Autodesk® DWF™ Writer 2009 README

Updated: 24 January 2008

Autodesk® DWF™ Writer 2009 includes the following components:

Autodesk® DWF™ Writer for 2D
Autodesk® DWF™ Writer for 3D
Autodesk® DWF™ Writer for CATIA® (V5R15 & V5R16)
Autodesk® DWF™ Writer for Pro/ENGINEER® (Wildfire™ 2.0 and Wildfire™ 3.0)
Autodesk® DWF™ Writer for SolidWorks® (2007 and 2008)

System Requirements

Microsoft® Windows Vista™, Windows XP Professional (SP2 recommended), Windows 2000 SP4
Microsoft® Internet Explorer® 6 or later
800 MHz Intel® Pentium® III processor (faster processor recommended)
256 MB RAM (512 MB RAM recommended)
160 MB free disk space for installation
800 x 600 VGA minimum (1024 x 768 or higher recommended)
Mouse, trackball, or compatible pointing device

Programs that Can Use Autodesk® DWF™ Writer for 2D

You can use DWF Writer for 2D to create DWF and DWFx files from any Windows program. Users of Autodesk programs (including AutoCAD based products, Inventor and Revit) should use the built-in DWF publishing capabilities to create DWF files. Pro/ENGINEER, SolidWorks and CATIA users should use the appropriate plug-in to publish DWF files.

The following programs have been tested with DWF Writer for 2D:

Adobe® Acrobat® 7, 8
Microsoft® Excel® 2003, 2007
Microsoft® Internet Explorer® 6, 7
Microsoft® PowerPoint® 2003, 2007
Microsoft® Visio® 2003, 2007
Microsoft® Word 2003, 2007

Known Issues for...

Autodesk® DWF™ Writer 2009
Autodesk® DWF™ Writer for 2D
Autodesk® DWF™ Writer for 3D
Autodesk® DWF™ Writer for CATIA® (V5R15 & V5R16)
Autodesk® DWF™ Writer for Pro/ENGINEER® (Wildfire™ 2.0 and Wildfire™ 3.0 )
Autodesk® DWF™ Writer for SolidWorks® (2007 and 2008)

Known Issues for Autodesk® DWF™ Writer 2009

When installing DWF Writer, a Windows File Protection dialog box may display the message, “Files that are required for Windows to run properly have been replaced by unrecognized versions. To maintain system stability, Windows must restore the original version of these files.” Solution: Click Cancel to decline restoring the original versions of these files. Then click Yes to keep the unrecognized file versions.
Microsoft® Windows XP Professional x64 edition is not supported.
Microsoft® Vista x64 edition is not supported.
Microsoft® Windows XP Home edition is not supported.

Known Issues for Autodesk® DWF™ Writer for 2D

Microsoft® Excel® 2003, 2007

Selecting a chart in Excel causes the Autodesk DWF menu to disappear. Solution: Select any object other than the chart to redisplay the Autodesk DWF menu.
Publishing an Excel workbook with different dpi settings for each sheet cause each sheet to be published as a separate DWF file, opening multiple Save As dialog boxes. Entering the same name each time causes the previous sheet to be overwritten. Solution: In each Save As dialog box, enter a different name for each DWF file. Then, in Windows Explorer, select the DWF file for each sheet, right-click and choose Merge to combine them all into a single DWF file.
Publishing a spreadsheet containing a chart with a large paper size and high dpi may result in a blank DWF sheet.

Microsoft® Internet Explorer® 7

On Microsoft Windows Vista, using DWF Writer for 2D with Internet Explorer 7 opens a security dialog box due to Internet Explorer's default security setting.
On Microsoft Windows Vista, using DWF Writer for 2D with Internet Explorer 7, the Printing Preferences Advanced tab may display the following message: "The advanced options are not available due to Internet Explorer running in Protected Mode."

Microsoft® Outlook® 2003, 2007

From a supported program, choosing Autodesk DWF > Publish DWF and Email causes the Formatting toolbar of the newly opened email window to be disabled.

Microsoft® Visio® 2003, 2007

Publish and Email is disabled in Windows® 2000 in Visio due to problems with sending email.

Microsoft® Word 2003, 2007

Some print settings of DWF Writer for 2D printer are unavailable. Solution: In Word, change the page setup settings, such as orientation, margins, and paper size.

Programs that Can Use Autodesk® DWF™ Writer for 3D

Bentley MicroStation® V8 2004 Edition
ESRI ArcGIS®—ArcInfo 9
Solid Edge version 18 and 19
UG NX 3, 4

Known Issues for Autodesk® DWF™ Writer for 3D

Parts may be listed without showing the assembly to which they belong.
For best results, open the program first. Do not open the 3D model yet. Open DWF Writer for 3D second and select any options you may want. Make sure that neither DWF Writer nor its dialog boxes are on top of the program. Click OK to capture, and then open the 3D model. See the DWF Writer for 3D Help for detailed instructions.
Cutting planes and cross sections will not be captured. The entire object is visible. You can add them back in Design Review.
The lighting in a DWF is not as bright as the original model if there are multiple lights. If lights are relative to the original model position, the model will be black upon rotating it.
Line styles may not resemble the line styles from the source program exactly.
If no file is created when you attempt to capture a 3D model:
- Check the DWF Writer for 3D Help to see that you have followed the instructions for your program carefully.
- If the status remains at “Waiting/Processing” for an extended period, you may need to rotate the model in the target program to force it to send information to OpenGL and for it to be captured.
- Or, take steps to correct a file installation problem. These may be caused by a Windows® protection policy:
DWF Writer does not capture multiple textures or texture and material blending.
DWF Writer does not capture emission of material.

Bentley MicroStation® V8 2004 Edition

When there are many textures, the size of the captured DWF file is larger than the original.
Color of area light cannot be supported.

ESRI ArcGIS®—ArcInfo 9

The view chosen by DWF Writer View is incorrect. It is best to deselect this option in the Options tab or to correct this view in Design Review.

Solid Edge version 19

After you have initiated a capture, do not move the DWF Writer for 3D window that indicates the processing status. Doing so may cause capture to stop and processing will continue indefinitely.
Annotations are not shown in the resulting DWF file.

UG NX 4

The Section View is not captured correctly.

Known Issues for Autodesk® DWF™ Writer for CATIA® (V5R15 & V5R16)

Only MD2 workbench has been tested.
Only parts, products and drawings can be published.
Cannot publish parts and products after the "Work with the cache system" option has been enabled. (Cache system is NOT selected by default in CATIA.)
In 2D drawings, text, area fill, and some symbols may not display as expected in the resulting DWF file.
Vector images in drawings cannot be published.
Lighting effect in Part and Assembly designs cannot be published.
In a 3D CATIA file, dimensions are not published or shown in the resulting DWF file.

Known Issues for Autodesk® DWF™ Writer for Pro/ENGINEER® (Wildfire™ 2.0 and Wildfire™ 3.0)

Only parts, assemblies and drawings can be published. Sketch, manufacturing, format, report, diagram, layout and markup cannot.
3D annotations cannot be published.
Some advanced features such as import feature, envelop component, wrap feature and blend between surfaces cannot be published.
Mixed texture and color are not supported.
Texture added in an assembly environment may not be published correctly.
Multi-texturing is not supported.
Cannot publish polygons with separate texture or materials applied to opposite sides of a polygon.
Lights may look different from the original model, especially when multiple lights are defined.
The following texture formats are supported: BMP, GIF, JPEG, TGA, TIFF, and PNG.
Cameras cannot be published.
Some drawing elements, such as entity color and text style, may be inconsistent with the original drawing.
When an empty template is used for drawings, the sheet drawing units may be incorrect.
"Break" feature in dimension extension lines, leaders, view arrows, axis lines or 2D entities cannot be published.
Snap lines of view which can locate dimensions and detailing items cannot be published.
Meshes added to a 3D model surface cannot be published.

Known Issues for Autodesk® DWF™ Writer for SolidWorks® (2007 and 2008)

DWF Writer 2009 does not support SolidWorks 2006. Solution: SolidWorks 2006 users should continue to use DWF Writer 2008.
For the first install, you must add the Publish DWF add-ins manually. Solution: Select Tools > Add-ins. From the "Other Add-ins" list, check the two "Publish DWF" options.
3D annotations and sketch cannot be published.
View Orientation can be published, but may look different from the original model, especially the assembly file.
Feature-level color and transparency cannot be published.
Light cannot be published correctly.
Mixed texture and color are not supported.
Only the wireframe version of a drawing can be published. Shaded view is not supported.
Some specific symbols cannot be published or errors may occur during publishing.
Text color and formatting (bold, italic, underline, and strikeout) applied using the text formatting toolbar cannot be published.
SolidWorks uses different line style and line thickness systems than DWF, so lines will not display as expected in the resulting DWF file.
For SolidWorks sheets, some views may have the wrong scale when multiple views in a sheet have different scales. Therefore new measurements may not be accurate.
In a SolidWorks file, a user defines and applies a custom texture from a picture stored locally on the user's computer. If the SolidWorks file is opened on a different computer, the custom texture will not be displayed in the published DWF file because the picture used by the custom texture is not available.