Troubleshooting: Printing Views and Sheets

Learn how to solve common problems when printing views or sheets.

Hyperlinks in electronic PDF files do not work

When you print views and sheets to PDF files and open a PDF file, the hyperlinks between PDF files do not work as expected.

This issue can be caused by one of the following situations:

You are using the Windows Store Reader app on Microsoft® Windows® 8. The issue is a feature design limitation of the Windows Store Reader app. For details, visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2777631.
To resolve the issue, use another PDF viewer that supports hyperlinks, such as Adobe Reader®.
The PDF print driver used to generate the PDF file does not support hyperlinks.
To resolve the issue, check the specifications for the PDF print driver. If it does not support hyperlinks, use a different PDF print driver, such as the Adobe PDF® print driver.

See About Printing to PDF and Print to PDF.

Printer is out of memory

Most printer drivers offer an Avoid out of Memory option. Enable this option if you experience a crash or reach the buffer's limits when printing. Refer to your printer's manufacturer for further information.

PDF file is overly large

When you add non-rectangular crop regions to a view and then generate a PDF file of the view, the resulting files may be very large. This result is caused when the crop region is represented as a polygon consisting of thousands of segments.

To remedy the situation, do one of the following:

Reduce the resolution (DPI, or dots per inch) of the output file. For example, reducing the resolution to 600 dpi or 300 dpi may result in files of an acceptable size.
Use a PDF printer that handles non-rectangular crop regions correctly, such as Adobe® PDF.
Replace the non-rectangular crop regions with rectangular crop regions. You can also use masking regions to achieve the non-rectangular crop shape.

You have chosen to print x views/sheets as separate files. This operation cannot be canceled.

This message displays when you are printing multiple views and sheets to PDF or XPS as separate files. Once the print job begins, you cannot cancel it.

To proceed with the print job, click Yes.

To cancel the print job, click No. If desired, you can restart the print operation, saving multiple views/sheets to a single PDF or XPS file. In this case, you are able to cancel the print job if needed.

Only a portion of a print job comes out on a sheet

Several printers have limited on-board memory to process print data.

When printing large format sheet sizes to plotters such as the HP DesignJet, change the plotter's settings so that the data is processed in the computer.

To change the settings, click (Print). Select the correct printer, and click Properties. In the dialog, click the Advanced tab. Select the option to process the document in the computer, and click OK.

Surface patterns are partially submerged

Click Print (Print Setup). In the Print Setup dialog, under Hidden Line Views, select Vector Processing.

I do not want reference planes, crop boundaries, and scope boxes to print

Reference planes, crop boundaries, and scope boxes are hidden for printing by default.

To show them when you print, click Print (Print Setup).

In the Print Setup dialog, clear the options for reference planes, crop boundaries, and scope boxes.

I do not want reference planes to print

Click Print (Print Setup).

In the Print Setup dialog, select Hide ref/work planes.

I choose black lines or gray scale in Revit LT, but my printer still prints in colors

Some printer drivers override the Colors setting that you specified in Revit LT. To get the desired color output, manually set the color through your printer’s properties.

Imported images print differently from the on-screen display