PDF export problem with multi page document

[James Loudon]

For several months now we have been working on a sixteen page colour prospectus for a school. It is finally ready to go to print but on selecting PDf/X as an output option I get an error saying out of memory - please try reducing resolution.
Has anyone else come across this? I am running XX4 Pro on XP pro SP3 on a dual Xeon box with 2gb of RAM - should be up to the task.
If I select the next option up, 300 dpi then its okay. But I need the full res for this. Is Xara really no good for this type of task?
It is the most demanding thing I have done with it I guess.

[handrawn]

have you tried splitting the sixteen pages across more than one xar file and printing them separately?

[Luciano]

James,
300 dpi resolution applies only to pictures, or transparency effect; it is more than it is required in professional printing.
Ripping is made at about 150 lpi, so 300 dpi is more than necessary (according to the formula the dpi = 1.41x lpi ).
If you wish more you can set up a higher value, but always set up a limit to resolution, otherwise you will end with a useless huge pdf file.

best wishes for your work
Luciano

[James Loudon]

Hello,
the document is full of photos, gradients and fills with transparency gradients so I think I need the full res. Plus the printer has asked for it. I have noticed in the past that the "high quality" option as oposed to the "comercial printing" option does not yeild as accurate colours and often does starnge things to drop shadows.
Therefore I always use that option and have made many print jobs successfully.
But not with X4.

[raynerj1]

You could Alway Fall back ten and punt...

Create a copy of your document, then make a bitmap copy of all the graphics on a new layer (hide the text) then use the Bitmap copy layer in your export and delete the discrete layers. Even a bitmap copy at 300 DPI (PPI for Steve) should be smaller then all the resized originals. I have found this works rather well with larger bitmap intensive documents.

Multiple bitmaps can gag any program.

If all else fails, create a document for each page, then use a .pdf editor to add all the pages back into one document. Worked well enough when I had to edit this 24 page catalog... example Catalog

[mg.architect]

James,
I had the very same problem.
My solution at the end was to print to PDF 995 out of the Xara XX4 Pro.
That worked with no errors. I was unable to to do anything using PDF/X in Xtreme 4 Pro. Like you I would get the 'out of memory error message'.

So now all my Xara documents are converted to pdf using PDF 995 with perfect results every time. The PDF 995 shows up in the Xara print menu so it's like using a XARA feature to create the pdf's :-)

mg

[Albacore]

Please watch using many transparencies this is a printers nightmare they will do anything bar want to print them. What John gave you there it was good information rasterizes all areas that have transparencies. Put any text in the topmost layer with the transparencies underneath if you don't want to create a bitmap copy of them as the PDF export will do that anyway. Then send to Acro to see if it meets all the criteria and if you have any problem areas.