It is not possible to directly create a PDF from PDMS.
First you have make a PDMS plotfile of the drawing, and then you use the %PDMSEXE%\plot\plot.exe application to convert it to a postscript file. The postscript file generated can then be converted to PDF with different kinds of distiller applications (Free distiller, acrobat distiller etc) or by using the PDFCreator application.
PDFCreator is an excellent application. Once you have installed it you can make PDFs from any Windows applciation by using it as a normal printer. And the best of all, it is FREE. You can download it from http://www.pdfforge.org
You can use PDFCreator to convert your postscript file in the background by using arguments like: PDFCreator.exe -IF"c:\data\myfile.ps" -OF"c:\data\myfile.pdf"
It is possible to make a program that would do all the above steps within PDMS.
[QUOTE=TBack]It is not possible to directly create a PDF from PDMS.
First you have make a PDMS plotfile of the drawing, and then you use the [COLOR="Red"]%PDMSEXE%\plot\plot.exe[/COLOR] application to convert it to a postscript file. The postscript file generated can then be converted to PDF with different kinds of distiller applications (Free distiller, acrobat distiller etc) or by using the PDFCreator application.
About making the post script file using plot.exe, i encounter error the [COLOR="red"]dynamic link library cannot be found[/COLOR]. Can you help me fix this.
Search for dformd.dll in your Aveva directory and place a copy of this file in your plot (C:\AVEVA\Pdms11.6.SP3\plot) directory. You should then be able to run plot from a DOS command prompt.
I wrote this awhile ago and forgot that I had it, what it will do is batch convert all .plt files in a directory into .pdf files.
Anyway there are 2 file attached, plt2pdf.pmlfnc converts a .plt file into postscript file and then from there converts it into a .pdf file. batchPlt2Pdf.pmlfnc is a batch function that I wrote to process a directory of .plt files.
What you will need to do is download a piece of software from the net called GhostScript which is free from here http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gsview/get47.htm. Then install GhostScript. Change the !ghostscript variable in the batchPlt2Pdf.pmlfnc to reflect the install directory for GhostScript. Then in PDMS command line enter:
There may be something to watch out for. A while Adobe gave a presentation of Adobe 3D, the 3D model recording tool for Adobe PDF files. (Nice feature by the way!!) Anyway, something that the Adobe technical rep mentioned was that with some many "alternate" methods of making PDF files (like GhostScript and others) Adobe will begin to crack down. For future releases of the Adobe Reader software to be able to view a PDF file properly, the PDF file will have to be made with the Adobe PDF software. This may have been a sales ploy, but it may not be worth the risk for future development ... something to think about.
Then it is always possible to go for the Foxit Reader application. :shades_smile:
It is only one file, needs no installation, is faster that Acrobat Reader and does not cost a single buck (Foxit Software).
