SW to Illustrator for Silk Screen Artwork
SW to Illustrator for Silk Screen Artwork
(OP)
Has anyone had any success creating silk screen artwork with SolidWorks and then importing into Adobe Illustrator and have the same text appearance?
I've created the artwork on a part within SW by extruding the text on the part surface. Then a drawing was created showing the artwork placement on the part. The text was hatched to fill it in. It looks nice and crisp in SW but when it is saved as a dxf and imported into Illustrator the interior of the text is filled in. For example a "D" has the center portion of the letter blacked-out.
If the drawing file is exported as a pdf or an Illustrator file a dark outline appears when the artwork is viewed as a pdf or within Illustrator.
I'm not an Illustrator expert by any means so any help or hints would be appreciated as I need to wrap this up for my client.
Thanks!
I've created the artwork on a part within SW by extruding the text on the part surface. Then a drawing was created showing the artwork placement on the part. The text was hatched to fill it in. It looks nice and crisp in SW but when it is saved as a dxf and imported into Illustrator the interior of the text is filled in. For example a "D" has the center portion of the letter blacked-out.
If the drawing file is exported as a pdf or an Illustrator file a dark outline appears when the artwork is viewed as a pdf or within Illustrator.
I'm not an Illustrator expert by any means so any help or hints would be appreciated as I need to wrap this up for my client.
Thanks!






RE: SW to Illustrator for Silk Screen Artwork
RE: SW to Illustrator for Silk Screen Artwork
RE: SW to Illustrator for Silk Screen Artwork
Save your drawing as a pdf, not dxf. AI will bring the pdf right in and honor all the outlines. If you do use font's in your drawing that are not supported in your AI font library in the sheet format, these will change, but if you have used text to do cut extrudes, then these outlines are vectors, not fonts. Don't use shaded or shaded with edges views, as they are raster, not vector.
Also, whenever you create and AI file for silks, convert any additional text you have used to outlines, as the vendor who recieves your files may not have these fonts.
You can bring the ai file back into solidworks too. make sure when you save it is in like AI10 format, and you have only what you want coming back in turned on. Make sure use compression is unchecked, otherwise SW won't read the file.
rfus
RE: SW to Illustrator for Silk Screen Artwork
But, I always had to call out the type and size of font for the artwork and send as a PDF, otherwise they would use their own.
Chris
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RE: SW to Illustrator for Silk Screen Artwork
Thanks but when I save the drawing as a pdf the text gets thicker. This is what I meant by the "outline" in my post. It happens with both pdf and ai exports. Is there maybe an option that's not set correctly when I create the pdf or ai file?
Thanks,
Dave
RE: SW to Illustrator for Silk Screen Artwork
Thanks for the tip, I'll look for that in AI.
Dave
RE: SW to Illustrator for Silk Screen Artwork
Put your outline on a separate layer, and turn that layer off. There is no need for Abobe illustrator, unless you have a corporate logo.
RE: SW to Illustrator for Silk Screen Artwork
rfus
RE: SW to Illustrator for Silk Screen Artwork
Thanks