Hello Michael,

Its possible that the PDF export have layers and editable text as DXF export?

Thank you.
Best regards.
Carlos

Hi Carlos, the PDF export does already support layers, there are some options for how layers are generated that you can set under the "Line style options" button.

But it seems that many programs do not read layers from PDF files, I think Affinity designer does though.

Editable text is somewhat problematic because the text transformation matrix supported by PDF is limited and can't apply the division needed for a perspective transform. So I don't think it is possible to do editable text exported out from a 3D perspective view.

From an orthographic view it could be possible although there are some other complications too like it will be hard to preserve various kinds of formatting like tab stops and text alignment and justification. It's also kind of hard to control the precise size of the text so that it doesn't spill a little bit out of tight spots like an inline dimension's textbox.

I might be able to give it a try in the future for orthographic views but it may be hard to get it to work completely reliably.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

Thanks for response.

In a PDF file I would like to have separate layers as Styles in Moi. It's possible in "Line style options"? If yes, how to?

Concerning editable texts: on the DXF file export the text works perfect, so i need to combine those files.

Best regards.
Carlos

Hi Carlos,

re:
> In a PDF file I would like to have separate layers as Styles in Moi. It's possible in "Line style options"? If yes, how to?

If you are exporting out a file with solids in it where it generates a hidden line drawing, you can control the way layers are generated in the PDF file by pushing the "Line style options" on the PDF export options dialog, then you can set how layers are generated using the controls in the "Layer" column here:



Set it to "From style" if you want it to use the style name in MoI as the layer name in the PDF output.

So for example with a model like this in MoI:



When exported out to PDF if you set Layer "From style", then in Adobe Acrobat Reader you can open up the Layers panel here:



And see the layers are set up:




re: DXF export - a couple of things that make it easier for text to come through for DXF export is that MoI doesn't have to generate text fit inside inline dimensions because it exports a dimension entity for those instead of a text entity. There also isn't the issue of perspective projection not working because the text in DXF has the concept that it's placed in 3D space.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

Thanks for explanation.

I think i found an issue about the Moi's PDF file export.
The layers (like styles) are present when opened in Adobe Acrobat Reader, but not present (the same file, in my tests) in Adobe Illustrator (CS6 to CC2021), which i use to edit the file, if need.

I will use only the DXF file. For me its a slower workflow, have to import to Illustrator, correct the artboard size (is always to small), edit the colors styles/layers (all wrong, some times ilegible) and export it as a PDF file, instead of sending the PDF file right way to clients and/or suppliers.

Anyway, thank you for this wonderful software.

Best regards
Carlos

Hi Carlos,

re:
> I think i found an issue about the Moi's PDF file export.
> The layers (like styles) are present when opened in Adobe Acrobat Reader, but not present (the same file, in my tests)
> in Adobe Illustrator (CS6 to CC2021), which i use to edit the file, if need.

That's an issue with Adobe Illustrator's PDF file import - it does not support reading layers out of PDF files. It may appear to do so since it will read them from PDFs that it generates itself if "Preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities" is turned on in its PDF export options. But that works by embedding some proprietary extra data in the PDF file. Adobe has not documented the structure of this data and so other programs are not able to generate it.

But you can use .ai format for transfer from MoI into Adobe Illustrator which will support reading layers and has all the same content in it as PDF.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

Yes, i'm using the .ai file and it's working fine (got layers and editable text, so its easy to edit).
Before, i've made a quick test with .ai export and got the same result as the PDF file (no layers), but obviously i was doing something wrong.

Thank you.
Carlos