In a team environment with automated PDF conversion tasks, often times the PDF copies come out with undesirable changes. It forces a drawing to rebuild before producing the PDF. Most, if not all, automated PDF conversion tasks/macros use the Save As PDF feature. Printing to PDF is notorious for overextending lines. The PDF writer handles images a lot better. You can clearly see the difference when comparing the penguins in both copies. You don’t want those images being translated to plain lines. When producing PDFs that have images, it is best to Print to PDF. Tip: To change the drawing sheet paper color, simply go to System Options > Colors > Color Scheme Settings > Drawings, Paper Color > Edit.

It has the default drawing sheet paper color. This was cropped from inside of SOLIDWORKS. SOLIDWORKS simply sends the information to the PDF writer or a virtual printer, and therefore the PDF writer is responsible for producing your PDF and not SOLIDWORKS.įor the examples below, I used CutePDF Writer (free), Adobe Reader DC (free), and SOLIDWORKS 2017 SP 3.0 (not free).

This is a SOLIDWORKS function and is not relying on any third party to publish your PDF.įile > Print > (PDF writer) uses the SOLIDWORKS print engine to spool and communicates the information to your selected PDF printing software to produce the PDF.

File > Save As > (*.pdf) converts your SOLIDWORKS drawing to plain lines then, using proprietary code, saves it to a PDF.

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