Author Topic: PDF convertion Visio 2013  (Read 5450 times)

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HIGHfiguy

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PDF convertion Visio 2013
« on: July 24, 2016, 05:24:48 PM »
I've been searching around for quite sometime now through this forum, others, and just general google searches. I've seen multiple "solutions" out there to this problem, but not one of them seems to work for me. Hopefully someone here has the magic to share and someone out there will stumble across this when looking for a solution in the future.

So, I typically receive the floor plans of future projects from builders, designers, ect. in a pdf format. Rarely is the autocad file itself shared. For a time I would import directly from pdf, try to convert to a different file format and import, or just copy to clipboard and paste right into Visio. All those options presented negatives of different types with size, scale, and resolution. The drawings were largely for internal use only and it didn't matter a great deal that they weren't sexy.  However, a few builder's we've been working with late have requested copies of the drawings and the resulting clarity is now an issue that needs to be resolved.

Using this software from Visual Integrity http://visual-integrity.com/products/pdf2cad/, I was able to convert the pdf to a cad format preserving all layers and details. When importing into Visio 2013, I am now able to zoom to any level and see the same quality on the base floor plan that I would if viewing the original PDF. But much to my surprise, when converting my finished Visio document to a PDF to send back to my team and those we're working along with, the background image of the original floor plan looks highly pixelated when zoom in, and the lines all look incredibly dense and emboldened when zoomed out.

I've tried all [found] methods of importing the floor plan in to Visio. The auto cad seems to work the best.

I've tried exporting to EMF, WMF, PNG, SVG and of course PDF.

The SVG format had no noticeable loss in resolution of the back ground floor plan. However, I lost all Visio shapes and connectors. All that was left was the floor plan! Even assuming my work didn't disappear during the conversion, I still don't know what the resulting conversion from SVG to PDF would look like. Tried and online converter and got nothing but a black box spit back out the other end.

Where do I go from here? I've read 2010 did not have this problem. But it seems every answer on the internet has a contradicting one 2 links down. Is visio 2013 just garbage at this or is there a way?

vojo

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Re: PDF convertion Visio 2013 or No. 8 of "what 2003 used to do"
« Reply #1 on: July 25, 2016, 12:41:58 AM »
for 10+ years, I used PDF995 for this for 2003 (visio ==> pdf).  Excellent reliable.

Just tried it with 2013, visio creates a 0 byte pdf

so I tried the Save as ==> pdf approach....well guess what, it works but now includes the
background (which is not supposed to happen when making a pdf).

So officially, number 8 on the list of things you used to be able to do with visio 2003 you cant do with visio 2013.

Got to love this programmers at MS....excellent at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory

Yacine

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Re: PDF convertion Visio 2013
« Reply #2 on: July 25, 2016, 02:29:38 AM »
it works but now includes the
background (which is not supposed to happen when making a pdf).


Do you mean, you're getting the BG as separate page? Can't confirm this. I use regularly the export to PDF function without problem.
Yacine

Yacine

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Re: PDF convertion Visio 2013
« Reply #3 on: July 25, 2016, 02:37:43 AM »
... the background image of the original floor plan looks highly pixelated when zoom in, and the lines all look incredibly dense and emboldened when zoomed out.


Could it be, you're inserting the foreign drawings as OLE objects?
Try - after having inserted the result of the conversion PDF 2 CAD - to ungroup the drawing as to get proper visio shapes. The pixel issue should disappear.
Just my 2 cents,
Y.
Yacine

vojo

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Re: PDF convertion Visio 2013
« Reply #4 on: July 26, 2016, 08:21:09 AM »
background on same PDF page as foreground.

I.e. a PDF image of the actual visio source presented to the user (foreground + background)

Yacine

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Re: PDF convertion Visio 2013
« Reply #5 on: July 26, 2016, 11:21:37 AM »
background on same PDF page as foreground.
I.e. a PDF image of the actual visio source presented to the user (foreground + background)
So where's the problem? Didn't get your point.
Yacine

wapperdude

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Re: PDF convertion Visio 2013
« Reply #6 on: July 26, 2016, 11:48:33 AM »
Think topic has deflected slightly.  I have V2007, so cannot answer the original question regarding issues with V2013.  Converting to PDF has always been a problem.  As noted, many posts discussing this.  Perhaps V2016 does better?  Think you can get a free trial for short period of time.

Might be helpful if you could upload a sample.  Perhaps a user of V2013 or V2016 can look at the file and offer some options.

Wapperdude
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HIGHfiguy

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Re: PDF convertion Visio 2013
« Reply #7 on: July 28, 2016, 12:36:53 PM »
Thanks a ton for all the replies. I have to say, printing to PDF was something I had only came across once before. Did not realize that it was something different from converting and boy is there a difference. I went ahead and installed PDF995, and there's no limit to how far I can zoom with out loosing quality! I have no idea why the native convert to pdf in visio sucks, nor do I have any clue why the visio shapes would convert better than the imported objects, but print to PDF995 was definitely the way to go.

Yacine, the importing of that CAD file did not produce any groupable/ungroupable shapes. However while investigating your suggestion I discovered that it could be converted into a visio object. After rebooting my computer a few times, thinking the whole thing just froze on me, I decided to let it sit for a while. Turns out after 30 min - an hour, it finished the job and I now have that whole plan as if it was created in visio! Don't know what advantages that will provide me in my work, but it's cool.

Thanks again.