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anninav49615826
anninav49615826
Participant
September 25, 2018
Answered

Acrobat Pro DC for AutoCAD 2018; PDF must be editable

  • September 25, 2018
  • 3 replies
  • 4283 views

Is Acrobat Pro DC the best solution when I´ll have to make PDF-documents from AutoCad and the PDF must be editable. For example, I make PDF from dwg. file which describes "process chart" in industry (symbols, lines & text) and someone else will edit the text later.

-Annina-

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Dov Isaacs

The issue is not one of Acrobat versus other software for “editing” PDF, but rather, an issue of PDF itself, especially the PDF that comes from CAD/CAM software, being conducive to editing.

Depending upon the content created in AutoCAD, the output may consist of literally millions of vectors either beneath or above any text entered in AutoCAD. AutoCAD in many cases outputs text as vectors, not as text rendered with fonts. This can make “editing” text from such PDF files exceptionally challenging.

PDF is primarily a final form file format and not a source file format. Although Acrobat does provide some rudimentary text editing capabilities, it is more for “touch-up” or simple corrections and even then it may be problematic. Assuming that the “text” in these AutoCAD-derived PDF files is isolated from complex vector content and is indeed represented as text using fonts, anyone editing such text must also have the original fonts used by the AutoCAD author installed on their system.

Proceed carefully and cautiously!

          - Dov

3 replies

A
av8tor9801
Participant
November 8, 2019

From within AutoCAD, see the difference between "exporting" to PDF and "printing" to PDF. Do so in conjunction with checking out Acrobat's defualt conversion settings (such as in Preferences>Convert To PDF, select Autodesk AutoCAD, then edit settings).

Essentially, you may notice that (depending on settings) exporting a DWG file will bring in text, etc. Matter of fact, it frequently shows them in the PDF as Comments, for better or worse. Whereas printing to PDF usually (depending on settings) will flatten the DWG layers inside the PDF, so all text is baked in. You then may need to perform OCR.

TL;DR - Export leaves text selectable; possbily editable. Printing frequently leaves everything flattened; usually not editable as is.

Dov Isaacs
Dov IsaacsCorrect answer
Legend
September 25, 2018

The issue is not one of Acrobat versus other software for “editing” PDF, but rather, an issue of PDF itself, especially the PDF that comes from CAD/CAM software, being conducive to editing.

Depending upon the content created in AutoCAD, the output may consist of literally millions of vectors either beneath or above any text entered in AutoCAD. AutoCAD in many cases outputs text as vectors, not as text rendered with fonts. This can make “editing” text from such PDF files exceptionally challenging.

PDF is primarily a final form file format and not a source file format. Although Acrobat does provide some rudimentary text editing capabilities, it is more for “touch-up” or simple corrections and even then it may be problematic. Assuming that the “text” in these AutoCAD-derived PDF files is isolated from complex vector content and is indeed represented as text using fonts, anyone editing such text must also have the original fonts used by the AutoCAD author installed on their system.

Proceed carefully and cautiously!

          - Dov

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
    try67
    Community Expert
    try67Community Expert
    Community Expert
    September 25, 2018

    It's not recommended to do so, but yes, you can do it using Acrobat Pro.

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