topic publishing to PDF issue in Documentation

publishing to PDF issue

Anonymous — Fri, 19 May 2023 20:19:14 GMT

So iv been having this problem for almost 6 months now and I cant seem to work out what is causing it.
It started of as one job every now and then.. now its pretty much every job. And its pretty annoying cos we need the PDF files to email out to everyone. And at the moment I cant get working PDFs to come out of AC at all

When I publish my layouts to PDF (merging them all to one) and open the PDF up in adobe (PC) the PDF locks up and slowly crashes adobe takes about 3-4 minutes for it to crash.. in this time nothing on the PC can be used as it basically freezes everything up till adobe finally crashes.

I tried publishing all the pages to separate PDF’s which narrowed it down to one page.. my site plan page.. every other page works fine individually except the site plan page.. this is the page causing everything to lock up.

Question is why?? I cant work it out… it will publish and open fine with just the blank site layout page with my title block on it.. but once I add my view to it that’s when the PDF starts stuffing up.. so im assuming it’s the “site view” causing it.. but elements in the site view are also seen on most other pages (walls etc..) so I have no idea where to start looking for the problem?

Re: publishing to PDF issue

vfrontiers — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 03:36:40 GMT

Typically (for me) Site Plans and Elevations are particularly taxing on the system as they are full of fills and lots of lines.

Have you tried using the old AMYUNI driver ( or printing to PDF in MAC)?

I have a similar problem on MAC when the SET gets large (arch+struct+MEP) when the THUMBNAILS are showing. Seems PREVIEW (mac's pdf viewer) chokes on trying to create all those intense thumbnails at once. If I set the file to now show the thumbnails, all is well.

If you have a machine with MORE RAM, try to open it there...

If you have BITMAPS as part of your drawings on this particular page, try adjusting their compression first.

Just some ideas.

Re: publishing to PDF issue

Arcadia — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 11:45:20 GMT

Go to download.com and get a cheap or free PDF printer (I use PDF redirect v2 pro) then print straight from the layout navigator into this 3rd party PDF printer where you can compile, encrypt, reorder whatever. The quality of the pdfs are better than what the publisher gives also.

Re: publishing to PDF issue

vfrontiers — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:03:10 GMT

Arcadia wrote:
Go to download.com and get a cheap or free PDF printer (I use PDF redirect v2 pro) then print straight from the layout navigator into this 3rd party PDF printer where you can compile, encrypt, reorder whatever. The quality of the pdfs are better than what the publisher gives also.

I agree! and keep in mind that if you print SELECTED SHEETS FROM NAVIGATOR, it will build ONE PDF in order of Navigator Appearance.

Duane

Re: publishing to PDF issue

Jere — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:26:04 GMT

I use Adobe Acrobat. It's really not that expensive at all and does a great job of printing.

The problem I've had in the past was with solid fills (25%, 50%, 75%) etc. Once i deleted those: no problems.

Depending on the use of the PDF, you should also flatten it to speed it up.

Re: publishing to PDF issue

Anonymous — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 23:05:32 GMT

ill try a PDF printer as a work around for now.. im getting sick of archicad work arounds tho.. pay all this money and it just stuffs up all over the shop.

i *think* iv narrowed it down to the surveyors DWG that i import.. but it makes no sense.. cos when i get there DWG i open it, explode it, make it all one layer.. import it and set it to my selected layer.. so i cant see what would be causing it.... but its only when i have there details showing in a view.. then the page that view is on locks up

Re: publishing to PDF issue

Anonymous — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 23:12:26 GMT

cant seem to find PDF redirect v2 pro on download.com???
any otehrs peopel reccomend??

Re: publishing to PDF issue

Arcadia — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 23:19:59 GMT

Try www.exp-systems.com for purchasing PDF redirect.

Re: publishing to PDF issue

Anonymous — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 01:00:14 GMT

does it publish them all as one file tho?? "merged"??
iv got CUTE PDF printer and it prints each page as indevidual PDFs and asks me for a file name to save each one to as its printing .. which is pretty crappy and annoying

Re: publishing to PDF issue

Arcadia — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 01:16:58 GMT

PDF Redirect pro is great. You print each layout to the printer then each pages shows up in the software dialogue box that comes up allowing you to reordor the pages or delete and reprint individual pages, apply encryption, passwords, watermarks, authorship notes etc then you save to a single merged PDF file. You can also adjust print quality dpi etc. it does everthing you need.

Re: publishing to PDF issue

Anonymous — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:24:51 GMT

ok its defiantly the surveyors DWG.. but it only happens from one of our surveyors.. any one and everyone else’s survey plans are fine.. Except for theres.. very weird