Latest & greatest utility for Acad to Word?

[trainguy]

Hello all.

Any good bets on how to use Acad graphics in Word docs?

Forget about OLE (thin lines) and wmf also require a complete reconfiguration of my source Acad drawing (make everything black, change all text to arial, etc. ).

I still get some really thin lines once I'm in Word. And exporting to bmp - awful.

Ideally, I wouldn't have to change my Acad file before the export - just export and get good, legible black lines & readable text / dims.

Any suggestions?

 

[loosestring]

When exporting from acad to a raster graphic file you'll want to multiply the size of the image (in inches) x the desired dpi and create a plotter for raster format at that size. Therefore, if you want to create an 8.5 x 11 image at 300 dpi multiply 8.5 x 300 = 2550 and 11 x 300 = 3300 which gives you a size of 2550 x 3300. Use your normal plot styles so it comes out with the line widths, shading, etc. as it would when you plot on paper.

 

[trainguy]

Any idea why when I do this, my computer crashes?

I've tried choosing the PublishToWebJPG.pc3 plotter with a 4000 x 3200 size.

I'm running a pentium 3 2.4 GHz, with a 32 MB graphics card and approx 765 MB RAM.

Using Win XP Home.

thanks,

tg

 

[borgunit]

We convert to WMF with BetterWMF software. The program maintains it as vector info, so lines remain crisp.

"Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects." — Will Rogers

 

[trainguy]

I have found a great alternative. Plotting to the PublishtoWebdwf plotter. Then, open the dwf file with Autodesk dwf viewer, and Ctrl-shift-C (copy image to clipboard).

Then paste into the Word document. I got better results than BetterWMF! Crisp lines, clear graphics.


tg

 

[loosestring]

Good to hear. I never tried that before. Thanks for sharing.

 

[wgchere]

Is the " PublishtoWebdwf plotter" the publishing tool that comes with AutoCAD?

 

[trainguy]

Yes.

PublishToWeb DWF.pc3 is one of the available plotters in my very typical AutoCAD 2000i installation. Maybe that's because of the "i" after "2000". Anyway, it must be available on the web if it's just a pc3 file, I guess.

Cheers,

tg

 

[loosestring]

Yes it comes with AutoCAD. The .dwf format is Autodesk's version of Adobes .pdf. It is very handy for review of drawings, however the ones I've made seem to have a problem printing efficiently...

 

[CADSTUDENT]

As a different approach, I have been using Adobe Acrobat 7 professional to convert ACAD drawing files into either JPEG or TIF files under the save as dialog box. I also heard that you can do control printscreen in ACAD and paste into paint and crop out ACAD toolbars but I have not tried this approach. Overall, all MS-office products love pictures either in JPEG, TIF or BMP. Hope this helps.

John

 

[cfee]

Set all your vectors to black (used to be a sigle pick-box in colors back in r-14) set your line-weghts to actual weights (or leave them alone and explore your printer settings- that's where you select the number of pixels for single-pixel wide vectors, not ACAD, anyway), and use simple ^c to pick up the vectors you want. ^v them into Word, AFTER you've set your sheet orientation and margins (Word will use the maximum size you give it within margins, so set them first thing, after portrait/landscape). Then VERY next thing, single-click anywhere in the ^V'ed (inserted) image. Right-click, and select "Format Object" from the menu. Select the LAYOUT tab, and choose "Behind Text". This frees up the image to slide into position anywhere you want on the sheet. Grip any CORNER to re-size without affecting aspect ratio (Left-Right size vs Top-Bott size). I like the larger margin at the upper edge of the Landscape 8-1/2x11 for stapling and hole-punching purposes, and at the bottom for "labeling the Slide". The image (and all its vectors) can be re-sized as much as you want, without losing "sharpness".

Word is a hugely powerful sheet-formatting program. Explore plotting from Word to your 24x36/36x48 full-color plotter. If you've formatted your slide correctly, you'll be pleased with the results! Also, if you haven't yet, try rendering an image of your 3D-model and using saveimg to a TIF file, and pasting that into a WORD document, and enlarging that to full-size on your full-color plotter! Word is extreemely useful (especially the way it handles re-sizing ttf fonts), and makes a great front-end for formatting pages to be printed into PDF format, too!

Good luck!

C.Fee