Overwhelmed by Autogenerated PDF Comments from AutoCAD?
- Andrew Harrell
- Jan 11, 2024
- 1 min read
At Deconstruct Terrain we want to provide tips for various software. As part of the series, I want to start with a pet peeve of mine, PDFSHX for AutoCAD.
PDFSHX is a system variable that controls how SHX fonts are handled when exporting to PDFs. A system variable controls how certain AutoCAD commands function. It is something that you only have to set once on your computer and is the active setting every time you use AutoCAD.
SHX fonts, or shape file fonts, are typically simplistic fonts with much fewer vectors than TTF or OTF fonts. It is my preference to avoid SHX fonts but you may still come across them in company standards, survey files, or other consultant files.
I have seen too many construction drawing PDFs that have hundreds to thousands of autogenerated PDF comments upon opening. This causes some file slowness and complicates a typical review process when real humans want to add additional comments.
Make your PDF files more professional and more efficient by the having the correct PDFSHX variable set. I always set PDFSHX to 0 because I still want the SHX fonts to print to PDF but I do not want them to be created as PDF comments. But see the table below from Autodesk to evaluate if any of the other system variable are appropriate for your situation.
Value | Description |
|---|---|
0 | No additional comments are created when exporting a PDF file. Text that uses SHX fonts is preserved visually as geometric objects. |
1 | Creates comments from text objects that use SHX fonts. |
2 | Creates hidden text from text objects that use SHX fonts. |
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