Today it’s possible to export the layout of the data model to different bitmap formats (PNG, BMP and JPEG). These formats are ok for viewing on screen, but when you want to print them you want to get as high resolution as possible and for this reason it would be great if you could include export to PDF or any other vector format.
You may suggest that I print the document to PDF (Using Acrobat PDF printer or any other free PDF print drivers), but that is an unrealistic option as the resulting PDF ends up beeing 24MB large, compared to the 900kb PNG file, and takes a few minutes to draw up inside Acrobat Reader. So in essence the file is unsuable.
So would it be possible for TDM to include a streamlined export function to PDF?
Export to SVG is one of items on our To-Do list. Unfortunately, we will not manage to add this feature to the next commercial release.
In any case, its CR # is 55 429.
One can always print directly to a PDF file from any windows application (even if it does not support PDF) via free windows PDF printer drivers such as PrimoPDF. You simply install this freeware PDF printer driver, choose print from your application such as Toad Data Modeler), choose to print to the PrimoPDF printer - and this simply creates a PDF file with the print output. I use this with many apps - and even prefer to use it for apps that do support PDF - because I find their PDF implementation often superior and more consistent than what I get across different apps trying to do PDF
Thank you for the status update. I think SVG would be a very nice edition to the software and would solve the problem I think.
I also played around in TDM and discovered why the prints became so big. The solution to create a small and usable PDF file (via a PDF printer) was the following:
In “Workspace Format” under the “Shape” tab:
Uncheck “Shadow Effect”.
Under the “Entity” tab:
Uncheck “Gradient effect”.
When disabling these two options the generation of the PDF results in a 500kb file instead of a 24mb file.
It may prove useful for others with the same problem as me
Note that you have to have PDF printer software installed. In TDM, go to File Menu | Print. Choose your PDF printer from the available printers list. You can configure the properties and once you’re done, confirm by clicking OK.
Now, depending on your PDF printer software, you might need to go through some more settings, but in the end, you will get a PDF file of your model diagram.
