PDF export error

[Rik]

I have a xara file with lots of images.
The saved xara file is about 45Mb.

If I try and export this as PDF with 300dpi or 600dpi, I get an error that says 'File could not be saved'

Is Designer Pro X not capable of handling this size of file?

I would imagine that there are users out there who are dealing with very large images and probably much larger file sizes.
Is it simply that the dpi I am choosing, is the cause?

[gwpriester]

How is the PDF file going to be used Rik? 600dpi is overkill, even for commercial printing unless the printer can print 300lines per inch. 300dpi is perfectly good for most commercial printing. If the document is intended for sharing with others and viewing on a computer monitor, then 96dpi is all you need.

[Acorn]

Rik, I have a 45MB Xara Site so I just exported it at 300dpi PDF/X (Commercial printing).
I watched Windows Task Manager and Xara started at 555MB Memory and rose to 1,025MB during the export.
The CPU was almost 100% and maximum available memory reached was 90%.
I have 3.0 GB of installed RAM for Windows 7 32-bit.

If the file was much larger then I think I would have hit the buffers as you have.

Try again after closing all unneeded applications and possibly optimise your images as well, making sure you have copies of your .xar file or the images sources still available.

Acorn

[tonylondon]

I have had a similar experience/error alert with a document of 160Mb when exporting under standard settings. I can still export individual pages so I guess it is a combination of both factors. Because of other PDF export issues I tend to use Adobe Acrobat, in which case the export takes longer but has no issues or limitations.

[handrawn]

Hi Rik

so how many is lots and how big are they - cos likely a large one takes more resource than two half the size, but I'm guessing there

anyway back in the day when xara first implemented multiple pages I laid out 37 pages each with 2 A5 sized drawings at 380dpi each - two to an A4 page - makes 74 drawings at 380 dpi each - file size 241MB - and, no surprise, this throws up an error if I try to export it, but I printed from it directly, page by page as I recall

but to speed things up on a less powerful computer I had split the file into three parts, the largest being 13 pages 26 A5 380dpi drawings 95MB in size and this exports ok to commercial PDF on my current win7 3GB - uses about 1.5-2GB memory and 100% of one of the CPU's - took about a minute...

point I'm trying to make - it's not just the file size, it's also how 'complicated' the contents...

[Rik]

Thanks for the replies, everyone.

There are 8, A4 size pages with images that are between 4Mb and 6Mb.

I'm running Windows 7 32bit in a virtual machine.
The Laptop is 2.8GHz Intel i7 processor, with 4Gb of RAM.

So, reading some of the replies, it is a size issue.
The file did export once at 300dpi, but, if I try changing any settings, such as security, then it fails.

Gary: It's not so much that I need that sort of resolution, I wanted to know what the problem is?
Having said that, I will be be printing the file on A3 paper, and I assume, that sort of enlargement should be no problem?

[handrawn]

ok - there's a memory drain for a start: a virtual machine... that will eat up a slice of available memory just to run...

[Albacore]

Rik I would say that you need at least 8gb of memory for that task. I was looking for an Adobe Illustrator thread which posted the min. for Illy to work with compatible thumbnail PDF saved along with the Illy file but can't find it at the moment. As Handrawn has stated your are running it on a virtual machine which is spooling into your ram and when you use the export filter it is going to do the same. For Windows 7 min. requirements you need at least 2gb and 1 Ghz of processing power for the programme to run so increase your memory.