topic Re: Export to PDF with Data Driven Pages performance in Mapping Questions

Export to PDF with Data Driven Pages performance

VishApte — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 21:33:32 GMT

Hi,

I have a forestry customer who is using Data Driven Pages to export multiple maps to PDF. It takes 3-4 minutes to export to PDF per page with 300dpi. The map book has about 500 pages and takes good 25 hrs to build a map book. It is not a very complex mxd and has about 15 layers served using Direct Connect to SDE on SQL Server 2008. Performance measured using Map Service Publishing seem to be OK and takes about 11 to 20 seconds per zoom, pan etc. Is 3-4 min per page acceptable performance for Export to PDF? Is anyone generating map book with similar layers at faster rate?

Regards,
Vish

Re: Export to PDF with Data Driven Pages performance

JohnSobetzer — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:53:21 GMT

A lot hinges on whether you have rasterization going on, complex labeling, highly compressed imagery, etc. in your layers all of which can greatly increase processing time. More hinges on the dpi and the Output image quality. If you are using the Highest try it at normal and 300 dpi. The computer specs are of course a factor. You might Google on ArcGIS pdf performance or something like that for more ideas.

I've got some town by town forest stand types over photos at 36x48 that easily take that long to export to pdf. In contrast the base covertype maps are setup so there is no rasterization of any sort and the labels are all annotext and they zip right out. I've got it set so most of my DDP exports are on my old secondary computer running Arcview 10.1 beta and while the project is exporting I'm doing work on my main computer, but in the past I set things to run overnight on the photo type maps.

Re: Export to PDF with Data Driven Pages performance

TimothyTresohlavy — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 12:26:37 GMT

3-4 minutes per page?!?! Wow, I wish! I have a transit analysis mapbook that takes 45+ minutes per (11x17) page (~ 30 total pages) and its a nightmare. This doesn't even include aerial imagery, just background roadways, railroads, and several activity center locations/labels.