[Seth Emery]

I use PrimoPDF at times to create PDF files of drawings to send to customers who don’t have CAD or a CAD viewing program. It is compatible with AutoCAD and many Microsoft Office programs. With PDF files becoming more popular and the ability to create them becoming cheap (or free), I would think that faxes would be old news for most customers and especially for businesses. It hasn’t happened yet though. We still get a lot of faxes for cooktop and slide-in range info, among other things, that come in all smudged. A lot of times, I still have to look up the cutout dimensions online because they are unreadable – that is if I can even read the model #. I’d rather just receive a PDF attachment or link to a PDF. Is anyone else dealing with this? Do you use PDF’s much? They do get overused in some applications. I’d rather read information that doesn’t need to be printed on a normal HTML webpage, but they are very useful when something needs printed out since the Adobe Acrobat reader is free to all and it is easy to select what info that you want printed. Maybe faxes are just used a lot by businesses because they can make a documented copy of what was faxed, but I would think that having a copy of the sent email with a link would provide the same security.

Have a nice evening,
Seth

[Andy Graves]

Thanks Seth,

I will add this to the Forms, Files and Docs section.

[Seth Emery]

Sure Andy, and thank-you. PrimoPDF sets up as a printer driver and is simple to use. Some of you may have more advanced PDF writers that allow user entry forms, etc., but for being free, PrimoPDF is quite useful.

Have a good one,
Seth

[KoryE]

Mongo, don’t understand this . Explain to Mongo how to save CAD files as pdf’s. Mongo have cabinet vision and Mongo’s customers can’t read them.

This site is so great, I would have never even considered trying to save a drawing as a pdf.

.

[Tom M]

Al,
If you’re looking to email a sketch to a customer, most CAD and design software allow you to save, or in some cases export, in a .jpg . This image file is very email friendly.

I use Corel Draw, where I can import a dxf or dwg and send it out as a pdf.
It’s a bit more complicated, but it allows me to send it out anywhere from email quality to publisher’s quality.

Tom

[Seth Emery]

Al,

Hi. I don’t have Cabinet Vision, so I can’t say for sure if PrimoPDF will work with it, but lets hope for the best. You can download PrimoPDF at http://www.primopdf.com . After you install it, just click on Print and change the selected printer to PrimoPDF. You will be “printing” to a file. Once you have your print settings set up and click Plot, or whatever you click in CV, PrimoPDF will ask you to browse to where you want to save the file and for a filename. There are also a couple other settings for if you will be using the file for display on a computer screen or for printing. I’m guessing this determines the resolution that the file is saved at. I always choose for printing. Then you click save (or maybe print – I don’t have it installed at home), and Adobe Acrobat should automatically start and show the PDF file that you just created.

Have a nice weekend,
Seth

[Shane Barker]

That’s really cool Seth,

Just the other day I was trying to figure out how to send a drawing to a customer to confirm the heat rod location. I finally printed the drawing, scanned it and emailed it to them. I got it done but took the long way to do it.

Shane

[Seth Emery]

Thanks Shane. That’s great you are going to be able to use it. I wish there was a way that a customer could put an electronic signature and approved note on the PDF without going through too much hastle. I guess you need the full Adobe program to make PDF files with user entry forms. Maybe just an approval email with the approved PDF attached would suffice. I know that just entering my initials on priceline screwed me over good. They are very shady and their customer service is outsourced, so they are just taught to say no to everything – kind of like that Capital One commercial – Marco — Pol-NO. They do have their butts covered though. Even the BBB couldn’t help.

That is cool that you were taking advantage of technology by scanning and emailing the drawing, and that the customer was open to that. We sometimes get architectural drawings from the general contractors in PDF or TIFF files for use while working on our shop drawings. While they are sometimes hard to navigate and print the needed sections out to scale, that is much better than paying for a set of drawings that you only use a small percentage of. It saves some trees too. If the drafter has done their job well and dimensioned things correctly, the PDF’s and TIFF’s work out great. It can be a real pain when they haven’t. I don’t know how the sales people do estimates/quotes off of some of the drawings. That just really costs the end customer more money, because I imagine everyone bids high just to be careful. I have no direct involvement in that area of the business, so I can only assume what my employer and others do.

Have a nice day,
Seth

[Steve Lefebvre]

I have the Adobe pdf utility because it came with my computers. Works good when I remember to use it. Most of the time I use Winfax to send drawings. My customers can then mark up the drawings and fax them back.

[Administrator]

Check the “Files, Forms and Docs”, the link is up. Thanks Seth for the great find.

[Andy Graves]

Seth,

Do you know how to make a survey with Adobe Acrobat? We are
working on a survey and I am trying to offer the survey online so
people can send it in by email. Any help would be appreciated.

[Tom M]

Andy,
If it will help, I can convert many files to .pdf if I can import them into Corel Draw. I think there are some versions of Word where this can happen as well.

What format are you designing the survey in?

Tom

[Tom M]

Oh, heck.
Just call me, give me whatever the heck you’ve got, and if I need to, I will redesign it in Corel for export, if that’s what it will take.

Signed,
Your humble servant.

[Seth Emery]

Andy,

Take a look at this website when you get a chance: http://www.coachville.com/cvmembers/pdf/trick.html . I like the idea of fill-in PDF forms, but, according to that webpage, users can only print them out after they have filled them in and are not able to save the filled in survey unless they own the full Adobe Acrobat software package. That would mean that they would have to fill out the survey, print it out, and then scan and email it or fax it to you. I was trying out a survey in Word, as Tom has written about, and it seems to be more flexible. You are able to save the survey as a template file, and then send a specifically-named survey to whoever you want. They can just fill it in, save, and send it back. You are able to lock the fields, so only certain parts can be edited. One nice benefit is that a lot of people have Word and could save the file. They could also download OpenOffice for free from http://www.openoffice.org if they don’t have Word. If you need any help working on the survey, just let me know.

Have a nice day,
Seth

[Author]

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