PDF fromats

[jmsbrush]

Allot of the work I bid is on line and it is in PDF formating. The screen starts off small and then you can enlarge it.
It's tough for me to do take offs this way, because I would rather just do it on paper.
Anyways when I try to print the page, even when I have the screen enlarged,. It will print the print in the small ,unreadable version.

Can anybody give me a crash course on how to correct this problem?
Thanks

 

[EC2253]

Try clicking on the print view button

 

[EC2253]

Its the current view button sorry for the confusion

 

[ITO]

You have to print "view" in lieu of "page"

Adobe is a bastard to use, and cost way too much.

Here, this works 100X better and is a lot cheaper at $200:
http://www.bluebeam.com/web07/us/products/revu/cad/

The standard copy works great too for $150:
http://www.bluebeam.com/web07/us/products/revu/standard/

Both trial copies are good for 30 Days.

 

[weressl]

You have to print "view" in lieu of "page"

Adobe is a bastard to use, and cost way too much.

Here, this works 100X better and is a lot cheaper at $200:
http://www.bluebeam.com/web07/us/products/revu/cad/

The standard copy works great too for $150:
http://www.bluebeam.com/web07/us/products/revu/standard/

Both trial copies are good for 30 Days.

Adobe is becoming the de-facto standard for secure document exchange. Adobe reader is free. There are various free programs that allow you to create pdf's from any software that supports printing. These programs install a 'printer' in your printer selection and when you select that it will generate a file that is named as per your choice.

 

[wireguru]

Adobe is becoming the de-facto standard for secure document exchange. Adobe reader is free. There are various free programs that allow you to create pdf's from any software that supports printing. These programs install a 'printer' in your printer selection and when you select that it will generate a file that is named as per your choice.

i like primopdf for this, its the only one i could find thats 100% free and doesnt print its name on the bottom of your documents

 

[electricguy]

I use one called PDF Creator

 

[480sparky]

....Can anybody give me a crash course on how to correct this problem?
Thanks

Email it to your local Kinkos, and ask for a full-size print.

 

[gardiner]

If your using a standard desktop printer you could from the use the print command on the PDF you can select page scaling to match the paper size and then run the largest your printer will print. Or you can increase the size of an area to a point where you can see it clearly and select current veiw on the print popup then with multiple prints you could capture the entire drawing.

 

[barclayd]

Email it to your local Kinkos, and ask for a full-size print.

Absolutely the best (only) way to go.
Doing a take-off from a letter size or 11X17 print is asking for trouble.
The pdf file was probably created from an AutoCad file.
Plot it on the right size paper - easier to read and the scale is correct.
db

 

[Sparky555]

Email it to your local Kinkos, and ask for a full-size print.

I'm probably not thinking about this right. This seems to me like calling 10 contractors for free estimates. Now they can email a pdf to 10 contractors w/o any investment. I have to send it to Kinkos for the honor of bidding on their project.

BTW I get these calls. "Can you give me a quote? I can email a pdf file. Email back with the quote."

 

[ITO]

Adobe is becoming the de-facto standard for secure document exchange. Adobe reader is free. There are various free programs that allow you to create pdf's from any software that supports printing. These programs install a 'printer' in your printer selection and when you select that it will generate a file that is named as per your choice.

Yes yes you are correct Adobe reader is 100% free and a very stable product. Yes adobe does install as a printer and allow you to print a PDF file, and if Adobe were easy to use it would be the way to go. Even though Adobe developed the PDF format they still have a lot of work to do on their free utility. Adobe Pro is around $500 and a lot easier to use, I guess you get what you pay for.

If free is what you want there are lots of free PDF readers out there, even some really neat open source readers with ?etra? functions if you know what I mean.

If you are looking for something to handle Plans, recommend Bluebeam, considering it performs at the Adobe Pro level in a much easier to use interface for less than half the price, it was a better choice for me.

 

[weressl]

Yes yes you are correct Adobe reader is 100% free and a very stable product. Yes adobe does install as a printer and allow you to print a PDF file, and if Adobe were easy to use it would be the way to go. Even though Adobe developed the PDF format they still have a lot of work to do on their free utility. Adobe Pro is around $500 and a lot easier to use, I guess you get what you pay for.

If free is what you want there are lots of free PDF readers out there, even some really neat open source readers with ?etra? functions if you know what I mean.

If you are looking for something to handle Plans, recommend Bluebeam, considering it performs at the Adobe Pro level in a much easier to use interface for less than half the price, it was a better choice for me.

Of course it's not perfect like everything else. The issue is what will give the most benefit to most of the people. The issue is NOT weather I like it or not the issue is what is the media I can use to convey information to the most number of people. That's where the rubber meets the road.

It is the same reason why most of the people on this forum sits front of a machine running Microsoft and not Apple or Unix.:smile:

 

[480sparky]

I'm probably not thinking about this right. This seems to me like calling 10 contractors for free estimates. Now they can email a pdf to 10 contractors w/o any investment. I have to send it to Kinkos for the honor of bidding on their project.

BTW I get these calls. "Can you give me a quote? I can email a pdf file. Email back with the quote."

So why bother if you think that's what they're doing? Just contact them as politely thank them for the opportunity to bid, but you are unable to help them at this time.

I don't understand why so many people are upset with this facet of the business. We bid jobs, and there's no guarantee we'll get any of them. We still put in the time, and don't charge for it. It's part of the game.

Ever have a fender-bender? What is the first thing your insurance company want you to do? Go out and get estimates. Sometimes just 2, but usually 3. Now imagine being the owner of a body shop. You can bet they know for a fact that of all the people coming through their door, only 25-40% of them are even close to being a potential customer.

 

[ITO]

Of course it's not perfect like everything else. The issue is what will give the most benefit to most of the people. The issue is NOT weather I like it or not the issue is what is the media I can use to convey information to the most number of people. That's where the rubber meets the road.

It is the same reason why most of the people on this forum sits front of a machine running Microsoft and not Apple or Unix.:smile:

You do understand Bluebeam, its a utility for creating, editing and reading PDF documents right? You also probably already know that PDF is a Portable Document Format, that while developed by Adobe is not proprietary at all and many different utilities can handle them, a lot of which do so a lot better than Adobe.

I think maybe a better analogy would be what web browser people on the forum are running, because at the end of the day whether you use Explorer or Firefox its all the same webpage when the rubber meets the road, only those of us who use Firefox have more control and more features. (Firefox is free, and open source too.)

Not trying to start a pissing contest, use whatever utility you want but IMHO there are other PDF utilities on the market that do a much better job for a lot less money.

 

[weressl]

You do understand Bluebeam, its a utility for creating, editing and reading PDF documents right? You also probably already know that PDF is a Portable Document Format, that while developed by Adobe is not proprietary at all and many different utilities can handle them, a lot of which do so a lot better than Adobe.

I think maybe a better analogy would be what web browser people on the forum are running, because at the end of the day whether you use Explorer or Firefox its all the same webpage when the rubber meets the road, only those of us who use Firefox have more control and more features. (Firefox is free, and open source too.)

Not trying to start a pissing contest, use whatever utility you want but IMHO there are other PDF utilities on the market that do a much better job for a lot less money.

PC - just another acronym for Pissing Contest.:grin:

I think that we are basically in agreement. As long as the utilities are backward compatible, eg. another user can open them up, everything should be fine.

Just yesterday, I was trying to use appliancepartssumthin.com on Firefox and it had display problems, was unable to properly display the available parts catalog. Went back - grudgingly - to Explorer and everything was fine.

 

[winnie]

http://forums.mikeholt.com/showthread.php?t=104807&page=2

When using the ordinary, free acrobat reader:

zoom into the area that you want to print
select 'print' from the file menu
in the 'print range' box, select 'current view'
in the 'page handling' box, there is a page scaling menu, select 'fit to printer margins'

This will print out the view that you were looking at, as large as will fit on the paper in your printer.

-Jon

 

[dezwitinc]

Check with some of the reprographics shops in your area.
I get 24" x 36" drawings printed for $1.35 per sheet and the price goes down as I print more.
PDF drawings are the future so you better get used to it.
I don't think we have a single GC that provides paper drawings anymore.
Try finding a used plotter for your office and print them yourself as another option.