We are having real plotting issues when plotting to PDF from DWG that has hatch patterns with transparency settings. To make the drawing read well we use transparency settings on the hatch patterns, i.e. solid hatch with transparency setting at 70 for existing asphalt pavement and then solid hatch with transparency setting at 40 for proposed asphalt pavement. The drawing reads really well, but when we create a PDF (dwg to pdf) then try to plot the PDF to an HP plotter, the printing process goes into a flattening mode and takes 3-5 minutes before the plot actually gets sent to the plotter, if it doesn't time-out all together. Looking for ideas on an alternative to solid hatch pattern with transparency. We have tried using screening of the colors 50% screening, 70% screening, etc. but the issue then gets to be draw order, and getting info under the patterns to show through and be visible. it's a real pain to set up each drawing and each viewport. So looking for some cad people out there with ideas on how to work around this transparency issue. Worked with our cad reseller, we narrowed it down to an issue with the way adobe handles the transparencies when trying to plot. We got no help from Autodesk and we are having contractors/bidders having issues with printing plan sets because the printing goes into a flattening mode and times-out. We have set the system variable PDFSHX to 0, we've tried printing as an image, but the contractors don't always know those tricks and we can't tell them every time to change to "print as image". Done venting, hope to get some help out there.
Thanks in advance