Framemaker 10 prints very slowly to pdf

Report · Aug 30, 2012

I am running win64 and do a lot of pdf generation in FrameMaker 10 using the Acrobat X printer driver. But printing to pdf is very slow. I have tried whatever suggestions I could find in groups. Setting the printer driver to file did not help. Juggling PDF verision compatibility did not help either. I cannot change resolution because the results may become too low rez.

My book files consists of some fifty pages with each an externally linked pdf file. The pdf file links are cad drawings and they can be pretty complex. I usually save the linked pdf files with pdf optimized in order to make the files lighter.

But still ... printing to pdf takes around 15 minutes. I was wondering wether there are any other ways of speeding up the process besides adjusting settings in the printing process. Is it possible to assign more processors or more ram for instance ?

regards

Bjørn

Bjørn Smalbro - FrameMaker.dk

Report · Aug 30, 2012

How do you print the document to PDF?

Have you tried Save as a PDF...?

Report · Aug 30, 2012

Acrobat is installed as a printerdriver. I print the book to the pdf printer driver.

I have tried saving as pdf, but time usage is the same unfortunately.

Bjørn Smalbro - FrameMaker.dk

Report · Aug 30, 2012

Have you tried printning to a PostScript file.

Note, I'm just throwing stuff here.

Report · Aug 30, 2012

Throwing stuff is allright

Yes I have tried printing to ps and then distilling using distiller. But time usage is still the same.

I have just installed a ssd disk in the hope that it might give a boost, and certain process do go quicker. Updating the book file, generating toc's, loading files and framemaker itself is way faster, but printing is not.

Bjørn Smalbro - FrameMaker.dk

Report · Aug 30, 2012

Did it recently get slow, or has it always been slow?

> The pdf file links are cad drawings and they can be pretty complex.

What is the typical file size of one of these?

Open in Acrobat Pro and re-save to verify that some compression is applied.

At our shop, the general rule is that if the compressed PDF of a vector illustration is over 250KB, we take steps, which might include:

Open the vector art in Illustrator, perform an Object > Path > Simplify, re-save and recheck size. This can usually cut the vector count in half or more.
Trim/delete excess content in the source art, particularly if cropped by the import frame anyway.
Look for degenerate objects in the source, and fix them. In our case, we have many images with what appear to be polygons with solid fill, but which are actually polygons containing bazillions of cross-hatch lines, because CAD apps are decades behind DTP on basic 2D object appearance rendering.
Render the source art to raster bitmap in Photoshop and import as 600 dpi TIFF. This typically collapses MB vector art to a few 10s of KB.

Of course, the slowness may have little to do with the imports themselves, but where they come from. If they are all on a remote corporate server strangled by an overused T1 line, rendering will be slow.

Ditto for where the temp files and .pdf or .ps output is going. It needs to be to the local machine for max performance.

And even the local machine can be slow if the file system is nearly full.

Another possibility is the importing of PDF per se. We don't do it, because it's unstable in FM7.1, but I'm wondering if there's some overhead for PDF import, compared to say, importing the same objects as EPS (which is what we use).

Report · Aug 30, 2012

Thanks for your long answer. I am not too keen on establishing an extra format (creating tiff or jpg versions of the pdfs. I have some thousand drawings and they are being updated regularly as pdf's)

Most of my linked pdf files are 400 - 500 kb, which is pretty large. I suppose it is because the contain colors, patterns, all sorts of cad rendering etc.

Are there any better ways of optimizing file size in acrobat than saving as Optimized? I do not want to open the files in Illustrator - I do not quite trust the program to not alter the drawing and these are complex drawings ... So I'd rather keep any optimization within acrobat.

Bjørn Smalbro - FrameMaker.dk

Report · Aug 30, 2012

You can Save As > Reduced Size PDF... and the later the Acrobat compatability edition, the smaller the file size.

You'll only shave off about a third though.

You've probably already tried this though, eh?

Report · Aug 30, 2012

I just tried File > Save As > More Options > PostScript.

When I ran the PostScript, it reduced a 835 kb file to 610 kb.

This was also a complex CAD generated GA.

Report · Aug 30, 2012

I'd like the resultant pdf's to be small, but most of all I'd like to reduce time consumption

Bjørn Smalbro - FrameMaker.dk

Report · Sep 03, 2012

Now I have tried every trick I have been able to dig up and the conclusion seems clear to me. For some occult reason it seems Framemaker 10 prints slowly to pdf! That's it!

I cannot figure out why, but I have not been able to alter the speed. I guess having eight kernels, 64 bit windows, SSD Disk and heaps of Ram just isn't enough - I need NASA scale computing.

Regards

Bjørn

Bjørn Smalbro - FrameMaker.dk

Report · Aug 30, 2012

> I am not too keen on establishing an extra format (creating tiff or jpg versions of the pdfs. I have some thousand drawings and they are being updated regularly as pdf's)

It might be worth doing it once just to see if you can rule-in/out complex PDFs as the problem.

Our vector stuff typically originates as DWG, which we avoid directly importing for various reasons (Color Catalog pollution mainly). So we already have a process for converting images upon image update. It did take some time to figure the optimal workflow.

> Most of my linked pdf files are 400 - 500 kb, which is pretty large. I suppose it is because the contain colors, patterns, all sorts of cad rendering etc.

Could be. There could also be some overhead if the incoming color model (say, CMYK) doesn't match the outgoing (say, RGB) and you have set FM or Distiller to convert.

> Are there any better ways of optimizing file size in acrobat than saving as Optimized?

I might add that Optimizing in Acrobat is apt to actually slow things down. We do it on incoming objects as an estimate of impact on final document PDF size. FM probably has to uncompress such PDF objects during printing (EPS is essentially uncompressed).

Conversion operations can be batched in Illustrator, Photoshop and Acrobat Pro. We routinely batch convert PDFs to EPS for import, and have lately been converting some EPS back to PDF for export to an outside party.

You need to validate the results for any processing of images or documents, including Acrobat. I lately discovered that Acrobat Pro 9, in Examine Document [Remove] Hidden is removing things that are NOT hidden. It is apparently getting confused about layer ordering (we may have some content where grouped objects have layers that straddle a masking layer - haven't had time to run it to ground, so we've just stopped doing that particular redaction).

Report · Aug 30, 2012

Check your printer driver settings. The tips below were posted by Dov Isaacs, PDF expert at Adobe, many years ago, but some of them may still be valid.

Printer driver instance:

Properties => Advanced (tab)

Change "Print directly to the printer" to

"Spool print documents so program finishes printing faster"

with "Start printing after last page is spooled" (**)

Why? Speeds up spooling process dramatically!

Properties => Advanced (tab) => Printing Defaults ... (button) => Layout (tab) => Advanced (button)

Open trees and make sure that the following are set

(other options leave at original default settings):

Graphic => Print Quality => 600dpi

Why? Gets around known Windows 2000/XP GDI bug associated

with large point size & high resolution text being converted

to outlines. Also gets around FrameMaker bug associated with

higher resolution settings in combination with large page sizes

(similar bug in other applications as well). Using this setting

does not restrict the resolution at which the PDF file can

print and has no known bad effects.

Graphic => TrueType Font => Download as Softfont (*)

Why? Turns off damnable font substitution mechanism.

Document Options => PostScript Options =>

TrueType Font Download Option => Native TrueType (*)

Why? Assures that proper font type is selected, even if not

embedded in job stream at this point. "Automatic" should work,

but this is explicit.

Properties => Advanced (tab) => Printing Defaults ... (button) => Adobe PDF Settings (tab)

Choose appropriate joboptions

Check ALL the boxes.

Why? Best options for making sure that the correct fonts are

embedded properly in the PDF file, that you are properly prompted

for location of the PDF file being produced, that you are warned

if overwriting an existing PDF file, and to display the resultant

PDF file delete the log file if and only if the distillation is

successful.

Properties => General (tab) => Printing Preferences ... (button) => Layout (tab) => Advanced (button)

Open trees and make sure that the following are set

(other options leave at original default settings):

Graphic => Print Quality => 600dpi

Why? Gets around known Windows 2000/XP GDI bug associated

with large point size & high resolution text being converted

to outlines. Also gets around FrameMaker bug associated with

higher resolution settings in combination with large page sizes

(similar bug in other applications as well). Using this setting

does not restrict the resolution at which the PDF file can

print and has no known bad effects.

Graphic => TrueType Font => Download as Softfont (*)

Why? Turns off damnable font substitution mechanism.

Document Options => PostScript Options =>

TrueType Font Download Option => Native TrueType (*)

Why? Assures that proper font type is selected, even if not

embedded in job stream at this point. "Automatic" should work,

but this is explicit.

Properties => General (tab) => Printing Preferences ... (button) => Adobe PDF Settings (tab)

Choose appropriate joboptions

Check ALL the boxes.

Why? Best options for making sure that the correct fonts are

embedded properly in the PDF file, that you are properly prompted

for location of the PDF file being produced, that you are warned

if overwriting an existing PDF file, and to display the resultant

PDF file delete the log file if and only if the distillation is

successful.

Properties => Device Settings (tab)

Open trees and make sure that the following are set

(other options leave at original default settings):

Output Protocol => Binary

Why? Much more efficient than ASCII, PostScript file size

reduced by up to 30 to 40% (your mileage may vary!).

Sent CTRL-D Before Each Job => No

Sent CTRL-D After Each Job => No

Why? CTRL-D is inconsistent with binary PostScript interpreters

even though Distiller has hackery to try getting around such

spurious characters.

Convert Gray Text to PostScript Gray => Yes (*)

Convert Gray Graphics to PostScript Gray => Yes (*)

Why? Normally, black and grayscale text and vector artwork

is output as RGB values. These options convert any R=G=B text

and vector artwork to PostScript grayscale. This is much more

efficient and can avoid improper "rich black" syndrome on

certain PostScript color output devices.

Add Euro Currency Symbol to PostScript Fonts => Yes (*)

Job Timeout => 0 (*)

Wait Timeout => 0 (*)

Why? This eliminates the possibility of jobs being prematurely

terminated if some other task on your computer hiccups too

badly for too long.

Report · Aug 30, 2012

I shall give these suggestions a try. Will return when tried

regards

Bjørn

Bjørn Smalbro - FrameMaker.dk