There seems to be a great deal of information lost when converting PDF files to TIFF. The files I receive are PDF and contain gray scale shading. From my experience these files are very slow to work with so we convert them automatically into TIFF. This greatly improves the speed but I lose all the shading, which makes it difficult sometimes to get an accurate takeoff. Is there anything I can do to keep the shading?
Loss of information from PDF to TIFF conversion
(7 posts) (3 voices)-
Posted 1 year ago #
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We've been discussing this internally. Historically we converted PDF files to black/white TIFF files becasue the drawings we designed to eventually be delivered in black and white. But recently architects have started using nore gray and even color.
Based on your input (and our own thinking), we'll probably switch to gray-scale TIFF files in a maintenance release. This should be out this month (12/2010) or next month.
Do you think this should be a user preference?
Also be aware that in early 2010 we improved our PDF drawing speed. It's not as fast as our TIFF drawing speed, but it's several times faster than it was.
Posted 1 year ago # -
This will be available in all releases 2.5.44 or later. We have completed the development and are testing. We expect to release this in early January 2011.
There is a user preference to generate Black/White or Gray-scale when converting to TIFF. If you don't chnage the preference, it will continue to generate Black/White.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Are you using the tiff converter in Etakeoff? It works pretty well but a 3rd party converter may help you. I have tried a couple and am currently using a batch converter that is quick as hell and yields pretty good results. It also provides some adjustments to DPI conversion rates and 8 bit gray to 32 uncompressed CMYK options for converting colors. I'm not sure what that last little bit means, but you can tinker with it and get better TIFFs from graphically dense PDFs than with some converters. It cost less than $30.00 and paid for itself the first time I used it. Just create a target folder in Etakeoff, then import the files from a folder or disk into the program, direct the program where to put the converted files, and push start. It will convert 300 drawings in less than 15 minutes. http;//www.PDF-TIFF-Tools.com/PDF-to-TIFF-converter.html
Posted 1 year ago # -
This capability is now available (version 2.5-50).
Click here to download.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Great John, I'm excited to try that out.
Posted 1 year ago # -
John, I just tried it out on a new project. Wow! It's a great improvement. The detail is fantastic and the speed is not affected. Great job.
Posted 1 year ago #
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