Graphics stopping FM from printing to pdf

Report · Jan 22, 2014

Hello ,

FM11/TCS4, W7.

Recently FM will not print to pdf if the document contains too large graphics.

I place a graphic in an anchored frame and if a large portion of it is cropped by the frame, FM comes up with the old 'Cannot print some imported images. Click OK to continue.' Clicking OK just brings up 'An error occurred while printing.' and the job cancels.

The only solution is to crop the illustration in an external program.

Any one else experienced this?

Report · Jan 22, 2014

What graphics file format?

What does Object Properties report for the Size and Offset?

Report · Jan 22, 2014

I've currently fixed the problem by re-sizing the graphic.

Next time it happens I will make a note of the size and offset and report back.

Report · Jan 22, 2014

Framemaker historically had, and may yet have, a page size limit of 216x216* inches (548x548mm). I would expect problems if any imported object had extents beyond that coordinate space.

But I'd expect FM to complain about that immediately, and it usually does.

When it's a "died while printing" issue, it suggests that the Ps or PDF driver is throwing an error. What driver is configured during render? What PDF version are you generating for? PDF 1.5 and earlier has even smaller page size limits (200x200 or less).

* Why 216? Beats me. It's not even the same as the Illustrator limit of 227 (which causes people a lot more trouble, and is getting increasingly embarrassing for Adobe, as banner printers have been able to exceed that for many years).

Report · Jan 22, 2014

I do not know whether the 216 inches limit is correct.

However, 216 inches are not 548 mm, but 549 cm (centimeter) or 5486 mm (millimeter).

Report · Jan 22, 2014

Because of the potentially large size of the graphics in the background,

another thing to check immediately is the amount of resources on the

hosting computer. If it has low disk space and/or not enough RAM,

processing large graphics in order to define a small crop areas is going to

eat up the available resources.

Art Campbell

art.campbell@gmail.com

"... In my opinion, there's nothing in this world beats a '52 Vincent and

a redheaded girl." -- Richard Thompson

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DoD 358

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Report · Jan 22, 2014

> ... another thing to check immediately is the amount of resources ...

I would expect a resource run-out to throw an error intermittently and at essentially random times, depending on what else is happening on the system.

However, that does raise the question of the Windows GDI limit. It used to be that a single object couldn't exceed 32MB. I'm not easily able to tell if Windows 7 fixed that, because the search results are flooded with chatter about the default limit of 10,000 GDI objects per process, which is not in play here.

Report · Jan 22, 2014

Error7103 wrote:
Framemaker historically had, and may yet have, a page size limit of 216x216* inches (548x548mm). I would expect problems if any imported object had extents beyond that coordinate space.
But I'd expect FM to complain about that immediately, and it usually does.
When it's a "died while printing" issue, it suggests that the Ps or PDF driver is throwing an error. What driver is configured during render? What PDF version are you generating for? PDF 1.5 and earlier has even smaller page size limits (200x200 or less).
* Why 216? Beats me. It's not even the same as the Illustrator limit of 227 (which causes people a lot more trouble, and is getting increasingly embarrassing for Adobe, as banner printers have been able to exceed that for many years).

I've messed up by correcting the initial error!

Next time it happens I will try a different driver and PS (I currently just use Print Book... and use the Adobe PDF printer).

FWIW I am generating for 5.0 and above.

Report · Jan 22, 2014

I think you've stumbled on part of the solution. This is a really common

work flow issue.

My method for importing large graphics:

You want to import the graphic (at a high resolution) into an anchored

frame, select the graphic, right click and use the Scale tool to resize it

appropriately. Then press Esc,M,P to shrink wrap it. Adjust the frame

properties to display in the correct position and you should be done.

I usually hang all graphics and tables from a special tag (Anchor) that

never contains any text. I set the font size to 2 pts and whatever space

above and below is appropriate. I color it Red so it stands out on screen;

otherwise it's impossible to find. I also set the Next Para setting to

Figure so the caption is always the next tag under the graphic.