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avillanueva
23-Emerald I
23-Emerald I
April 5, 2022
Solved

PDF Collaboration License and minimum CPS version

  • April 5, 2022
  • 4 replies
  • 4532 views

We just acquired the PDF Collaboration license for 11.1 system (CPS 12). This enables PDF mark ups in Creo View. It appears as " ptc_wnc_pdf_collab_n" in license management or "Windchill PDF Collaboration" online. It was missing its group and was not recognized when we loaded it to our test server.

 

I saw this in the knowledge base:

cs344466  cs348787 

 

Does this mean I am s.o.l. until CPS 18+ or Windchill 12?  They seemed to classify this as an SPR oopsie, but it truly cannot work before that CPS, they should declare clearly that there is a minimum CPS required. Any one come across this before? Any chance there is a side patch so as to not have to do an entire CPS update for this feature?

Best answer by romorrison

Hello!

 

Unfortunately the new PDF collaboration function in Creo View using it's native PDF viewer was released in Creo View 7.1 (so relatively recently), which was after the 11.1 release came out.  Due to this function being license controlled by Windchill (where all of the markups are stored), it required incorporating these license groups into the CPS releases to make them available for use in Windchill systems prior to 12.0.1.0.  

 

Regarding other's questions on this thread, there are two PDF markup related license capabilities with Windchill, they each accomplish the same thing however are tied to the technologies used to accomplish them.

 

Creo View PDF Review is used when performing markup using the Adobe Acrobat integration with Creo View for Viewing PDFs.  This feature gets enabled by the Creo View Adapter for PDF (they icons are no longer gray) but it is still required for each using creating markups in the system.

 

Windchill PDF Collaboration is a more recent capability which associated with using the native PDF viewer in Creo View which was released in Creo View 7.0.  This license feature is managed and enforced through Creo View's integration with Windchill and does not require an integration with Adobe Acrobat but as mentioned above it requires a CPS so that Windchill is aware of the license.

 

Hope that helps clear things up!

4 replies

HelesicPetr
22-Sapphire II
22-Sapphire II
April 6, 2022

Hello @avillanueva 

Unfortunately I believe if CPS exists PTC does not provide local update patch for older CPS that are out of standard support.

PetrH

16-Pearl
April 6, 2022

In 11.1 M020 CPS22, we can markup office and drawing PDFs and save annotation sets in Creoview 6.0.0.0 or 7.1.0.0.

We don't have any PDF Collaboration of PDF Review license, just Windchill PDMLink and CreoView Adaptors, what extra features does the license add?

The existing tools for marking PDFs in CreoView are a bit limited.

 

markuptoolbar.png

avillanueva
23-Emerald I
23-Emerald I
April 6, 2022

I can certainly confirm that it is greyed out in our system. I difference might be that you are publishing a EPM drawing as a PDF. That may be supported without this license. I am publishing WTDocs or WTDocs whose primary content is a PDF. The icons are greyed out. It was explained to my in licensing discussions that this license enables those markups on Docs to be active. Can you try opening a WTDoc with a PDF and see if it greys out the icons when you view that?

16-Pearl
April 6, 2022

It's the same markup tools for docs (PDFs)

markup doc.png

When marking something that's not a pdf the tools are a little better, but not much

 

markup dwg.png

What does PDF collaboration add?

 

Marco Tosin
21-Topaz I
21-Topaz I
April 6, 2022

Antonio,

I think the articles you cited don't match this one, or at least this one isn't fully updated based on the previous ones.

 

 

Marco
14-Alexandrite
April 18, 2022

Hello!

 

Unfortunately the new PDF collaboration function in Creo View using it's native PDF viewer was released in Creo View 7.1 (so relatively recently), which was after the 11.1 release came out.  Due to this function being license controlled by Windchill (where all of the markups are stored), it required incorporating these license groups into the CPS releases to make them available for use in Windchill systems prior to 12.0.1.0.  

 

Regarding other's questions on this thread, there are two PDF markup related license capabilities with Windchill, they each accomplish the same thing however are tied to the technologies used to accomplish them.

 

Creo View PDF Review is used when performing markup using the Adobe Acrobat integration with Creo View for Viewing PDFs.  This feature gets enabled by the Creo View Adapter for PDF (they icons are no longer gray) but it is still required for each using creating markups in the system.

 

Windchill PDF Collaboration is a more recent capability which associated with using the native PDF viewer in Creo View which was released in Creo View 7.0.  This license feature is managed and enforced through Creo View's integration with Windchill and does not require an integration with Adobe Acrobat but as mentioned above it requires a CPS so that Windchill is aware of the license.

 

Hope that helps clear things up!

23-Emerald IV
April 18, 2022

@romorrison,

I guess the thing I really don't understand is why markups with the embedded PDF viewer still requires an additional license ('Windchill PDF Collaboration'.)  I understand needing a license if PTC is relying on Adobe Acrobat for the integration, but there are dozens of free, open-source PDF editors, and now that PTC finally has their own viewer embedded in Creo View, why are they still charging extra for it?.  It doesn't cost anything extra to do markups on 3D models or plot files (HPGL), why should it cost extra to markup 2D PDFs if using PTC's own embedded viewer?  This additional license requirement is forcing us (and others) to avoid the licenses altogether and publishing using HPGL instead.  It seems like it would be in PTC's best interest to not charge extra for this function and thereby encourage everyone to move towards PDF output for publishing.