Discontinous text when printing PDF exported from AutoCAD

[mohamedibr752]

Hi,

I am using Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro. I have a PDF exported from AutoCAD. When trying to print, the text is unclear; discontiuous and broken. I tried to use Preflight to "Set minimum line width to 3 pt", but it only affects the drawing lines, it does not affect text. How can I increase the thickness of the text ?

Thank you in advance.

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

Fonts are controlled in the source program, which in your case is AutoCAD. So choose a different font or weight.

Question: how are you making the PDF from AutoCAD? Can you give us the steps?

[mohamedibr752]

I don't have the source AutoCAD file. All we have is the exported PDFs. We got them from a supplier.

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com · Accepted solution]

Oooo, you don't have very many options.

The PDF file format was originally designed to lock down everything and not allow any changes. Recent versions of Acrobat have given us some minimal editing tools for text.

But changing the text is tough even with today's tools (Acrobat 2023).  Your Acrobat 9 was released in 2008, 15 years ago, and it's missing many of today's tools and utilities.

Find the Edit PDF tool panel and use it to select each block of text in the PDF, one by one. Use the edit text tool to change the font: maybe to bold (the button looks like a fat T) or to a different font on your system.

Remember, a PDF file is not a word processing file, so you can't select all the text in one selection and change it. Text is carved into individual blocks so that it can look like the original source file — and not be changed. You're kind of working against the system here.

Suggestion: before you attempt to do this, try to have the PDF's requested fonts installed on your computer. Things will go much smoother.

To see what fonts the PDF file is looking for, go to File Menu / Properties and select the Fonts tab. It will list them all. AutoCAD sometimes uses its own proprietary fonts.

Good luck with this!

[Luke Jennings3]

Can you show us an image of the printed type or a sample pdf? The issue could be related to unembedded fonts. Can you try a different printer? Can you try printing from a non-Adobe pdf viewer, like a browser? Do other pdf's print correctly?