Done With PDF's - Here's an Alternative


HumbleChief
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I have had many, many problems with PDF's in Chief over many versions. Slow, Slow, Slow, when viewing page to page. Slow to print. Overwhelms my printer's memory and prints only partial files/PDF's so I have reduce the resolution. Any PDF printed higher than 144 DPI chokes everything if I have large PDF's (full page) in the layout - painful at best.

 

So... my PDF utility, Foxit PDF, has a feature - convert to image. Hit the button save to a new file name. Now everything is a PNG which loads at least 10 times faster page to page in Layout, prints PDF's (now PNG's) without sections missing and doesn't overwhelm my printer, without any noticeable degradation in quality.

 

Sweet.

 

Hope that helps someone else.

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By default, I changed the dpi to 300 (when going to print) and any embedded images are saved as PNG files.

 

I've had pdf files files ranging close to 15 megs which is quite largge. The method above was a big help and hang ups while printing isn't as common.

 

Just curious if that may help speed your prints up.

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By default, I changed the dpi to 300 (when going to print) and any embedded images are saved as PNG files.

 

I've had pdf files files ranging close to 15 megs which is quite largge. The method above was a big help and hang ups while printing isn't as common.

 

Just curious if that may help speed your prints up.

Thanks Val, The png conversion is a huge time saver. I'll up my DPI back to 300 and see if things print OK.

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Larry,

 

I use Foxit Phantom for Business for linework/clean-up; I like the program, quite effective yet relatively simple.  My issue w/ FPB is that it does not embed certain fonts (even though they are installed in System/Fonts).  On the other hand, (free) CutePDF embeds fonts and output is at the same speed and nearly same file size as FPB.

 

Embedding is a requirement for me, for minor text editing on the fly. ...If it weren't for the embed issue I'd set FPB as default for Chiefy-to-PDF, just simpler regards settings/defaults.

 

Btw, past post I mention using (free) Foxit Reader for print-to-PDF, which is an error... For me, Chiefy-to-PDF using FR is much slower, up to 5x slower than either FPB or CPDF, and file size is typically 3x larger.

 

Stephen

 

 

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That Foxit seems like really good software if you are going to be manipulating PDF files all the time.

It is $90.00 though. I use a free software that works quite well for converting images to PDF or PDF to images like jpg and PNG plus others.

It is called PDFill and as I mentioned it is free for the tools that do this and more.

You can pay for the PDF editor portion for about $20.00 if you need that too.

 

Andy.

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I have had many, many problems with PDF's in Chief over many versions. Slow, Slow, Slow, when viewing page to page. Slow to print. Overwhelms my printer's memory and prints only partial files/PDF's so I have reduce the resolution. Any PDF printed higher than 144 DPI chokes everything if I have large PDF's (full page) in the layout - painful at best.

 

So... my PDF utility, Foxit PDF, has a feature - convert to image. Hit the button save to a new file name. Now everything is a PNG which loads at least 10 times faster page to page in Layout, prints PDF's (now PNG's) without sections missing and doesn't overwhelm my printer, without any noticeable degradation in quality.

 

Sweet.

 

Hope that helps someone else.

That is a great tip,  thanks Larry.   Any downside?

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That is a great tip,  thanks Larry.   Any downside?

Not so far Scott. I thought I might be compromising the quality but it's fine and as long I can clearly read the PDF's (it's best for full page Title 24's and text heavy engineering specs) then I have no problem. I almost never buy software that can be had for free but the features in Foxit are well worth the money especially if you use PDF's heavily.

 

It will add, delete, rearrange pages, annotate and a load of useful features. I think Joe uses one that might have more features but i'm really happy with Foxit.

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