Free CutePDF Writer – setup and settings tips

Luke Johnson

After trying many free PDF Writers over the years, I have found CutePDF Writer to be the best.

In order to ensure you are producing the best PDF files you can (high quality while still keeping file size relatively small), please follow the steps below (when you have a chance, no hurry 🙂

Install the updated CutePDF Writer from here

Change the setting in the printer properties (Preferences and Printing Defaults) for ‘PostScript Output Option’ to ‘Optimize for Portability’ as a default.

Change the setting in the printer properties (Preferences and Printing Defaults) for ‘TrueType Font’ to ‘Download as Softfont’ as a default.

Navigate to C:Program FilesAcro SoftwareCutePDF Writer and open the file PDFWrite.rsp in Notepad. Change the line FROM
-dPDFSETTINGS=/prepress TO
-dPDFSETTINGS=/printer

(The path is C:Program Files (x86)Acro SoftwareCutePDF Writer for 64 bit machines)

Enjoy producing high quality PDF’s for free everyone!

Copy File Name and Path using Vista – Productivity Tip

Luke Johnson

Did you know that in Windows Vista you can quickly copy the file name and path of a file, and put it into the Clipboard as text? Simply:

  1. Select the file in Explorer

  2. Hold ‘Shift’ and right-click

  3. Choose the ‘Copy as Path’ option

You can then use this to ‘paste’ into a hyperlink, for example, in Outlook. I found this at http://www.watchingthenet.com/copy-file-name-and-path-as-text-in-vista.html

Autodesk Certification Exam Guides

Luke Johnson

Some dead links below… here is a current one.

You may be interested in becoming either an ‘Autodesk Certified Associate’ or an ‘Autodesk Certified Professional’. If you are interested, check out the Revit Architecture Exam Guides. Direct link to the Revit Architecture 2010 Certification Exam Guide here.

Other links that you may find useful:
Revit Architecture 2009 Certification Exam Guide
Exam Preparation
AutoCAD Certification Exam Guides

Free Keynote Manager from Emc2

Luke Johnson

This will be old news for some of you, but if you head over to http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=97765&highlight=EDIT+KEYNOTE&page=4 you will find a link to http://www.emc2architects.com/revit_tools.html where you can download a very handy Revit Keynote Manager for free!

Keynotes are a powerful tool that Revit wants you to use. They are often overlooked and under-utilised. If you want to increase your productivity and add more intelligence to your model while annotating, have a serious look at Keynotes.

How to use the new Keyboard Shortcuts Dialog and Tips

Luke Johnson

UPDATE: Check out my Supertip post at https://wrw.is/2010/04/supertip-3-keyboard-shortcuts.html

The Subscription Advantage Pack for Autodesk Revit Architecture 2010 has generally been received quite well. I am a little annoyed that I recently spent quite some time creating some parametric truss families, and now they give us the Structural tools! In reality though, it is a welcome and helpful update.

The new Keyboard Shortcuts dialog is great – it allows for easy viewing and updating of shortcuts. However, it does not allow you to ‘sort’ the priority of shortcuts that begin with the same letter. Here are a few tips on using the new dialog:

  • To open the dialog, go to the View tab, User Interface button, Keyboard Shorcuts…
  • To import your old shorcuts, click on Import, change the ‘Files of type’ drop down list to *.txt files, browse to your ‘Program’ folder and select the ‘KeyboardShortcuts.txt’ file. You can choose to overwrite or merge your shortcuts.
  • To ensure that a given shortcut works with a single key configuration (ie. Move triggered by M-Space, remove all other shortcuts beginning with ‘M’ and reassign them.
  • TIP – You can use the ‘number’ keys and assign shortcuts to these! If you are a gamer, it will be quite natural for you to select the number keys to trigger various weapons, powers or actions. Now, you can set Move to 1, Copy to 2, Rotate to 3 and so forth. These are your powers now!
  • TIP – By clicking the ‘shortcuts’ column heading in this dialog, it will sort the commands by their related shortcuts. This is a quick and easy way to see if there are any duplicates.

Enjoy the new Keyboard Shorcuts dialog and feel free to post any tips or comments you may have.PS – Here are some relevant AUGI forum links for your perusal:Help w/ new keyboard shortcuts?Subscription Advantage Pack for Revit