How do you create your PDF pattern files?

[oldmanserres]

Hi Steve!

No need to mention you are one of the top three "Steve" woodworkers (in alphabetical order Steve Carmichael, Steve Good, Steve Ramsey), who inspired me to begin woodworking, too!

I have a question to make.

What is the program you use to make these PDF patterns files? I have searched a lot, but didn't find anything useful at the internet.
I create my own designs in .eps format (vector graphics) and I want to export them at .pdf format, similar to your files. How should I be able to do that?

I would much appreciate your help!

My warmest regards.
Vasilis form Greece!

[Larry_B]

EPS is an Adobe file format used in Illustrator.  So are you using Adobe?  I'm not familiar with Adobe products as they are sorta spendy, but I'd think from within your application you should be able to do a Save As and select the PDF format or a File Export and again select the file format....

I use InkScape which has the ability to save as PDF format.

Larry

[oldmanserres]

Larry, thank you for your immediate response and interest in answering my question.
You intrigued me in using Inkscape, but I would like to hear to Steve's opinion, because I have seen his files and this is what I want to achieve. If you have any sample of how is your job exported, I would be very happy to see it!
I really appreciate your response and hope this is the right solution to my issue.

Best regards!
Vasilis.

[Larry_B]

Vasilis,

After thinking about this some more this afternoon I had another thought.  Are you running Win10 by any chance?  I believe  there is a built in print driver to print to PDF (at least it is on my machine)- see attachment "Win10 Print to PDF.jpg".

For how I save an Inkscape file to PDF format see the 'InkScape to PDF.jpg' attachment.

I hear Steve doesn't frequent this forum much.  I thought I saw something from Steve one time where he said he uses Corel Draw.  So what is your question about how Steve saves PDF files?  What are you trying to get from the file when saved?  Maybe someone else on the forum can help.

FYI I tried an experiment today in InkScape,  I purchased a Sheila Landry template.  They work fine, but I like my cut lines red and the areas being cut out a very light red.  In addition I'd like to scale the drawing up slightly so it's larger.  So I imported her PDF file into InkScape and did an Object to Path.  All the PDF data was converted to one object.  I did a Path Break Apart then deleted the inner line objects (you will run across this eventually) and merged the two halves of her template into one drawing.  Set the stroke and fill then scaled up to the size I needed.  From there I Save As a PDF.  I opened the PDF in Adobe Viewer and printed to my color laser using the Poster setting and cut lines.  This worked really slick.  Shelia - if you're reading this I hope this is OK???

So like I asked, what your trying to accomplish.

Larry
 

[oldmanserres]

Larry,

I tried the "Print as PDF" feature and it worked like a charm!
I also downloaded "Inkscape" and I am going to experiment with it.

Thanks a lot!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

My best regards!

[Larry_B]

InkScape has a bit of a learning curve to it, but there are great videos on YouTube that helped me a lot.  One fellow in particular is 'Logos by Nick'  He has some really good ones.  I needed to watch them a couple times and then play with my installation while watching.  There is also a good support community at InkScape that I've asked question to and gotten helpful answers.

Also, I was thinking about your question on 'doing PDF's like Steve'.  Were you looking to put instructions or other information in the same PDF of the templates you create?  With Acrobat that is a built-in feature, but there is a tool called PDFill that can do this, and more.  It's free and does not appear to have spy or adware in it.

Keep pluggin away, you'll get the hang of InkScape.  It's got a lot of useful capabilities.

Larry