How to REDUCE .pln file sizes for e-mail

[Anonymous]

I got your e-maill address of the ArchiCAD talk forum website. I am currently working for a company here on the Gold Coast, Q.L.D. & we are using ArchiCAD 8.1. I myself have only been using it for approx 4 months and have noticed that the .pln file sizes on some of the 2 & 3 storey places we are doing are quiet large sometimes between 6 & 10 mb. I am looking at the option of moving overseas and still doing work for my current boss here in Australia, basically I will do the full set of working drawings in ArchiCAD and then save them as a .pdf file and then e-mail these back to Australia so my boss can just print them out and then pass them on to the client. But he will also require at some stage the FULL set of drawing files .pln , .pmk , & Plotmaker layout book files do you know of any way to reduce these file sizes so they can be sent via e-mail back to Australia ???? Note at some times I may only have access to dial-up internet, the majority of time will on broadband

I would apreciate any help you can give me in this area please send response to my e-mail below..

Regards

Damon Tallon..

damon_tallon@ausinfo.com.au

[Aussie John]

zip files will significantly reduce the file size. I regularly produce contract documents at a remote site. Using Pdfs the whole documents can total tens of Mb but with broadband this acceptable. Life on dial up would be difficult. and the mail box size can be a limiting factor. We have out own mail server so the email box size is not an issue. You could consider setting up a FTP site.

[Anonymous]

Tips for AC9:
If the following options aren't optional for you disable/uncheck them:

1. Save in MultiPlatform Format
2. Save Navigator Preview Data with Project files
3. Check for Duplicates using add-on.
4. If it is possible do not save Images within .PLA
5. & Finaly zip or rar files as John advises. If after zip-ing with default options file size is still big your Dial-Up, then you can divide in to many small zip-s.

[James Murray]

The navigator preview data is a real killer.

2D lines really add up. If you have perspective views pasted into detail windows, see if you can delete them. You can save them as modules to preserve them.

The same goes for merged images. If you're not using them, lose them. Save modules to preserve their rotation, scaling, and placement.

Drawing-mode section/elevations take a lot of space, but if you have those you probably need them. The surprising fact is that AC also seems to save the state of model S/E's. if you rebuild your sections with no model elements showing, you can cut the file size.

Example: I have a large house with a lot of actual elements, and a lot of hatching lines. The file was 81MB. I found two perspective drawings (90,000 lines total), and trashed them. That got me to 64MB. I empty-rebuilt all my 'real' sections, which got me to 41MB. Then I did the junk sections, which got me to 30MB.

Then it zipped to 6MB. PLNs are notoriously fluffy files, and generally compress well.

HTH,

[Anonymous]

James wrote:
The surprising fact is that AC also seems to save the state of model S/E's. if you rebuild your sections with no model elements showing, you can cut the file size.

Interesting remark James. I didn't noticed that

[TomWaltz]

James wrote:
The surprising fact is that AC also seems to save the state of model S/E's. if you rebuild your sections with no model elements showing, you can cut the file size.

I found that as well. We had a 125 MB PLP file that ballooned to 290MB if you rebuilt all the elevations and sections. I encouraged the exteriors team to "flush" their elevations by rebuilding with all layers off before they did a Send & Recieve each night.

[Link]

No one has mentioned purging out unused Attributes in Attribute Manager. This will also help cut down the file size. If it's feasible for you to do it, I would suggest it!

Cheers,
Link.