Open Windchill PDF files directly in viewer, not Creo View LITE. (RESOLVED)

[mdavis-2]

Does anyone have a solution for opening PDF files directly in PDF viewer, ie Adobe, instead of Creo View LITE?

[bagul.yogesh]

Have you tried associating .pdf extension to open with Adobe always than Creo View LITE? Its a user computer setting, not Windchill. This usually works when you click on pdf icon on info page.

[mdavis-2]

Thanks, Yogesh.

Yes. That is the way we have it setup and it works for opening pdf files in folders and when clicking pdf icons in Windchill. The issue manifests itself when we click the thumbnail from the search page or the details page it tries to open the pdf via an Adobe plugin in CreoView. This often fails and then the pdf file opens in Adobe.

Seems it would be a lot simpler not to have to install and maintain CreoView LITE, Adobe Reader and an Adobe plugin, several versions of Microsoft C++ libraries (both 32 and 64 bit 2008 & 2010 versions for m040), a pvvercheck plugin for the browser (that is constantly out of date), etc.

Once everything is synchronized and this is running properly, an auto-update of Adobe Reader causes everything to fail again. This failure causes CreoView LITE to pause for a minute or so and then an error message stating Adobe was installed incorrectly is displayed and the file opens directly in Adobe Reader.

This is especially troublesome on installations that the user does not have local admin and where all we need is View & Print. There is a PTC CS Case that identifies this issue as being caused by Adobe being installed after CreoView and although this is most probably one source of the error, it does not completely resolve the issue.

[cc-2]

Hi

what about using a different format for your visualisation file. The CAD worker is not limited to pdf, you can have pvs and I personally find that format more powerfull than pdf.

OK this will mean republishing all your drawings.....

Best regards

[mdavis-2]

> ISSUE RESOLVED <

Excellent solution, Nac. Publishing drawings as pv files instead of pdf eliminates the overhead of Adobe Reader and associated dependancies while providing a common interface for both View & Print functions and View & Markup. Coupled with the pvvercheck solution mentioned in another thread, this looks like a very workable solution. Thanks, all! -Marvin

[SteveVinyard]

Also the PDF can be made available as an "Additional File" (WC 10.1) while the PV file is still acting as the normal visualization file.

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Steve Vinyard
Senior Solution Architect

[cc-2]

Martin

glad I was able to help.

Good luck with republishing all your drawings. How many do you have and how many CAD workers do you have ?

Steve.

for what reason would you want to create a pdf that way ? How would you access it ? This will also take more disc space all those additional pdf. There are surely very good reasons for wanted this but I can't see any at the moment.

Best regards

NacNac

[mdavis-2]

Thanks NacNac & Steve,

Looks like we can have our pvs and our pdf too.

Republishing has not been a big issue with out small volume of files.

In testing, the "Additional File" pdf appears in the details page with the system assigned icon for pdf files (Adobe in our case). This file opens directly in the pdf reader.

I like the pvs generation solution and coupled with the "Additional File" functionality of 10.1, we have a solution that both solves our issues and provides even more functionality.

[SteveVinyard]

Everyone wants a PDF but you don't want to publish drawings as a PDF by default because they can't be marked up save for an expensive Adobe Plugin. A PDF is needed at almost every single customer I've ever been at in the last 9 years. They need it to send to Vendor/Supplier/Customer. They need it to be dumped into ERP system manually etc etc.

This gives you the capability to do so but is smart enough to only be done on Released objects.

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Steve Vinyard
Senior Solution Architect

[borourke]

Are these pdfs from ProE drawings or AutoCAD? Our NASA would like to have pdfs created from when our AutoCAD drawings are uploaded in a similar way the Creo does for ProE and the drw files. PTC gave us a solution with a customized worker agent, but we we wondering if anyones has tried to do this for their Autocad files. Thanks in advance!

In Reply to Marvin Davis:

Does anyone have a solution for opening PDF files directly in PDF viewer, ie Adobe, instead of Creo View LITE?

Send lawyers, guns, and money...the sh!t has hit the fan!

[cc-2]

Hi,

we do publish our Autocad file automatically on selected Set State but it is to create the pdf outside of Windchill.

People who wants to view the autocad file from Windchill all have a free autocad viewer. Therefore after download that viewer opens.

Others who do not have access to Windchill access the pdf.

The application we use create and delete the pdf depending on the life cycle state. This is the same application we use to create pdf outside of Windchill of our ProE drawings and documents (word, excel etc....)

I believe this application can also automatically upload the pdf as secondary content but we have no need.

Let me know if you want to know more about that application. I am more than happy sharing my experience.

Best regards

[TomU]

Can someone clarify how you are switching the output from PDF to PVS? When I look at the recipe file output optionsfor drawings (in 10.1)I only see HPGL, CGM, DWG, DXF, and PDF. No PVS. What exactly are you changing?

When I download a representation (in 9.1), I get a zip file containing a PVS, PDF, and PVP. From the documentation a PVS is simply a structure file. I think it simply tells Creo View what to open (the PDF in this case).From what I can tell Creo View is simply a wrapper for the PDF.In the past when aPDF representation did not open inside Creo View but in a separate PDF windowthere was a version incompatibility between Creo View and Acrobat Reader.

Tom U.

[SteveVinyard]

HPGL is it. That is the OOTB plotfile. Its much more usable as a viewable for markups etc.

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Steve Vinyard
Senior Solution Architect

[TomU]

Just to clarify for anyone else who might read this thread, setting the output to HPGL produces a PLT (plot) file instead of a PDF file. The PVS "wrapper" file still exists regardless. I would like to have a discussion about the pros and cons of PLT vs. PDF, but I can start a separate thread for that. Thanks.

Tom U.