Home

Creating a VW Plan set PDF

10-05-04 New Test Version: VW PrintSheets 10.43 --Free!!

Use at your own risk. AND Use on test files or copies of files until you understand how VW PrintSheets works and are successfully copying or Printing VW files.

VW PrintSheetsP 10.43.app.zip

Feedback appreaciated...I don't have a lot of time to test this so your reaction or experience would be appreciated. If you are interested in a Print version (no PDF or Acrobat) email me and I will post one.

VW Printsheets will automatically print mulitple sheets of a VW file.
It can also save multiple sheets as a single multipage, bookmarked PDF file.

It uses GUI scripting to open dialog windows, type in fields & click buttons, running the interface like a user...so it must take over the computer during its actions.
This new test version further automates printing and pdf-ing by allowing Printer, Preset and Job Setting choices to be made in the opening dialog. Once "Print" or "Create" are clicked, a list of the active VW file saved sheets is displayed to select for print or pdf.
Printing: The sheets are sequentially displayed and printed from VW.
PDF: The sheets are sequentially displayed and printed (saved as a ps file with the sheet name). Then combined and distilled into a single page PDF. Then the multipage PDF (now named "Combined.PDF" automatically opens in Acrobat and is optionally bookmarked with the saved sheet name for each sheet. The VW PrintSheets application finishes leaving the "Open Options" dialog of Acrobat open for setting the initial opening state for the combined PDF. Use "Save As..." to perminantly save the combined PDF to your own chosen folder.
Special Info: postscript and PDF files are saved in the folder "VWpsTemp" on your desktop. Each time VWPrintSheets 10.43 "Create PDF" is run, the desktop folder "VWpsTemp" is deleted and recreated. Erasing previous postscript and PDF files. So saving the combined PDF to a different location is essential if you want to keep a copy of a particular PDF.

Requirements:

• Mac OS X 10.3+, VW 10.5 (not tested with earlier versions), Adobe Acrobat 5.0 for creating PDFs
• Requires activating AppleScript UI Scripting -already included in Mac OS 10.3+

PDF-Combine Info:

PostScript Printer: / Sheet Printer:

Are the printers to be used to create postscript files / to print the selected saved sheets.
Choosing "Update" will open the system application "Printer Setup Utility" to get a list of installed printers to put in the printer menus.
Select a Printer to be used to Create PDF or Print Pages

Postcript / Sheet Preset:

Are the presets that appear in the print dialog window.
Choosing "Update" will open VW and the print dialog to copy of the list of presets to the VW Printsheets menu.
Sellect a Preset to be used to Create PDF or Print Pages.
(My preset "PostScript VW" has the Output Option "Save as File" checked with choice option "PostScript" selected. You need to create a preset like this to be able to save postscript files to be distilled into a multipage PDF.)

Distiller Settings:

Are the available Distiller Job settings files.
Choosing "Update" will open Acrobat Distiller and copy a list of available job settings to the menu.
Sellect a setting to be used by Distiller to create the PDF
(I needed to create a special setting "Print(24x36)" to create 24x36 PDF sheets)

• NOTE:
  I do not try to auto-print any saved sheets that require long rendering times(over 1 minute) and the script may time out on long renders. I export rendered views as images and import them back into saved sheets when necessary to print complex renderings. This simplifies and speeds up displaying, and printing of the rendered views in both VW and any final PDF document that is produced.

  Using VW PrintSheets

  Since Printsheets uses GUI scripting...It must be running the computer. If you click a button or switch apps while it is running the interface. Printsheets will probably get lost and eventually time out.

  However, If printing stops ...or PrintSheets gets confused ...or you interupt it or want to stop printing. Force-quit the VW-Printsheets application by holding down Command-option while selecting VW-Printsheets in the dock. A pop up menu will display the "Force-Quit" option. Restart the application to begin again.