Elevations and Sections produce HUGE file-size PDFs

[alexliz]

It's all in the Subject line above guys. I get elevation PDFs to the tune of 10MB, even 60+MB. Very difficult to open and share. Impossible to send to printer. Am I missing something, or were these never meant to be printed and shared?

I have got them with the "Uncut Fill" option set to "Surface - Texture Fill, Shaded" and all external walls have the "Stonework - 02" surface.

Many thanks.

[torben_wadlinger]

Especially in views and sections, you have the problem that archicad builds these things in layers, i.e. there are lines on top of lines and surfaces on top of surfaces. This of course increases the file size. If there are also small hatchings involved, which are all broken down into individual elements (e.g. soil, gravel layers), then the file size explodes. Not to mention images. It doesn't help to reduce the size, because you can't change the total number of polygons.

I have found a link (in German) that sheds some light on PDF creation from cad systems - and offers a solution:
https://www.sachaheck.net/blog/acrobat_pdf/pdfs-kleiner-machen-acrobat-postscript

[Erik Bjornhage]

There are of course many reasons my PDF:s can get crazy big. In this case, as you have described, it seems linked to texture fills.

What are the section/elevation settings in regards to view distance and such. Does it help if you reduce this? Are there other settings that you can change on the S/E-settings side that can help?

There is an organisation here in Sweden that have produced a nice set of instructions for PDFs (unfortunately it's in Swedish, but various GPT:s should be able to handle that for you). https://beast.se/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/BEAst-PDF-Guidelines-2.0.pdf

These have nothing to do with texture fills - but they have other points that can be useful for managing PDF:s in general.

[torben_wadlinger]

Oh man, you made my day! Thank you for this lovely pdf. I tried to read it and hoped to understand something (there are some familiar characters, like ö and ä, and the funny ones with the little circle on top - but no ü?). I was able to understand some single words, but only by trying to listen to them, because the sound is more familiar than the writing.

e.g. ‘Korrekt linjebredd’ translates to "korrekte Linienbreite" in German. "Trapphus" is "Treppenhaus" (both have double "p"), "översiktsplan" is "Übersichtsplan". But I have no idea what "Skrivskyddade filer" means.

[Erik Bjornhage]

Skrivskyddad fil = Write protected file - i.e. PDF/A which is an archive format.

As I said - there are some good tiips in ther and even Google Translate should be pretty helpful.

We have all our PDF-PublisherSets setup according to this.

[cocoloco]

I have the same issue! Files always 60-80 MB just elevations with cabs. I removed most of fills but no help. 

I have to share through Google Dr but everything takes time to open on jobsite, can’t print, can’t attach in email… I converted the size in pdf expert, but it removed just 4Mb out of 60 to maintain quality. 

ai seen multiple complaints here about this before 

did you find any solution? 

[Mauricio_br]

Hello everyone,

Well, this issue of PDF file sizes for cuts and sections is a huge pain. We create beautiful and captivating presentations that cannot be printed.

IA Visualizer is a beautiful utopia, barely functional. The tough licensing battle.

But truly optimized PDF output seems impossible.

P.S. AI would be much more useful in Param-o, infinitely more useful.

[Erik Bjornhage]

Just out of curiosity - what is the resolution of the texture you are using for your fill.
I think the recommendation for any texture in AC is maximum 1024x1024px - and if it is any larger than this (unless absolutely needed) this could potentially cause issues.

[Mauricio_br]

I generally use the native textures from the library or those from the additional texture catalog. I'll keep an eye out for any additional textures I might use. Thanks for the tip.