Printing improvements

Tekla Structures
2023
Tekla Structures

Printing improvements

Tekla Structures 2023 introduces important improvements allowing you more control over printing.

Better workflow for batch printing drawings

The process of printing a large number of drawings at one go is now more reliable, and you have more control over the printing. If the list of drawings to be printed contains drawings that require numbering or updating, this is now indicated in a separate dialog box that is displayed before you can start printing. This allows you to print all drawings at one go, because you have already selected what to do with drawings that might cause interruptions, and you can even print overnight if you like.

To print drawings, select the desired drawings in Document manager and click Print. If you have selected drawings that need to be numbered or updated, the new dialog box is displayed. Select one of the options:

  • Print only up-to-date drawings (recommended) - This is the default option.
  • Number and update before printing drawings
  • Print drawings without updating
  • Cancel the whole process

When you click Print, a summary is displayed showing you the printing result and the drawings that need attention.

Note: You cannot update or number locked drawings.

Printing multibyte characters

When printing to PDF, if a correct font containing the needed multibyte characters is selected for Unicode characters, for example, in marks, the font is now shown correctly even if you do not embed the fonts. If the selected font does not contain all characters in the text, the font defined for the new advanced option XS_DEFAULT_UNICODE_FONT_DRAWING_PRINTING is used. The default value is Arial Unicode MS. This font might not be installed on your machine by default, and you may need to install it. You can also define another font that contains the characters you need and that you have installed on your machine.

Before:

After:

Other printing improvements

  • Previously, Tekla Structures always printed on the default tray. Now you can change the tray from the printer properties and the tray selection is saved. Using a bypass tray is also supported.

  • Printing watermarks using the PDF-Xchange printer works again. For more information on printing watermarks, see How to add a watermark in drawings.

  • If a drawing file name had an illegal character, the file could not be printed. In this particular case, the problem was caused by the new line character "\n" included in the applied advanced option. Now the list of characters that Tekla Structures replaces with an underscore has been expanded. The new line character is now replaced by "_", and creating the PDF now succeeds. Check the file naming conventions provided by Microsoft "Naming Files, Paths, and Namespaces" (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa365247.aspx).

  • Printing of reports using bold font is again possible.

  • Snapshots from Tekla Structures 2017 onwards now work. Earlier, there was no conversion for older snapshots, and newer Tekla Structures versions prevented the old snapshots from opening.

  • Now the positioning in snapshots, previews, and printing is working correctly.

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