Overlapping text displayed in PDFs created with AutoCAD

Autodesk Support

Oct 8, 2023

Products and versions covered

Issue:

When creating PDFs in AutoCAD 2016 and newer, opening them with the Preview app on a Mac will display overlapping text.

duplicate - overlapping text in PDF

Environment:

Mac Preview app

Causes:

A design change was introduced in AutoCAD 2016, where text objects using SHX fonts get copied into comments within PDFs, so that the text will be searchable.
The Preview app displays the comments, as well as the graphical representation of the text.

Solution:

Adjust the system variables that control the new PDF searchable text feature in AutoCAD.

  • Type in PDFSHX at the command line and set the value to 0.
  • For Mac versions of AutoCAD and the Windows version of AutoCAD 2016 with SP1 installed, the system variable is EPDFSHX.

If adjusting this system variable is not an option, you can work around the issue in the following ways:

  • Download and install the Adobe Reader software onto the Apple operating system, and use it to view PDFs, instead of the Mac Preview app.
  • Replace all SHX fonts with True Type fonts like Arial, Tahoma, etc.
  • Create PDFs from AutoCAD programs 2015 or earlier.

Products:

AutoCAD for Mac; AutoCAD LT for Mac; AutoCAD Products;

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