One of the main tasks that we do in our office is: A. Merging an original InDesign file (approx 7.5Mb) with a CSV file; B. Exporting that resulting merged document into a PDF file During export, we've tried different Adobe PDF Presets: (High Quality Print, Press Quality, Smallest File Size, PDF/X-4, etc.) The "Smallest File Size" preset seems to be the fastest although not by much. It generally takes 3-5 minutes to create the merged document which seems a bit slow. But the real sluggishness is when we export that merged document into PDF format. It takes anywhere from 4-8 minutes and the resulting PDF is only about 2.3Mb in size. We've tried this on multiple machines. One is an iMac 3.5Ghz Quad Core i7 processor with 32Gb of 1600Mhz DDR3 RAM. The other is a Macbook Pro with 2.6 Ghz 6-core i7 processor and 16Gb 2400 Mhz DDR4 RAM. There's not really thimble's worth of difference in the export time. They pretty much run neck and neck and, when they don't, either one might outperform the other. Anyway, I have two questions: A. Is there anything I can do to speed up this process? It takes HOURS of our day for one staff member to create these PDFs. And most of that time is spent just waiting for the machine. B. What part of the computer is most integral to this kind of task? In other words, if I choose to get a new Mac before the end of the year -- and had to choose -- would I want to go with the fastest processor...or the most RAM? Which would give us the biggest boost in speed for this kind of work? Thanks in advance. I appreciate your help and would be happy to provide more information if it will help give a better answer.
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