
files without them.

If you have a similar situation and would like more information on this
solution, please contact me off-list. Thank you very much.

Rick Quatro
Carmen Publishing
585 659-8267
rick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
www.frameexpert.com


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