Lot of tiny drawings slow down the performance

[Hannes Tkadletz]

Hi,

I have to work with some PDF files which contains blots with thousends of tiny grey circles. I have to open them in Illustrator and want to keep the possibility to make changes in fonts, color and things like this. That slow down my Illustrator and make it nearly impossible to work with.

I try to separate theese parts and want to combine them as one area or something like this. With the Pathfinder tool it takes hours and the result isn't the same as I have with the single parts.

Is there a solution to solve this problem? See example (PDF) 

Any help would be fine!

[Kurt Gold]

I'd recommend to rasterize all grey circles.

The problem is not only the huge amount (ca. 48.000), but also their transparency attributes.

[Hannes Tkadletz]

Yes, I tried this as well. But to rasterize only the grey parts it takes nearly 25 minutes. And I have to work with lot of those blots...

Maybe I can find a solution to automate this action and dont have to repeat it file by file...

But thank's for your quick reply!!

[Luke Jennings3 · Accepted solution]

Illustrator is not a universal PDF editor, but if you have no other options, you can try to simplify your PDF in Acrobat by running a preflight profile Fixup, Convert smooth lines to curves, or in Illustrator by selecting and simplifying the objects. You could also try saving as an optimized PDF from Acrobat, which might help a little.

Another option might be to select the circles and rasterize them to a high res image (Object> Rasterize).

See my post at the end of this related discussion:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign/linked-file-size-limits/m-p/11600839?page=1

[Hannes Tkadletz]

Thank's for the hint with the preflight in Acrobat. That's new for me. It seems to work a little bit faster when I work with such a prepared PDF. 

I think I have no other option than to rasterize each of the huge pieces. Depending on the use, up to 12 of these plots should be on one page...
Anyway, thanks for your help!

[Kurt Gold]

It took me two or three minutes to rasterize them in Illustrator, but it may vary on different machines.

The process can be automated with an action (possibly in Batch mode), but I'm not quite sure if that way would help you.

Do you have Photoshop? It took me about 15 to 20 seconds to copy the circles in Illustrator and paste (rasterize) them in Photoshop. You may then save the file and place it in Illustrator or just drag and drop from Photoshop to Illustrator.

[Hannes Tkadletz]

I will try this with Photoshop. But it has to be exactly at the same place again. But it is worth a try.
Anyway, thanks for your help!

[Kurt Gold]

I can imagine that you are able to see, save and adjust the right coordinates in order to have them at the appropriate position.