For example, when the floor plan is set at ¼” = 1′-0″ (1:48), the PDF will size itself to match the building elements at that scale.
When a PDF is placed on the Floor Plan (or any drawing window), it will drop in based on the scale currently in effect. Like all Drawings, PDFs may be resized numerically in the Info box or the Drawing Selection Settings, or using the Stretch button from the Editing palette. If it is an actual drawing (such as a scan of an as-built plan or survey) then it will have the same scale on the layout as when it was originally created. letter-size (8 ½” x 11″) it will appear on the layout with those dimensions. When PDFs are placed onto a Layout sheet, they size automatically to match their original print size. PDFs are good for graphics, reference and printing, while DWGs may be used for tracing or measurement (e.g., surveys, as-builts, etc.). This contrasts with DWG files inserted with the Place External Drawing command, since their CAD linework can be precisely used. TIP: PDFs do not have internal snap sensitivity, so although you can see the lines, you cannot snap to them.
The placed PDF may be a vectorial graphic (in which case it is resolution-independent and will print smoothly regardless of resizing) or a bit-mapped image (such as a rendering or photograph) that will be subject to the usual limitations of any bitmap file. The white boundary inside shows the outline of the void left after cutting out a hole to omit one of the drawings in the PDF image. In the above illustration, the green area is the PDF drawing (highlighted in green because it is selected). Holes can even be cut to omit parts of the Drawing, using the Subtract from Polygon option from the Editing palette, as shown below. It has a polygon-based boundary frame which can be manually resized in order to crop the page image. It is linked to the original source PDF file, and using the Drawing Manager may be kept up to date semi-automatically. Once the PDF is placed as a Drawing, it acts like any other non-CAD graphic. TIP: If placing PDFs and other external content is a frequent part of your work process, you can create a keyboard shortcut for that command in the Options menu > Work Environment > Keyboard Shortcuts. (You can however select multiple PDFs in the Place Drawing dialog box, and place them in one step.) This means that to place pages 1 through 5 of a document, you will have to do five separate Place External Drawing commands. However, unlike some areas in ArchiCAD that allow placing multiple files at the same time (by dragging and dropping, or by selecting multiple items in a list), you cannot place multiple pages at the same time. All the OptionsĪny page of a PDF file, be it textual or vectorial drawing, may be imported into the Floor Plan, or any Section/Elevation Window, Detail Drawing, Worksheet or Layout. The PDF import option resolved all of these issues, and provides a far superior and more general solution for ArchiCAD users.
This technology was problematic in several ways: it had become PC only, as it was never made available by Microsoft for developers in Mac OS X it only handled a single page image and it required the Microsoft software and source document to be available on the computer that had the Plotmaker file. This was frequently used to place schedules as well as lengthy text blocks.
TIP: It is also possible to drag and drop a PDF from a folder directly into the frontmost ArchiCAD window.īefore version 10, ArchiCAD on the Windows side supported Microsoft’s OLE technology, allowing users to embed spreadsheets and word processing documents into PlotMaker layouts. Placing a PDF is actually a special case of the File menu > External Content > Place External Drawing command, which can be used to place many different CAD file types such as DWG, DXF, DGN, HPGL, PLT as well as standard image formats such as JPG, TIF, etc. General notes, specifications or other long paper documents can be prepared in a word processor or dedicated environment and printed or saved to PDF, as can schedules and other spreadsheets. Manufacturer’s detail drawings, reports from consultants (such as California’s Title 24 energy analysis), and a variety of forms are often made available as PDFs. Legacy paper-based drawings as well as other documents and images can be scanned and saved in PDF format for placement and reuse.
Any program that prints can create PDF files, either internally or by using Adobe’s Acrobat software (or other free or inexpensive utilities widely available on the internet). This opened up many options for bringing 2D information into ArchiCAD. Starting in May 2006 with version 10, ArchiCAD users gained the ability to import industry-standard PDF format files. Originally published in AECbytes – Tips and Tricks Issue #37 3 ArchiCAD Tutorial | Using PDF Files in ArchiCAD