Re: OT: Illustrator and AutoCad line weight incompatibility

[Dov Isaacs <isaacs@xxxxxxxxx>]

Known problem ...

AutoCAD and possibly some other applications have a very nasty
habit of generating PostScript output with lines with the
attribute:

        0 setlinewidth

This doesn't set the linewidth to zero, but rather to "one pixel"
the real width of which is obviously exceptionally device dependent.
Thus, what shows as 1/72" or 1/120" on the screen yields 1/300",
1/600", or 1/1200" on a typical PostScript laser printer, but as
1/4800" on a high resolution imagesetter or platesetter. Often
lines so-defined will not even show up on a monochrome DocuTech
(remember "write white is never quite right").

There is a workaround other than global changes in Illustrator
(which you are using as an intermediate step).

Go the the Creo website <http://www.creo.com/>, register as a
user (doesn't cost anything) and download the "Creo Distiller Assistant".
Available for both Mac and Windows, this free product provides a
Distiller startup file that "fixes" a number of problems in PostScript
that yield junk PDF. One of those problems is the "0 setlinewidth"
problem. The documentation that comes with it tells you exactly what
width it translates those "0 setlinewidth" commands to. (It might be
something like 1/300" or so, but look it up to get the exact value.)

        - Dov

PS: I use this and highly recommend it!




At 3/19/2003 08:02 AM, Carla Martinek wrote:
>We import all of our line drawings into FM as eps out
>of Illustrator.
>
>Many of the schematics come from engineering, where
>they were created in AutoCad.
>
>An example of our problem is that if we import a
>drawing containing line weights of 1pt as set in
>AutoCad, the line weights when selected in Illustrator
>are usually much less than 1pt.
>
>Has anyone else experienced this problem?  Any
>suggestions?  A global line weight replace in
>Illustrator isn't always the answer, as some graphics
>do have varied line weights for certain purposes.
>
>Thanks for your help;
>Carla Martinek
>copper@martinek.us


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