Export to PDF Slow

[GaryMansbridge]

We have finally been able to upgrade to the latest Quark 2018 (from Quark 9) as our production critical XTensions have become available and were looking forward to the upgrade and the performance boost it would give to our process. While being very pleased with 2018, we have encountered serious issues in the creation of PDFs.

We produce large financial publications that can be 700-800 pages. One publication contains PDF graphs that are processed through Acrobat before placement. A second document is text only. In the past, creation of PDFs through our normal route "Export to PDF" would produce a PDF in 15-20 minutes for the largest files. A long time but acceptable. Our experimentation with 2017 offered a speed increase by cutting the time by half or more.

Now, after our decision to move to 2018, when we export to PDF the process is excruciatingly slow. For our larger files it can take 50-60 minutes. This will be a serious problem when we have to meet deadlines either for delivery to the client or for preparing files for release to the Printer.

This issue can be replicated on different machines. We have tried altering many parameters such as flattening transparency or compressing line art as well as using different PDF presets with no effect. Pre-2018 there would be delay at the beginning of the process for a few minutes, but the process would then continue. In Quark 2018, the export dialog processes the pages quickly but hangs forever when we come to “Creating PDF”. At this stage in previous versions the bars would move along slowly but complete in a short period.

Ok, why not try producing the PDF through the Print dialog. Unfortunately, while producing a PDF in a couple of minutes as we would expect, we end up with a 50 MB PDF rather than the normal 5 Mb PDF using “Export”. The reason: no matter what variables we change in the Print Dialog the placed PDFs are converted to bitmaps losing their vector origin. This Print solution is acceptable for files without placed EPS/PDF, but for production purposes the “Export” route is preferable as it is more robust and customizable.

Even exporting to PS and then processing in Distiller yields the same or longer times to produce a PDF. I’m certain we have not tried every avenue as the time to test becomes onerous, but were hoping that someone might have advice that could lead to a solution or that there is an update on the horizon to correct this.

Should we have stuck with 2017? At this early stage in our production we are faced with the decision of whether or not we should “Downsave” to 2017. Any help would be greatly appreciated.


(Note that we have faced issues Downsaving with the error: “To open documents from QuarkXPress 6 or earlier, please download the free QuarkXPress Document Converter on Quark's website.” Downsaving the 2017 file a second time seems to correct this.)

[UtahLlama]

The reason: no matter what variables we change in the Print Dialog the placed PDFs are converted to bitmaps losing their vector origin

this sounds like a bug to me

MarkyBoy has had similar slowdown problems with EPS and long documents.

Quark2018 has different pdf technology than before so its possible that its not working correctly at this early stage.

Converting vector to bitmaps certainly isn't desired behaviour, it not only explains the size of the file but possibly the increase in time too.

See if you can get the new dot release of 2018 from Matthais.

[GaryMansbridge]

I am hoping the update this week will provide some relief. The conversion to Bitmap only occurred through the Print dialog. When using Export to PDF there was no conversion but the time to produce a PDF could be as high as 45 minutes.

Thanks for the post.

[Matthias Guenther (Quark)]

Hi Gary,

so you weren't part of the pre-release group I suppose?

Send me your files (eg wesendit or dropbox link via private message) please. And we can check with your files.

Thanks
Matthias

[GaryMansbridge]

Hi Matthias, thanks for the reply.

Kulbubshan (kbchopra@quark.com) has already been in touch through the Facebook group and I have made the files available via DropBox. Is that adequate?

[Matthias Guenther (Quark)]

Hi Gary,

yes, of course, that's fine.

Thanks
Matthias

[GaryMansbridge]

Hello, I have upgraded to 14.1 with little improvement to PDF times. Without extensive testing there seems to be slight decrease in time/page.

But, text in windows (Style Sheets, Page Layout, etc.) has turned to white and is no longer visible.

[GaryMansbridge]

Hello, the wonderful techs at Quark Support have helped isolate the problem and will be supplying a fix. Spot Colour in the PDF settings seems to slow the process – using CMYK or As Is restores the normal output times. Thanks you!

[UtahLlama]

Thanks for posting back.
do you have spot colours in the pdfs you're placing? or is it just the output (Export to PDF) settings?

[GaryMansbridge]

No spot colours in these specific files. Just specified "CMYK and Spot" in the PDF Export Settings.