Caleela

Hi @Dan C, Suspected PICNIC... I started from a new afpub document (v1) and manually added my existing masters (C+P layers) from an old small file. I split my Masters files into 2 files - with data merge and non-data merge masters. The Data Merge file generates the pages to be merged. and there are only 7 masters in this file: 5 masters make a single page 2 masters make a month's worth of pages (each month is merged to crreate a new merged month file) The non-merged masters file is the basis of the final file. This file has loads (>20) of masters - headers, footers, month pages, etc once I add the merged pages (for a month), I add the relevant headers, footers, etc. I have sucessfully merged and added 157 pages (so far) and the file size is a tiny 2.9Mb I think the following may have caused my reported issues: my original (wing it) workflow of having all the masters in one file and merging with this repeatedly on the fly editing of a master (either in original or merged file - they look the same) may have caused issue 2 when the paged were added from the merged file. Cheers, Caleela.

Thanks for the update @Dan C.

Hi @Dan C Yes, the file opening was lengthy (16GB Ram) - open and walk away for ages. I eventually went back to v1 to see if the problem was there, and I had deleted the test v2 small files as they were useless to me. The growing file size happens for v1 as well. I have uploaded (via dropbox link) a small v1 edition with staged saves, the data spreadsheet, and a PDF with process and comments. All the data I need to make the document. v1 AP files for support.zip Included in the upload is an unmerged AP v1 file I made last year with ~700 pages and only 24Mb finished. My small merged version is 33.5 MB with only 7 pages. I'm assuming opening in v2 will get you to a small v2 file. This is what I did originally to start the v2 merge file - opened the unmerged v1 file from last year, deleted all the pages and started configuring some master pages for merging. My add pages from file config is typically add 1 page (of 1) from the saved merged data file. The screen grab is of an older add pages window, but the pdf uploaded describes what I am doing. Cheers, Caleela.

@Dan C Thanks for the update. Looking forward to a solution.

Hi @Dan C, I have updated to 2.2.0 and re-tested. The Growing size issue still persists. Cheers, Caleela

@DanC I have tested this with a samll file and it appears that the size of the untitled.afpub is being added to the original publisher file when adding a (one) merged page from untitled.afpub. I had a 5.7Mb file with no merged pages (source.afpub) Create a merged page untitled.afpub file (same size as the source.afpub) 5.7Mb. Add one page from untitled.afpub to source.afpub & save. Source.afpub now 11Mb. Delete merged page from source.afpub & save. still 11Mb. re-add the merged page from untitled.afpub to source.afpub & save (16Mb) ==> Incrementing the value of the untitled.afpub file each time a page is added The untitled.afpub file is also a duplicate of all the pages in the source file, not just the merged pages. Cheers, Caleela.

Hi @Dan C, Files uploaded, including a pdf of notes. The upload took a few tries - there may be duplicates 😁 Cheers, Caleela.

Publisher 2.2.1 ~ Mac App Store ~ macOS 11.6.2 iMac ~ Acceleration ON ~ Hello... I am re-making a digital planner for next year - last year was a manually edited of 700-ish pges. The file was 29Mb finished. I am using the same master pages, and this year I am data merging and making the merged pages as I go, and at only 10 pages, the file is 163Mb. The key difference is last year was using Publisher V1, and not data merging with the same OS and hardware. I have a Master page with a Data Merge Layer (created with the Data merge layout tool with 4 columns x 31 rows). The merge layer has 4 fields mapped - each in a text frame. The data merge works sucessfully, and generates an untitled publisher file with the resultant page populated. This is saved as untitled.afpub. I add the merged page into my publisher file [Document | Add pages from file]. This is also successful. I add another master page to this (header, footer and left index). This works. This makes a month summary page. save... 3 Observations: Importing the merged page also adds a duplicate of the master page [exact same name as the original] image attached. The file size doubles after adding a new merged page. The file started as a 5Mb file, and is now 163Mb with 9 pages. There are no images, backgrounds or heavily filled tables. Each of the 31x4 fields is turned into a group in the merged page. The save and open times are getting exponentially longer as the file grows - making it impossible to keep adding pages via data merge. The plan is to add the 12 month pages manually with data merge (got 10 done), then a month of daily pages with one daily merge Master... It may take me until 2024 to get this done. Add Page from file Correctly merged page added to publisher document Applied added Master page . This is OK. : ) File Size Increase : (

Cheers : )