Exporting Layouts as PDF or PNG with a black background

Rhino Rhino for Windows
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I’m making technical drawings in Layouts that aren’t meant for print. I need them to be a black background with white text. I set the color in Appearance - Colors - Layout, and my sheet looks as intended.

PDF export errors
However, I can’t manage to export it properly as a PDF. No settings in the Print- AdobePDF dialogue seem to keep the black background and just show illegible white text on a white background. I tried just placing a black image across the entire background and running SendBackward, but the details don’t layer on top of it for some reason, rendering them invisible. So PDF doesn’t seem viable for anything but a white background in Rhino.

ViewCaptureToFile limitations
My only workaround is to use PrintDisplay (State = On) and ViewCaptureToFile. I have to crop it though since it captures the entire view and not just the paper space, which is annoying, and some rasters (created with Picture command) have incorrect colors despite being in typical RGB color mode.

ViewCapture scaling bug
These shortcomings aside, ViewCaptureToFile also has a scaling bug that doesn’t allow me to use anything past 1x. I posted that report here.

I would love to be able to stylize my Layouts without having to conventionally resort to Adobe Illustrator or another program. I hope I’m overlooking a workflow or that these features are added/fixed.

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@mcneelsoftware Bumping this. Apologies if I’m overlooking something, but I think Layouts should be capable of exporting a colored background and that v8 shouldn’t be passing the buck to Adobe at this point in the software’s timeline. Please also see my related bug report linked above.

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Hi Matt -

I’m not sure which version of Rhino you are using. Please run the Rhino SystemInfo command and copy-paste the output here.

That said, in a current version of Rhino 8, when you use “Rhino PDF” (i.e., not AdobePDF as you seem to be doing?), the Visibility -> Background Color will include that background color in the PDF.
-wim

1 Like
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Thank you Wim. I was indeed overlooking something very simple- the visibility section checkboxes. Really appreciate your help.