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Export to pdf using Arcpy.mapping results in poor-quality PDF

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12-13-2012 01:39 AM
ThomasColson
MVP Alum
Using the sample code for "Creating a map book with facing pages" , the resulting PDF output is very pixelated. No, I am not using any raster data in the source MXD, nor do any of the vector layers have transparency. I do have vector contour lines in the source MXD. I think because of the presence of the contours, arcpy is defaulting everything to 72 dpi. However, def PDFDocumentCreate does not seem to have any parameters that can control the output pdf quality. Is there a way that mass-production map books can be output to high-quality PDF's?
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MathewCoyle
Honored Contributor
The exportToPDF method of data driven pages is where you control these parameters.
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JeffBarrette
Esri Regular Contributor
PDFDocumentCreate is really intended for appending existing PDFs into it in order to generate multi-page documents.

ExportToPDF can be found on the DataDrivenPages object as suggested above but it also is available as a root arcpy.mapping function (if you are not using DDP).

http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.1/#/ExportToPDF/00s300000027000000/

The {resolution} parameter allows you set set the DPI.

Jeff
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