PDF opens in wrong orientation (portrait instead of landscape) when printed from BricsCAD via Adobe

Report · Apr 08, 2025

Hi all,

I'm using Adobe Acrobat Pro (64-bit) and I'm printing architectural layout drawings from BricsCAD using the Adobe PDF printer with the following setup:

Paper size: A3
Orientation: Landscape
Plot area: Layout
Scaling: 1:1
Plot style: CTB
Printer: Adobe PDF.pc3

In BricsCAD, the Print Preview displays everything correctly in landscape orientation, exactly as expected.

However, after creating the PDF using the Adobe PDF printer, when I open it in Adobe Acrobat, the page appears in portrait orientation, meaning the drawing content is rotated 90°.

I’ve already tried:

Manually adjusting settings in the .pc3 configuration
Creating a custom "Adobe PDF Landscape.pc3"
Verifying page size matches exactly (297.00 x 420.00 mm)
Changing plot area and orientation multiple times
Disabling “Plot upside down” and other options

None of these attempts solved the issue. The drawing content itself is technically correct, but Acrobat (or the PDF metadata) forces it to open in portrait mode.

Important: When I use other PDF drivers such as Microsoft Print to PDF or PDF24, the resulting PDF opens in the correct landscape orientation. This suggests the issue lies with the Adobe PDF printer driver, which might not embed proper rotation metadata into the PDF file.

Given the cost of Acrobat Pro, this is quite frustrating for such a basic workflow.
Is there any way to ensure the PDF opens with the correct orientation when printed via the Adobe PDF driver?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Report · Apr 08, 2025

Hi @fg_5776

When you create the PDF that opens in the incorrect format in Acrobat, try open it in a browser to see if it is opening incorrectly so is definitely in the file not Acrobat changing something when opening.
You didn't mention the version of Acrobat Pro. It is worth updating to the latest version to se eif that makes a difference.

A similar issue is discussed in the forum below. It may offer some insight to you.
https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-discussions/landscape-pages-rotating-to-portrait-using-adobe-...

Report · Apr 08, 2025

Have you tried exporting to pdf from BricsCAD? this may preserve the vector and layer information and produce a higher quality and smaller pdf.

Report · Apr 08, 2025

hi @Luke Jennings3

Thanks for your suggestions.

Yes, I tried exporting to PDF from BricsCAD, but that’s not our preferred workflow. The exported file was almost 50% larger compared to the printed PDF.
While the layer preservation is a nice feature, it’s not something we actually need.

Also, the export did not respect the layout page settings — it exported to A4 instead of the configured A3 format, which is a dealbreaker for us.

Report · Apr 08, 2025

HI @DeanUtian

Thanks for your suggestions. I've now tried several things, including exporting instead of printing (which results in a much larger file, but the orientation is correct).

However, I've found that the incorrect orientation appears in all viewers and browsers — not just in Acrobat. This suggests that the issue lies in the metadata of the generated PDF.

I inspected the file using Notepad++ and found this page definition line:

<</Contents[13 0 R 15 0 R 16 0 R 17 0 R 18 0 R 19 0 R 20 0 R 21 0 R]/CropBox[0 0 842 1191]/MediaBox[0 0 842 1191]/Parent 8 0 R/Resources 25 0 R/Rotate 0/Type/Page>>

When I change the /Rotate 0 value to /Rotate 270 (i.e., -90°), the PDF opens correctly in all viewers, including Acrobat.

Up until now, I had always used the "Microsoft Print to PDF" driver without any issues. But we recently decided to upgrade and purchased Acrobat Pro (latest version 25.001.20435). I expected a more robust and accurate output from a paid product.

It’s frustrating that Acrobat’s own PDF driver produces files with incorrect metadata, especially when older or free drivers didn’t cause such problems.

Report · Apr 08, 2025

I’ve read through the thread you linked (https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-discussions/landscape-pages-rotating-to-portrait-using-adobe-...), and it seems there wasn’t a real solution there either. Interestingly, for some users it suddenly worked after enabling the log file...

I’ve enabled logging on my side as well and attached the log file here for reference.

Report · Apr 08, 2025

You can rotate pages in Acrobat several ways; Tools> Organize pages> Rotate,

Tools> Action Wizard> New Action> Pages> Rotate,

Tools> Print Production> Preflight> Fixups> (search "rotate")

I understand printing to pdf is your preferred workflow, but for the benefit of others, you can use a preflight fixup to scale a pdf to any desired size, and optimizing a pdf can flatten layers, remove unwanted content and usually produce a much smaller pdf than printing can. The exception would be where very complex vextors exist, in this case, printing to an image or using Acrobat to convert pdf content to an image, might be a preferred method.