Experience the Possibilities Tour - Week 2 (and an AutoCAD Hip Tip)

My speaking schedule didn't quite permit me to get back to California for the weekend so I enjoyed a nice weekend in Orlando doing the Disney thing.  I've been to the parks on many occasion (ok - I admit to really enjoying the parks) but this is the first time I had the chance to ride the new Everest Expedition ride in the Animal Kingdom - WOW!  I really enjoyed that (except for the scary Yedi monster!).  I have played tour guide through the parks many, many times so if you ever need some advice - be sure to send me an email.  It was very busy this weekend between some late spring breaks and cheerleading competitions so the lines were quite long (which is always such a drag). 

Tomorrow begins the third stop on the tour (also in Orlando) and then I catch a flight over to Europe for a couple more speaking engagements including a great user conference in Amsterdam I am looking forward to (put on by the wonderful CAD Company.)  I  presented at the conference last year and really enjoyed it, I'm hoping for some nice weather in the Netherlands.

I received some additional great information regarding publishing to PDF via DWF that I thought I would pass on...

An AutoCAD Hip Tip to create Multiple Page PDF files directly from AutoCAD:

Another advantage of creating a DWF file first (and then creating a PDF out of the DWF as mentioned in my previous post) is the ability to create a multiple page PDF file (for those of you on AutoCAD 2007).

When you move to AutoCAD 2008 you can set the new PUBLISHCOLLATE system variable to 1 to create a multiple sheet PDF directly from AutoCAD...very cool!  A big thanks to Philip Schlickenmaier for bringing this to my attention!

And Mitch Hefter (from Dallas) gave me some great stats to support my theory on saving to DWF first for smaller PDF files - check out these numbers!

Facts from Mitch:

DWG File Size - 1.2 MB; 10 sheets, all in paper space

     DWF File Size - 318 kB
     PDF generated from DWF - 938 kB
     PDF generated directly out of AutoCAD 2008 - 2.1 MB
The above project consists of 47 DWG files (34.7 MB) and results in a 62 Sheet DWF of just 2.8 MB.  The DWF generated PDF is 9.1 MB-.

Big space savings here! Thank you both for such great info to share with others!