Line stroke doesn't apply to pdf (print)

[Hannah_11111]

I'm trying to make line thicker, 

but no matter how much I increase the stroke of the line, when I print it out to pdf (bluebeam) file, it just shows up as a thin line. 

 

 

Is there any other settings that I need to change to view exact thickness that I see it in InDesign?

Thank you!

[James Gifford—NitroPress · Accepted solution]

I am not familiar with Bluebeam — it seems to be a document management tool for AutoCAD environments.

The short answer is that no PDF tool other than Acrobat fully supports PDF features. All third-party tools have lapses and limitations, including the costly ones for other industries. The middle range stuff has faults in rendering documents and often lacks some of the display options and settings, and the stuff built into browsers is as "good" as any other free bundleware. 😛

Use Acrobat DC to do your exporting and PDF management. Hand it over to Bluebeam — or whatever — as an outside document.

If you are still having problems when exporting and viewing using Acrobat DC, post more specific details of the issues you're seeing.

[Randy Hagan · Accepted solution]

I concur with James Gifford. This may not be a problem with InDesign so much as it is with a third-party application. If Bluebeam is converting the file through a given print driver, you may want to try creating an Adobe PDF through the File>Adobe PDF Presets>[PDF/x4:2008]... process and see if you get better results.

I suspect you may. But if that's not the case, please don't hesitate to come back here and sound the alarm. There are lots of sharp folks around here who may be able to lend a hand.

Hope this helps,

Randy

[Hannah_11111]

Both of you were right.

I can view it in Adobe PDF clearly. 

I should ask bluebeam for this issue.

Thanks a lot for helping out!

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Great! ...even though it does leave you with a problem, at least it's identified.

Third-party PDF viewers and management tools are really frustrating. AFAIK, the entire standard is open and any shop could build an effective clone of Adobe Reader, and at least a pretty-darn-good clone of Acrobat Pro (with all the management, editing, and modification features). But even the best — sometimes very expensive implementations for large-scale graphics or blueprint or document storage-retrieval — cut corners and fail to get the details right.

Most of the mainstream replacements are meant to be cheaper than the real thing, and I can understand that... but many sell enough copies that the shops don't really have any excuse for shoddy or incomplete code. The usual reason is that they set "small footprint" or "speed" as a priority over compatibility.

And by the time you get to browser plugins... it's a wonder they work at all.

And, unfortunately for what is probably one of the most important and useful formats in all of electronic communication, it's these dysfunctional readers that have made a huge segment of the user base dislike PDF and rant about how crappy it is. There's an article on The Beast right now about how Firefox has 'finally fixed PDF' with a long rant about what a crummy format it is. Just plain ignorance and a misunderstanding that in this case, it very much is the tools in use.

<steps off soapbox>

[Randy Hagan]

Happy to lend a hand. Feel free to come back anytime if you have issues with InDesign — or heck, any Adobe program. As a group, we're always happy to help.