Pro/ENGINEER FAQ 2009

Summary: I don’t think there’s that much penalty associated with the WF3 PDF’s in M090 — Distiller produced a 84.5kb file. Looks like WF3 does a decent enough job, especially considering the time and effort saved! Now, it’s time to look at the keyword searching capabilities.

OK, so what’s new with PDF’s in WF3?

I’ve created a simple drawing in WF2 full of lorem ipsum text so I can evaluate different options and compare PTC, Ghostscript, and Illustrator. Maybe I’ll spend more time looking at drawings with more graphics, but I’m willing to bet that not much will change unless PTC starting messing with their Postscript output, which has always been solid.

Early results: It’s obvious — font substitution (“Use TrueType Fonts”) results in smaller files (9.0kb vs 90.2kb for my lorem ipsum drawing) than pure Postscript (“Stroke All Fonts”) but they don’t really look like the original drawings.

Early question: What font is PTC using in WF3 pdf’s? What stops a company with $millions$ in cash from developing a copyright-free embeddable font that duplicates the built-in monospaced sans-serif font they’ve been using all these years? That would trim file sizes a bunch. Maybe I’ll buy a copy of FontCreator for $79 and create my own!

A couple of background references on PDF font embedding: Adobe [PDF]

Early info on metadata: looks like something from the PDF spec (maybe this can be added to earlier PDF’S?). Looks like a bunch of Pro/I parameters as well as site parameters (which I’ve stripped). This is interesting:

How To: Write an XML packet that conforms to XMP into a PDF file without using Acrobat or PDF Library APIs

<x:xmpmeta xmlns:x=’adobe:ns:meta/’ x:xmptk=’XMP toolkit 3.0-28, framework 1.6′>
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf=’http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#’ xmlns:iX=’http://ns.adobe.com/iX/1.0/’>

<rdf:Description rdf:about=’uuid:635e52e7-7042-4abe-8057-5a513e3e6654′
xmlns:pdf=’http://ns.adobe.com/pdf/1.3/’>
<pdf:Producer>Adobe PDF Library 6.1</pdf:Producer>
</rdf:Description>

<rdf:Description rdf:about=’uuid:635e52e7-7042-4abe-8057-5a513e3e6654′
xmlns:photoshop=’http://ns.adobe.com/photoshop/1.0/’>
</rdf:Description>

<rdf:Description rdf:about=’uuid:635e52e7-7042-4abe-8057-5a513e3e6654′
xmlns:tiff=’http://ns.adobe.com/tiff/1.0/’>
</rdf:Description>

<rdf:Description rdf:about=’uuid:635e52e7-7042-4abe-8057-5a513e3e6654′
xmlns:xap=’http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/’>
<xap:ModifyDate>2007-08-05T19:40:20-05:00</xap:ModifyDate>
<xap:CreateDate>2007-08-05T19:40:19-05:00</xap:CreateDate>
<xap:MetadataDate>2007-08-05T19:40:20-05:00</xap:MetadataDate>
</rdf:Description>

<rdf:Description rdf:about=’uuid:635e52e7-7042-4abe-8057-5a513e3e6654′
xmlns:xapMM=’http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/mm/’>
<xapMM:DocumentID>uuid:63933569-4953-4fbf-9aaf-313511d304d6</xapMM:DocumentID>
<xapMM:InstanceID>uuid:635e52e7-7042-4abe-8057-5a513e3e6654</xapMM:InstanceID>
</rdf:Description>

<rdf:Description rdf:about=’uuid:635e52e7-7042-4abe-8057-5a513e3e6654′
xmlns:dc=’http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/’>
<dc:format>application/pdf</dc:format>
<dc:title>
<rdf:Alt>
<rdf:li xml:lang=’x-default’>Title</rdf:li>
</rdf:Alt>
</dc:title>
<dc:creator>
<rdf:Seq>
<rdf:li>Author</rdf:li>
</rdf:Seq>
</dc:creator>
<dc:description>
<rdf:Alt>
<rdf:li xml:lang=’x-default’>Subject</rdf:li>
</rdf:Alt>
</dc:description>
<dc:subject>
<rdf:Bag>
<rdf:li>Keywords</rdf:li>
</rdf:Bag>
</dc:subject>
</rdf:Description>

<rdf:Description rdf:about=’uuid:635e52e7-7042-4abe-8057-5a513e3e6654′
xmlns:ptcpdf=’ptc’>
<ptcpdf:parameter1>parameter 1 value</ptcpdf:parameter>
<ptcpdf:PDMREV>–.3+</ptcpdf:PDMREV>
<ptcpdf:PDMDB> </ptcpdf:PDMDB>
<ptcpdf:PDMRL>Released Production</ptcpdf:PDMRL>
<ptcpdf:PROI_REVISION>–</ptcpdf:PROI_REVISION>
<ptcpdf:PROI_VERSION>3+</ptcpdf:PROI_VERSION>
<ptcpdf:PROI_BRANCH>main</ptcpdf:PROI_BRANCH>
<ptcpdf:PROI_RELEASE>Released Production</ptcpdf:PROI_RELEASE>
<ptcpdf:PROI_MODIFIED>1</ptcpdf:PROI_MODIFIED>
<ptcpdf:PTC_MODIFIED>TRUE</ptcpdf:PTC_MODIFIED>
<ptcpdf:PROI_CREATED_BY> </ptcpdf:PROI_CREATED_BY>
<ptcpdf:PROI_CREATED_ON>7/24/2007 8:41:17 PM</ptcpdf:PROI_CREATED_ON>
<ptcpdf:PROI_LOCATION>something you’re not supposed to see</ptcpdf:PROI_LOCATION>
<ptcpdf:PTC_COMMON_NAME>something you’re not supposed to see</ptcpdf:PTC_COMMON_NAME>
</rdf:Description>

</rdf:RDF>
</x:xmpmeta>