Export layout to PDF time

[lpainchaud]

Hello

I regularly export georeferenced pdf maps and was able to do so easily with Arcmap (~30 sec). For some reason, ArcGIS Pro takes forever to export even the simplest ones (~15 mins) which greatly impact the efficiency of my work. More exactly, it's the "Preparing export" step that seems to be the problem. Once this step is done, the map is exported in a second. Finally, using basic settings such as these doesn't speed up the export in any way.

Is this a known issue ? What can I do to fix the problem ?

Thank you

[TomBole]

Hi @lpainchaud , 

Currently I'm not aware of any performance issues concerning export to PDF. We have many "simple" and more complex layouts that get exported to PDF in our automated test harness on a daily basis. No performance issues have been identified.

Of course our test projects only cover a portion of all the  possible combinations that go into an ArcGIS Pro layout. The problem you are running into may be specific to your data/workflow. In order to troubleshoot your issue we will need to reproduce the problem.

Can you contact Esri Support? They are better equipped to handle troubleshooting steps and gather bug data. They can be contacted at https://support.esri.com/en/contact-tech-support.

Thanks,

Tom

[GIS_Hotz]

I'm having the exact same problem.  I started an export at 7:00 PM last night, and it's still trying to export that PDF when I logged in the next morning.  I can explort directly to a JPG or PNG, but when I convert that back to a PDF it loses all of its georeferencing (which is required for people using the PDF in the field).

Was this issue ever resolved?

[TimothyRudzik]

I have the same issue regardless of the size or complexity of the map. The part that takes so long for me is "preparing export". It does eventually export.

Thanks,

Ryan Rudzik

[Wayne_Rennick]

I'm here because I too am frustrated by the 20+ minute exports to pdf. It seems like it's gotten worse recently. I wish there was a way to troubleshoot this.
My CPU and GPU are only at 2% and 8% respectively. plenty of RAM available....

It looks like it's using the Intel GPU not my discrete Nvidia GPU. I bet that's part of the issue.

[WestofFour]

I'm also here because of this issue. Exporting a PDF takes between 10-15 minutes each export, doesn't matter if I select a network drive or a local drive, export time stays the same. It sits on "preparing to export" for about 10 minutes, then "export in progress" for a few minutes. This greatly bottlenecks my efficiency and is, frankly, unacceptable. 

I'm not interested in helping diagnose or find a workaround, as this feature has functioned fine for 15+ years. Just adding to this thread to increase its visibility. Hopefully ESRI can come to a solution here, as those of us with PDF exports as part of our daily workflow cannot be expected to wait 10+ minutes for every export.

[AubriKinghorn]

Hello,

I know the long export times are really frustrating. We added some new optimizations in ArcGIS Pro 3.4 to significantly reduce the "Preparing to Export" time. I recommend updating to Pro 3.4 and seeing if the export times are better.

We will continue to work on ways to decrease export times, and appreciate you all commenting and sharing your experiences. It truly does help us find ways to improve the software.

[JohannesHuebner]

Hello!

Exporting layouts also takes a long time for us. It only takes a few minutes, but it's too long for tiny images that only contain an orthophoto. For larger layouts, it only takes a little longer. However, as we sometimes have to export many layouts in a row, this is also annoying.

I then tried using Python Bookmarks to create a batch process for exporting the layouts. This works brilliantly and takes just a few seconds per layout! The result is visually indistinguishable from the manually exported layouts. How is this possible?

I have one more question about batch processing: is it possible to export only certain layouts instead of all layouts of an ArcGIS Pro project?

Thanks,

Johannes

Edit: I have just installed version 3.4. The manual export now also works in a few seconds. It looks like the problem has been solved - thanks!

[AubriKinghorn]

@JohannesHuebner I'm so glad the export times improved for you in 3.4! Hopefully that work improves the export times for the others on this thread as well.

[WilliamRugg1]

I was also experiencing a slowness in exporting to a .PDS similar to lpainchaud today in PRO 3.3. Not sure if our County's shared resources were being allocated elsewhere, then became free again. Or did things improve by toggling off the "Enable color management" via Options >> Color management >> Set options for color management >> ... , hum?

Ironically, toggling off this setting resolves another issue, described as follows:  

Exporting a layout to a PDF with the 'Enable color management' toggled on in ArcGIS Pro 3.0 (or later) results in the exported PDF to display yellow when opened in Bluebeam Revu (PDF viewer). This occurs when upgrading from ArcGIS Pro 2.9 to ArcGIS Pro 3.0.

https://support.esri.com/en-us/bug/exporting-a-layout-to-a-pdf-with-the-enable-color-manag-bug-00015...

Patiently awaiting for our organization's next version upgrade to PRO 3.4.

Thanks Esri Community for all your contributions!