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PDF export is super slow


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Hi, 

i have a 200 page document with 1-2 images per page (each image around 2mb). PDF Export takes more than 30 minutes to finish. Cancelling the export takes up to a minute, also. 

Really enjoy using Publisher, hope this is solved soon. 

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So that is about 300 images, are they complex (lots of effects or vectors) and are they at the document's dpi setting? 

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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Higher resolution = more data to read > to convert > to write.
Other DTP software: I remember earlier versions of InDesign that required a coffee break during export - before the export was implemented as a background task.

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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  • Staff

As mentioned if they are high res images and your setup isn't the newest then I would expect some long export times, but 30minutes is quite a long time!

If you can embed or send all the images with the afpub file and upload it here I can export it on some machines here and see what sort of times we get.

I've exported some 200page documents with an image or two on each page and not had the export take longer than a minute.

Edit: Also if you are exporting to certain pdf settings let me know!

Serif Europe Ltd. - www.serif.com

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On 6/28/2019 at 2:38 PM, Jon P said:

I've exported some 200page documents with an image or two on each page and not had the export take longer than a minute.

That sounds interesting.

Does the color space matter for you on export time? Or whether they are embedded or not? – I wonder because I get very different times:

10 jpgs, RGB, 60 MB, scaled 65%  |  10 pages, A4, 300 dpi  |  Export as 1.7 (default print PDF preset):
Afpub + pdf in RGB:     40 sec - 13 MB
Afpub + pdf in CMYK:  10 sec - 39 MB

Do you have an idea where this difference comes from? I'd rather expect RGB to export faster. –  If you want I'd like to upload the .afpub + 10 images.

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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  • Staff

You are welcome to upload the file you are testing with, I can do some exports here and let you know the times.

When you export to RGB or CMYK are you changing the document colour space and exporting using document colour space, or for example converting an RGB document to CMYK by forcing it to export the PDF in CMYK? I would possibly expect some slightly longer times if that was the case as it would be converting the colour space during export.

I don't think files being linked/embedded should have an impact.

 

Serif Europe Ltd. - www.serif.com

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1 hour ago, Jon P said:

When you export to RGB or CMYK are you changing the document colour space and exporting using document colour space,

Yes, only export in document color space. – I uploaded 10 jpg + 2 .afpubs (1 RGB, 1 CMYK)
(oh, I forgot to add the cmyk  .icc profile. Will it be embedded in the afpup?
– If not: ECI ISO coated (v2):  http://www.eci.org/_media/downloads/icc_profiles_from_eci/eci_offset_2009.zip

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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@Jon P, could you already test the export times with my uploaded files?

Or is there any new insights into these different times between RGB and CMYK for identical content in a document with the same color space as the exported one?

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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  • Staff

So the times I have line up with yours:

CMYK doc - PDF (web) - 1-2 seconds
CMYK doc - PDF (print) - 10 seconds

RGB doc - PDF (web) - 1-2 seconds
RGB doc - PDF (print) - 28~ seconds

Mac and Windows are similar to me. We aren't getting near the export times from the OP, but I have heard of some customers having long export times on Mac so was wondering if I'd see some inconsistencies between the OS's.

I'm not sure why RGB is taking longer off the top of my head, I'll try get you an answer.

Serif Europe Ltd. - www.serif.com

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2 hours ago, Jon P said:

CMYK doc - PDF (print) - 10 seconds
RGB doc - PDF (print) - 28~ seconds

I'm not sure why RGB is taking longer off the top of my head, I'll try get you an answer.

Jon, thank you for testing and reporting. I am calmed down that your times come out similar to mine.
(I had been wondering whether something goes wrong here to me, when you had mentioned before "less than a minute" for 200 pages incl. images.)

The RGB print preset time is not really a problem for me though I am indeed interested to understand whats going on – especially since there is no difference at all in your tests when using the web export preset instead.

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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  • 1 month later...

I see the slow export too. I have a 6 pages document - product images, prices combined with other images, and it takes about 10 minutes to export. I made all this work in Indesign before, same layout and amount of images, and it never had more then 1 minute to export. I've made 250 pages catalogues before in Indesign, that took about 10 Minutes to export.

I am specially surprised, that publisher is so slow in comparison, because Indesign is a longtime patched-together piece of software that got slower and slower with each release, while publisher is brandnew - its code should be much cleaner and faster, I was thinking.

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  • 1 month later...

Hi, I have a real slow PDF export as well. I'm exporting now a PDF (flatten) of 60 pages, mostly text, a few vector graphics and 13 images. The export takes about 5-10 min.2nd PDF I'm exporting is a 7-page document with one image, which takes about 15-20 seconds. I have a maxed out 2018 Macbook Pro. I know this export time it's manageable, but it feels with those specs and brand new software, it should export faster than that. I also feel that Designer exported a lot faster when I used that before Publisher for print material. (I tried to attach the documents, but they are stuck at 'Queued' for quite a while now, I can try again later.) 

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> PDF (flatten) of 60 pages, mostly text,

Flatten in general takes more time and varies with the complexity of the content (layers, effects, adjustments). Also converting Text to Curves on export would take more export time.

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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  • 1 month later...

Hi and thanks for the discussion. I even have some more time to "offer": 16 pages A4, each with a full-sized background, some images and some placed vector PDF files. I had to change each PDF that's placed because Publisher can't just place a PDF file with embedded fonts (the file is always "opened" and the fonts are completely messed up). I just wanted to export two PDF files: One low-res PDF to send in for confirmation and a high-res print PDF for production.

The low-res takes about 3 hours. I couldn't check the time for the high-res PDF yet, as the other export is still running while writing this post.

These are my settings: MacBook Pro i7, macOS Mojave, 16 GB RAM, Publisher 1.7.3

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On 11/3/2019 at 10:42 PM, toco said:

(...) some images and some placed vector PDF files. (...) export two PDF files (...) The low-res takes about 3 hours.

Three hours sound really a lot for 16 pages. To understand what might be going on it would be useful to know more about the complexity of "a full-sized background" + "some images" + "some vector files". E.g. kind and number of masks, filters, effects, adjustments, and the resolutions of input, document and output. Also your settings for both PDF export versions could be useful info.

It might shorten export time if you flatten complex objects before export.
Instead of exporting all 16 pages you could try to detect the culprit by exporting single pages or even single objects only.

Instead of placing a PDF (with unwanted opening) you possibly can convert it before import to EPS (or maybe ps). That way AfPub will manipulate its appearance less.

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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Hi thomaso and pruus

Thank you for your answer. As I always did, I tried to keep the resolution as close to 300 PPI as possible. To test if the export will be a bit faster, I've reduced the resolution of some images which were about 500 to 600 PPI. 
I've placed the background image on the master page so it should only be calculated once instead of for every page (as from my experience with InDesign). "Some vector files" are some logos and the vectorized PDF files. I've attached the file to this thread. Maybe this helps

I've tried to export a PDF/X-4 with bleed and cut marks. I'll try the export page after page to see where the slowdown happens.

Thanks in advance for your help.

EOT_2_2019_print.afpub

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@toco, I don't get issues when exporting your .afpub as PDF with web preset. It takes 50 seconds and results in 7,3 MB. Since I had only Frutiger activated there could be an issue with one of the other of your used fonts. Also there are a few missing linked resources in your uploaded file.

I'd try to change fonts for a speed test – which will be easier if you use saved text styles. The next trial would focus on those resources which are missing in your uploaded .afpub.

Not that it might cause your issue, I am just curious: For what specific reason do you duplicate the title text frame on the master page? Couldn't you simple apply the white stroke to one frame only instead of creating the stroke with an additional frame underneath? Or can't I see the goal because I don't have the font installed?

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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Hi all

thank you for your help. I've checked the free memory on my disk and there's indeed not a lot left. About 20 GB max. I also had some font conflicts with the used Frutiger font. But that didn't seem to be the cause. 

After I restarted my MacBook after the last software update it seemed to be a bit faster. I'll try to free some HD memory and maybe can change some performance settings. I'll have to check if I could assign some more RAM. 

I also changed some of the images to JPG with no significant performance increases. 

And the reason I've placed the titles twice instead of using a stroke around the text is that the border of the text would overlap the following letters. I had the same effect in InDesign so I'm used to this method :)

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1 hour ago, toco said:

I've checked the free memory on my disk and there's indeed not a lot left. About 20 GB max.

Then that may well be the problem. In another thread, a user was getting crashes with only 18GB left, whereas according to the developer his particular file would need 25GB of free space. That is a different document with different issues, of course, but as you may be approaching the limit, there could be issues with disk thrashing.

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toco, I think the huge difference of 3 hours export time is NOT related to your computers configuration. (my mac is nothing special: 8 MB RAM, 1 processor/4 kernels). Since I could export in less than 1 minute I suspect as the culprit any resource I did not have during my export. I would recommend to create text styles and then to change fonts on 1 click for a speed test.

In case you really suspect your macs config then take a look in the activity monitor graphic, both CPU and RAM section, and possible send screenshots. If you don't get there obvious extreme occurrences then the chance to speed up with additional memory is rather low.

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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