Hey Paul, thanks for looking at this.
I've been messing around (for hours now) and have come across something interesting. What I found out is that it's a layers and/or group thing.
First I targeted the jpegs in there, and tried many different settings (none, compression, etc etc) but nothing seemed to make a difference as far as jpegs. I also deleted them and that didn't make a difference. And I did try rasterizing the bitmap pattern in the boxes but that made no difference either. So I ruled out anything with jpegs...
I really didn't have anything else in the document but simple vector shapes and just a few gradients as you can see.
So then I started turning off any groups I had, one by one, to try to target any specific group. That did not make a difference either. I really thought it was weird and made no sense.
After that, I realized I had a lot of little bits on their own layers. A LOT – several hundreds I think (the layer panel would scroll forever). So I began to group them and after cleaning up a bazillion layers into more organized groups, then it started speeding up a bit for PDF export. I got it down to about 6 to 10 seconds which is more like it. Finally getting somewhere!
I never would've thought this would be an issue but it seems it's definitely the number of layers in the document and/or the groupings. I think Affinity needs to address this – maybe code it where, before export for PDF (or whatever else that is similar), it checks for if there are too many layers that could slow down the process and, if so, would bring up a window telling the user to make groups.
I will keep my eye on this layer and group thing and post if there are any differences I come across. But Affinity needs to address this – I'd think one solution to help is to do what I mentioned above?
NOTES (DEVELOPER):
– I noticed the preview takes about the same time to generate as the final output. So if the preview is taking too long, then you know the export will take too long.
– The preview does not show the entire document for me. It only shows the grey and white square pattern as if nothing is there. Sometimes, it will show a glimpse of the very left portion of the document, then quickly disappear. This seems to happen only for vector formats (PDF, SVG, EPS, etc). All bitmap exports (PNG, JPEG, GIF, TIFF, etc) seem fine on preview.
– I can't zoom in or out on the preview (I tried trackpad, mouse, keys, the jedi force, etc) which is odd. This also seems to happen only for vector formats (PDF, SVG, EPS, etc). All bitmap exports (PNG, JPEG, GIF, TIFF, etc) seem fine on preview.