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I'm trying to print to a vector PDF in Windows 7, but every software printer I've tried rasterizes the file (PDFCreator, Bullzip, Windows XPS Printer...). I don't have this problem on OSX, which creates proper vector PDFs than can be edited in Adobe Illustrator.

The program I'm printing from is called GreatSPN and is used to create Petri Net diagrams. Given that printing works properly in OSX, it's obviously not an issue with the software (they are the same version).

It seems like this might be a limitation of the operating system, rather than the printer software.

Can anyone help?

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  • (they are the same version) They might be the same version but it could still be that GreatSPN uses rasterized printing function in Windows to print to a postscript-compatible driver (i.e. PDFCreator etc) and in OSX vector-functions. If you have Adobe Illustrator on Windows try printing from Illustrator to PDFCreator and see if that creates a smooth vector PDF. If you don't have Illustrator on Windows you could try printing a vector PDF with Adobe Reader to PDFCreator. Is the output also rasterized? (And what version of GreatSPN are you running? The latest?)
    – Rik
    Jul 16, 2015 at 8:11
  • I spoke to the developer and he couldn't see why Windows was treating the output differently -- in other words, from his perspective the problem was with the OS/printer driver and not the software. I'll try your suggestion with Illustrator/Adobe Reader :)
    – melat0nin
    Jul 16, 2015 at 8:40
  • Interesting. I tried taking a vector PDF and printing through Bullzip to EPS and it worked fine -- it can be edited no problem. This would suggest the problem lies with GreatSPN...
    – melat0nin
    Jul 16, 2015 at 8:49
  • Actually I don't think it does. I just created a file in Fireworks and printed to both PDF and EPS in Bullzip and both were rasterized. Well, the EPS had a group of 7,600 objects(!) but they were just "strips" of the image instead of proper vectors, so were useless.
    – melat0nin
    Jul 16, 2015 at 8:57
  • I just tried a program called inkscape (you can try this one yourself). You can create and print vector files. If you print to PDFCreator it will create a PDF with true vectors which you can edit in Illustrator. So it's really not the postscript driver that's at fault but the program that prints to it (i.e. GreatSPN).
    – Rik
    Jul 16, 2015 at 14:17

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