SparkFun Forums

[Mach3Maelstrom]

Hello again! I've searched several forums & documents and spent hours testing several solutions, but can't seem to figure this out...

I need to take my .sch and .brd (or gerber files) and convert them into vector-font PDFs. This way, I can search for "R4" in the PDF and it will highlight the part.
This is for documentation, so I need these in PDF format -- any other format won't work for this purpose here.

I've tried:

• Ghostscript
• Ghostview w/ PStoEdit
• PrimoPDF
• Printing my files to PDF/PS, and
• Converting to DXF and converting with AutoCAD DWG/DXF to PDF converter

These all produce a PDF that I can open with Adobe, but I can't search for text. I may have done one of the above incorrectly, so please help guide me in the right direction.

Thanks in advance!

[Ross Robotics]

Try PDFFactory.

[Mach3Maelstrom]

Thanks for your response, codlink! I downloaded PDFFactory and tried it out, but it prints out in much the same way as Adobe does: as an image.

[Ross Robotics]

hmm. Google some tutorials and see if your skipping a step. You're running Eagle 6.3, right?

[Mach3Maelstrom]

Yes, I'm running the latest Eagle Standard package and the latest PDFFactory freeware. I couldn't find such a tutorial after several hours of searching (I always search for answers before I post in the forum).

I searched the EAGLE help for "pdf" and got the following:

If the output file name has an extension of ".pdf" (case insensitive), a PDF file will be created. A PDF file can also be created by selecting "Print to File (PDF)" from the "Printer" combo box in the print dialog. Texts in a PDF file can be searched in a PDF viewer, as long as they are not using the vector font.

I have "always use vector font" on for proper gerber creation, but even after changing the font type in the schematics, it doesn't work...

[Ross Robotics]

Unfortunately, I cannot think of anything else being I am not at your computer. Maybe someone will chime in with an idea.