Create a 3D PDF Template

The tutorial was made with an outdated 4.0 version. Please use the following path to add and edit your own 3D PDF templates.

C:\Users%username%\Documents\Visual Components\4.0\My Templates\PDFs

Is the old path C:\Program Files\Visual Components\Visual Components Premium 4.0\PDF Templates still valid to defined the templates for all users of the machine?

No.

C:\Program Files\Visual Components\Visual Components Premium 4.0\SrcTemplates\PDFs

Is it possible to edit 3D PDF templates with Adobe Illustrator? I tried to edit PDF template with Illustrator and the edited PDF looked fine, but there wasn’t any component on the layout.

You can edit a PDF in Illustrator, but you have to check with Illustrator if it allows you to edit 3D window content defined by a form field.

But I think I misunderstood your question. No, you cannot use Illustrator to “complete” the template. You have to use Adobe Acrobat to define form fields. The form fields are required to make the template work.

Thank you for answer.

I also have a follow up question. 3D Content window is always grey and I want to change it to white, but I can’t find a way to do that. Do you know, how to do that?

Thank you in advance!

In 4.1 there is a display option for setting the background color of a 3D PDF. As a result, it doesn’t matter what the background color is in the template because the display option will override it for the 3D Content window.

Alternatively, if you have Adobe Acrobat, you can change the background color of to whatever you want.

The whole process was a piece of crap in the early 4.0 and I’m glad it has been fixed with 0.5 update. Still hadn’t tried out the 4.1, but as far as I noticed, everything is satisfied with how templates are made there. Back then, it wasn’t obvious about even how to change the background colour, so everything I could do there was to save the pdf in a hit-or-miss and to edit that via another tool https://pump-it-up-job-form.pdffiller.com/ It was not so hard, but yet I prefer to work with one very file through the one very application, not dozens of them

The process of the tutorial or the process itself of creating a new template?

Yes, in 4.1 there is now a display option to set the background color for the exported PDF. However, if you are planning on using a color with alpha/transparency then run a couple tests to see if the color is rendered properly.

To create a new template use a tool that allows you to add form fields to a PDF as well as change the background image of the page. An all-in-one tool is Acrobat. Other tools like Word,PowerPoint, Illustrator, Gimp or Photoshop could be used to alter or modify the background image and create a new PDF. But the form fields would still need to be there or added later and given the right labels. So after the PDF is made to specifications (company logo, color scheme and layout of placeholders, etc.), the tool you linked could be used as well as this one, https://www.pdfescape.com/windows/

In a nutshell, you need a PDF editor and creator to make a new template.

How can you set the default view for the pdf and the object which the camera pivots about?

@ngerkens

great question. i don’t know, but will ask around. from what i understood from a quick search online, there is an option to do this in PDF reader.

http://3dpdfconsortium.org/2014/02/11/how-to-set-the-center-of-rotation-when-viewing-a-3d-pdf-file/

But i definitely see the value in the feature you are talking about.

EDIT: Not possible, but it is a good feature request. Maybe in future version :wink: