Solid Edge PDF files from Solid Edge are created with raster not vector graphics

After upgrading to a newer Solid Edge version customer was stating that their generated PDF files were no longer being correctly generated with vector graphics but instead were being generated with raster graphics.  Customer wanted to know how to explicitly create PDF files with vector graphics as they were in the earlier version of Solid Edge.

Solution

Whenever you open a PDF file into Adobe Acrobat, you can query the file properties and determine from where that PDF file was created.
 
A PDF file I created using the Solid Edge Save As Translated to PDF.  This creates a vector PDF file  -- note the authoring application is "GPL Ghostscript 9.19":   
 
The file provided by the customer which does not have vector graphics -- note the authoring application is "Microsoft Print to PDF".  This PDF is generated by using the Solid Edge Print command and the resultant output is based on the Microsoft PDF printer driver not Solid Edge settings:

The file provided by the customer which does have vector graphics -- note the authoring application is "GPL Ghostscript 8.61".  Additionally, the Application is set to PDFCreator.   This PDF is generated by using the Solid Edge Print command and the resultant output is based on the PDFCreator printer driver not Solid Edge settings:

Therefore it is apparent that the customer is using the Solid Edge Print command to generate their PDF files from.  The resultant output of those PDF files is solely dependent on the printer driver settings.  There is nothing within Solid Edge to control the PDF generated output once sent to the printer driver for processing.  The customer will need to adjust their PDF printer settings to ensure that vector PDF file is generated if using the Print command to create PDF files from.
 
Instead, the customer should be using Application Button -> Save As -> Save As Translated and selecting PDF as the file format.  This will then give the desired vector format:

If for some reason the customer is opposed to using the Solid Edge Save As Translated command and instead wants to use the Solid Edge Print command then the customer will need to locate and install a PDF printer driver that provides the desired and suitable results.  Either way, this is not a function of Solid Edge.
 
As the customer was clearly using PDFCreator for their one vector PDF file, PDFCreator can be downloaded and installed from http://www.pdfforge.org/pdfcreator
 

Hardware/Software Configuration

Platform: INTL64
OS: window
OS Version: n/a
Product: SOLID_EDGE
Application: DRAFT
Version: V110.0
Function: FILE

Ref: 002-8002437