Thinner lines when exporting or printing a drawing as pdf

[Spedex]

Hello, whenever I export my drawing as a pdf or print it as a pdf the lines are all pretty thick. Acutally so thick that you cannot see any real detail. I would like to change that.

I read a lot about this tabe.pnt file, but i cannot find it anywhere.

Also i tried copying the following in my config.pro file:

pdf_use_pentable yes

use_8_plotter_pens yes

pen_table_file path_to_file

pen table file - example

pen 1 thickness 0.05 cm; color 0.0 0.0 0.0; drawing_color

pen 2 thickness 0.025 cm; color 0.0 0.0 0.0; letter_color

pen 3 pattern 0.5, 0.2 cm; thickness 0.025 cm; color 0.0 0.0 0.0; half_tone_color

pen 4 thickness 0.035 cm; color 0.0 0.0 0.0; edge_highlite_color

pen 7 thickness 0.015 cm; color 0.0 0.0 0.0; dimmed_color

This did also not work for me.

Could there be anything that I am doing wrong at the moment?

Greetings

Spedex

[tbraxton]

If you open the pdf file in Acrobat reader or Acrobat and then press ctrl+5 it will reduce the line weight of visible lines. Try this and see if it resolves your issue.

[MartinHanak]

Hi,

please search PTC Community web and help.ptc.com web.

You can read following pages:

https://community.ptc.com/t5/3D-Part-Assembly-Design/PDF-Thickness-Pen-Table/td-p/398264 

http://support.ptc.com/help/creo/creo_pma/usascii/index.html#page/fundamentals%2Ffundamentals%2Ffund_two_sub%2FSpecifying_Location_of_Pen_Table_File.html%23 

[Hidetaka · Accepted solution]

I think the problem is that your defined thickness for drawing_color is so thick. 

I set the thickness 0.026 cm, and it works fine. (You can reduce thickness until it looks good)

Also, if you literally copy those lines to config file, I think it won't work:

---

pdf_use_pentable yes

use_8_plotter_pens yes

pen_table_file path_to_file

pen table file - example

pen 1 thickness 0.05 cm; color 0.0 0.0 0.0; drawing_color

pen 2 thickness 0.025 cm; color 0.0 0.0 0.0; letter_color

pen 3 pattern 0.5, 0.2 cm; thickness 0.025 cm; color 0.0 0.0 0.0; half_tone_color

pen 4 thickness 0.035 cm; color 0.0 0.0 0.0; edge_highlite_color

pen 7 thickness 0.015 cm; color 0.0 0.0 0.0; dimmed_color

---

You should create a .pnt file and define the thicknesses inside that file, not in config.pro.

For example, if you create customThickness.pnt and put it into folder  D:\Creo_Config

The following option should be set in config.pro

pen_table_file D:\Creo_Config\customThickness.pnt

The contents of customThickness.pnt is similar to your text, eg.

pen 1 thickness 0.05 cm; color 0.0 0.0 0.0; drawing_color

pen 2 thickness 0.025 cm; color 0.0 0.0 0.0; letter_color

pen 3 pattern 0.5, 0.2 cm; thickness 0.025 cm; color 0.0 0.0 0.0; half_tone_color

pen 4 thickness 0.035 cm; color 0.0 0.0 0.0; edge_highlite_color

PTC has an support article on this, and I think the article is very helpful.

https://www.ptc.com/ja/support/article/CS124860?art_lang=en

[Spedex]

Thank you all very much for your answers.

I created this table.pnt file and changed the value from 0.05 cm to eg 0.02 cm. It worked.

But I came across a new problem.
The central axes as well as the hatching is not effected by those changes:

I tried changing the values of the other pens, but also this did not help.

In explicit i tried changing the following values:

Does sombody have any idead how to fix that?

Greetings
Spedex

[MartinHanak]

---

@Spedex wrote:

Thank you all very much for your answers.

I created this table.pnt file and changed the value from 0.05 cm to eg 0.02 cm. It worked.

But I came across a new problem.
The central axes as well as the hatching is not effected by those changes:

I tried changing the values of the other pens, but also this did not help.

In explicit i tried changing the following values:

Does sombody have any idead how to fix that?

Greetings
Spedex

---

Hi,

Axes ...

By default axes have brown color. In this case you have to add datum_color keyword to some pen.

Eg. pen 2 thickness 0.025 cm; color 0 0 0; letter_color; datum_color

X-hatching ...

What color is assigned to you x-hatching? In my case it is Letter (pen 2 in your pentable)

[Hidetaka]

If you reduce the thickness of all pens but the hatch and central axes are still thick, it is because the colors assigned to them are not specified in the .pnt table.

As MartinHanak has pointed out, you should first determine which color is assigned to which entity, then make necessary changes to your .pnt file. I guess what you need is section_color and datum_color.

Note that one pen can be used for multiple color_name, for example:

pen 1 color 0.0 0.0 0.0; thickness 0.02 cm; drawing_color, section_color, datum_color 

[MartinHanak]

FYI ... section_color is assigned to Sketch features .

[Spedex]

Thank you all very much for helping.

This issue seems solved now.
Came across another problem though.

I posted it here:

https://community.ptc.com/t5/3D-Part-Assembly-Design/Style-of-lines-changes-after-printing-as-pdf/m-p/824709#M125847