ArcGIS 10 isn't exporting all layers to PDF

[RichardAlexander]

I'm a student in an Intermediate GIS class and I'm using ArcGIS 10.1 on my Windows 7 Pro computer. I've spent 1.5 semesters exporting my MXD files to PDF, but now ArcGIS is ignoring some layers in one of my assignments, and I don't know the reason. I'm using the GIS Tutorial 2: Spatial Analysis Workbook, and I'm trying to export the map I created in Chapter 5-8, pages 188 and 189. I can see everything on the screen the way it is supposed to be, and my legend is correct, but the polygon feature classes that I created to demonstrate network analyst are not showing on the PDF. If I export to BMP, the feature classes show, but they don't show when exported to PDF. Does anyone have any ideas how I could get those three feature class layers to show in PDF?

Thank you.

[TheoFaull]

1. try increasing the resolution in the General tab on the export map dialogue,

2. then go to the advanced tab and try playing with the options there.

Perhaps your version of Adobe Acrobat is too old?

[RichardAlexander]

Resolution already is set to maximum.

I've tried all the options in the Advanced tab.

My version of Adobe Acrobat is the most recent (10.1.10). I also tried opening the file on a different computer that is maintained by my school, with the same results.

Thank you for your suggestions.

[BrandonLeague]

Hi Richard,

You could try dragging the layers into a new mxd and see if that gets it working. Also, this article has a good troubleshooting test:

17783 - Diagnose an ArcMap printing or exporting problem‌

[RichardAlexander]

I did not know that I could drag layers to a new mxd. How would I do that?

I think that link you provided is on to something. Someone on there mentioned that ArcGIS sometimes has trouble with large maps, so I tried zooming in from 1:35000 to 1:10000. ArcGIS responded with an error message that one or more layers failed to draw. I had seen that error message previously when I was tinkering around with settings, but it seemed to go away when I re-opened the original document. Now, I find that as long as I stay at 1:35000, the screen image looks fine, but the more I zoom in, the more errors ArcGIS generates. I also found yesterday that when I tried doing a test print, only the left quarter of the page actually printed, and it printed in portrait when it should have printed in landscape.

[BrandonLeague]

Open a new session of ArcMap, select the layers in the original mxd (holding the shift key), and drag the layers over. It's just a short cut to re-creating the mxd.

Here is another good article for troubleshooting printing and exporting:

29670 - Create a 'dummy' printer and set it to be the default printer for Windows‌

[FranzLeonardo]

You could use a printer, like Nitro PDF or Adobe PDF Printer.