topic Re: PDF Purgatory in Documentation

PDF Purgatory

PB — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 18:53:06 GMT

We are now on Archicad 29 and PDF creation is as painful as ever !

What is the point of having image textures (which are great for bringing the project to life on screen) when PDF output is so problematic? Currently trying to publish drawing sets and complete BIMx sets and every time the publication process hangs as soon as it reaches the first sheet of sections/elevations. We can, painstakingly, publish them one sheet at a time. However, every attempt to publish a set hangs (spinning beach ball). Perhaps it would eventually publish if left to run for a sufficiently long spell but that ties up the workstation.

I'm not sufficiently technically knowledgeable to know why Archicad PDFs are so large, cumbersome, & problematic, but its driving us insane...and its hardly a new problem. (layers & project info deselected, images & curves limited to 150dpi. Lossless images compression)

...A3 sheet with 4 sections of a small project hangs publication. Published individually it gives a 26MB file that both Preview and Nitro PDF Pro struggle to open.

Are we missing something? Doesn't everyone come across this problem? And, why on earth hasn't it been resolved yet?

Any advice that might help, please?

Edit:

Graphisoft: Please add the option to publish "flattened" PDF files to a user defined resolution. Would this not resolve a large part of the problem, and let us benefit properly from the "surfaces" in Archicad?

Re: PDF Purgatory

PB — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 19:08:14 GMT

To rant further: Attempts to output in jpeg, tiff, or png format reduces the size of the output into an area surrounded by about 2cm-3cm of empty border, making the drawings out of scale and unusable. No idea where the setting is to remedy this - if there is one - but, at 8pm, I've had enough for today...

Any help most welcome !

Re: PDF Purgatory

Lingwisyer — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 01:21:26 GMT

Here are some existing wishes

https://community.graphisoft.com/t5/Wishlist/Publish-Layouts-Settings-Flat-PDF-setting-dpi-of-image-formats/idi-p/657473

https://community.graphisoft.com/t5/Wishlist/Ability-to-Publish-PDF-with-quot-Print-as-Image-quot-Option/idi-p/579210

There used to be some substantially older wishes, but they have either been buried or been a victim of The Great Purge...

Ling.

Re: PDF Purgatory

Scott Boyd Turner — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 02:26:24 GMT

Change image compression from lossless will make for much smaller files.

Settings I use below:

Re: PDF Purgatory

Aaron Bourgoin — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 05:36:14 GMT

I don't want to take the heat off of Graphisoft on this one, but I can't help but feel that Adobe truly has a lock on the PDF file format as it relates to vector graphics. I say this as I recall searching for a PDF reader tool that would let the firm give up their Adobe licenses. Nothing we looked at could audit a vector-filled file and clean it up.

The driver GS uses has not changed and to this day I still see issues with files I send - graphics notwithstanding, the files throw permissions errors that can't be "set" using the dirver GS licenses.

PDF is now a 35+ year old format. Yeesh, I feel old.

Re: PDF Purgatory

PB — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 14:10:09 GMT

Thank you Scott.

We had tried compressing images a year or two ago and the result was that the surfaces became repeating patterns of unrecognisable psychedelic art. Just tried it again: Pdf size reduced from 35MB to 33MB, and still very time consuming to open - and totally useless to send to our clients. I'm still waiting for it to open in Preview (on Mac): I'll update to let you know if image readability is compromised, although the very modest file size reduction means it remains a severe bottleneck.

Edit: "Imagery" has not been corrupted, but sadly the core issue is unresolved.

(for info: we are only using surfaces supplied by Graphisoft)

Re: PDF Purgatory

PB — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 14:07:38 GMT

Someone with much greater expertise will need to clarify on the technical & commercial aspects of PDF, but our work-around is to open the file in Pixelmator Pro (Mac) and export as a flattened PDF. Full resolution, no image size reduction and the file size drops from 36MB to less than 10MB and opens instantly in Preview. Crucially, it is useable for our clients. The process does take over an hour to open the original AC PDF in Pixelmator...and then seconds to export as a useable, reasonably sized PDF. One does not need to be a maths genius to work out how costly this process is !!!

Computer left to run overnight to publish a small project: PDF plans & views from 3D window generate in seconds, 6 A3 sheets of elevations & sections take all night. 1 sheet elevations & 2 sheets sections in glorious colour (!), existing & proposed = 1 day lost.

A1 presentation sheets.......don't hold your breath...

Re: PDF Purgatory

Lingwisyer — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 01:11:23 GMT

AC views need to be able to cull non-visible elements. I feel like that would drastically improve PDF load times. You open a PDF in Acrobat, delete a fill, and find a million lines underneath it from other elements...

Re: PDF Purgatory

PB — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 09:42:51 GMT

Graphisoft UK (who provide excellent support) have confirmed that it is a problem with the generation of PDF files within Archicad:

"The symptoms point to Archicad’s section/elevation output (especially textures/fills) creating extremely heavy PDFs and BIMx-with-layouts, rather than a problem within the Publisher setup itself.

When publishing, Archicad must fully regenerate the model data behind each section/elevation; if these views contain texture fills, dense vector hatches, or complex SEO‑modified geometry, the resulting PDF can become very large and slow to generate or open. A 26 MB A3 sheet with four sections is consistent with known issues where elevations/sections with “Surface – Texture Fill, Shaded” or heavy symbolic fills produce huge, sluggish PDFs even on small projects.

BIMx sets that include layouts re‑use the same view content, so any “heavy” sections/elevations that hurt PDF publishing will likewise slow or stall BIMx with layouts, while BIMx 3D‑only sets remain relatively unaffected."

Conclusion: Whilst the Archicad project can be modelled with image based 'surfaces' ('textures' in any other software), it cannot realistically be exported as PDF documents without a very heavy penalty in time and again in post publication processing.

Who can we contact at Graphisoft HQ to get this resolved? Surely, we are not the only ones hitting a brick wall with this?

Re: PDF Purgatory

Eduardo Rolon — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 11:13:56 GMT

I do the same trick but use the now free Affinity Studio.

Re: PDF Purgatory

PB — Sat, 24 Jan 2026 11:49:09 GMT

Thank you Eduardo for the heads-up on Affinity: It looks most interesting. I shall explore to see if it can open the Archicad PDFs quicker Pixelmator.

Re: PDF Purgatory

alexliz — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 10:25:41 GMT

Hi Eduardo, is it 'Affinity Studio' or just 'Affinity'? Also: please could you share the settings you use for reducing PDF size? Thank you.

Re: PDF Purgatory

Eduardo Rolon — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 11:42:33 GMT

Just Affinity.

Open the PDF
Select Export as PDF and change the settings
- Save these settings as a favorite.

Re: PDF Purgatory

alexliz — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 12:22:55 GMT

Thanks Eduardo.

I tried twice, each time with different settings (always flattening, reducing dpi etc) but ended up with larger file size.

Re: PDF Purgatory

PB — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 13:57:57 GMT

An update from our search for a solution.

Graphisoft UK suggested looking at printing to a virtual PDF printer. We cannot find one that will print to flattened or rasterised PDF on MacOS 26. Having turned to Perplexity, it stated:

"The verdict for your Archicad workflow:
These virtual printers solve zero problems for your “one hour to generate + one hour to open” pain.

You still pay Archicad’s vector-generation penalty upfront, then get vector PDFs that Preview chokes on. Graphisoft’s “print to virtual PDF printer” advice works conceptually but fails practically because no maintained Mac driver offers “flatten entire page to 300dpi bitmap” in its PPD options.
Your actual solution path
Stick with your proven Pixelmator Pro workflow + automation. It’s the only reliable way to:
1. Let Archicad Publisher create vector masters (unavoidable upfront cost)
2. Rasterize downstream at exactly 300dpi color (seconds per page)"

Does anyone know of a virtual printer for MacOS that would output directly to flattened or rasterised PDF?

Graphisoft UK's perspective: "Archicad’s PDF output is intentionally vector‑based, mainly so the PDFs remain editable, scalable, and reusable inside CAD/BIM workflows rather than being treated as static images. Flattening/rasterising is mainly a print‑production need; Graphisoft positions Archicad as a BIM authoring tool and leaves specialised pre‑press tasks (flattening, colour management, imposition) to downstream PDF or graphics applications."

Perplexity's description of Archicad's PDF publishing:

"Archicad’s vector PDFs are technically correct but computationally insane for certain orthogonal views"

Seems to me that Archicad does not need to generate and save into the PDF the huge amount of hidden data (lines, fills, textures), and that there should be an accurate publishing process to jpeg/tiff/png that does not add a border around a layout sheet.

Re: PDF Purgatory

Lingwisyer — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 01:01:26 GMT

The issue I find with using PDF printers is that AC's fills often do not play nice with them. I have Acrobat and Cute, and I get different artifacts between them...

Re: PDF Purgatory

Botonis — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 18:03:54 GMT

It is obvious that having a vector based exporting keeps a certain usability for further editing. Like measuring in Bluebeam....

But this is just one scenario.

What about just sharing pdfs for viewing or presentation reasons. I had cases where the pdf couldn't be opened with a low end pc.

This is why there should be an option of vector based or rasterization export inside Archicad withouth having to batch convert in other software....

This would solve the problem somehow.

Re: PDF Purgatory

Lingwisyer — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 08:47:13 GMT

PLUS usability being reusable within CAD/BIM workflows, MINUS being able to open said PDF for use.

Re: PDF Purgatory

alexliz — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 10:06:54 GMT

If it helps anyone: I have been able to get good results reducing the size and complexity of a PDF drawing generated by Archicad 28 on macOS via a simple Terminal command. The resulting PDF is not necessarily much smaller in MB on the hard disk, but it does open up A LOT faster in Preview or other PDF viewers, plus the HP large format printer starts printing it out a lot faster (previously I have had to wait for up to 5 minutes or more for the printer to start printing after I've clicked Print).

This will work on an Intel Mac and you will need to have Ghostscript installed (if you haven't, then simply paste the following command without the quotation marks into Terminal and wait for the few minutes it will take to download and install it while also giving you text feedback on your screen: "brew install ghostscript").

If you are on an Apple Silicon Mac, then it's a slightly different command, that's all.

Assuming the drawing is located in the Mac user's Home Folder and it is named "input.pdf", the following command will recreate it and name the result "output.pdf". Here it is, just copy the text and paste it all in one go in your Terminal:

gs -dSAFER -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE \

-sDEVICE=pdfimage24 \

-r240 \

-dAlignToPixels=0 \

-dGridFitTT=2 \

-dTextAlphaBits=4 \

-dGraphicsAlphaBits=4 \

-o output.pdf input.pdf

Re: PDF Purgatory

Brad Elliott — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 17:02:40 GMT

Pdf Expert recently? released a mac version of their I device pdf software. I downloaded it after Preview kept failing to save changes to a document. It does have Flattened and Reduced Size options that I have found to work fairly well. They have a 7 day free trial but you have to give a card and go in and cancel if you don't want it. Same crap that goes on with all software now.

I think I am going to keep it for a year because it's seeming like a pretty good Bluebeam lite and Preview has wasted too much of my time.