Slow Printing of PDFs...

[kdw75]

We have PDFs that are supplied to us from our customer that are rather complex and usually done in RGB using Photoshop. When we try to print them on our 7556 it takes a long time and the printer pauses between pages saying that it is processing. We have it hooked up with gigabit ethernet so does anyone have any recommendations for speeding things up?

The sending machine is a Windows 7 computer with a Quad Core Xeon, 24GB of RAM and an SSD.

 

[Greg_Firestone]

Hi Kdw75,

I have a bunch of questions to try to help figure out what's going on.

You said the files were created in Photoshop. Are they all raster (no vector objects or live text)? Do the files have layers and transparency used?

What's the physical size and resolution of the files? e.g. 11x17 @ 300dpi?

What application are you printing the files from? Acrobat? If so, which version?

How much RAM on the printer? 3 Gigs?

Are you using the latest printer driver?

Greg

 

[kdw75]

The artist creates them in Photoshop and then exports it as a PDF which she gives to us. The type is still active, but everything else is rasterized. It says it is flattening the file when I print it.

The files are 5.5"x8.5" and 300 ppi. We impose them and run them 4 up on a 12"x18" sheet.

I have tried running them from Indesign and also exported it as a high quality PDF after imposing to run out of Acrobat X. Both are very slow.

The printer says it has 2GB of RAM and 1GB of page memory along with a hard drive.

Yes we are using the latest driver.

Keith

 

[Greg_Firestone]

Hi Keith,

That's correct, the flattening occurs when it's converted to PostScript via your Printer Driver.

Could be the amount of time it takes to create the PS, times it takes for the RIP to process the complex file, or the amount of RAM on the printer slowing it down. The RIP (internal or external) still has to rasterize the data and if it's very complex, that could do it. It could also be the amount of time necessary to flatten the PDF, but I think this is less likely.

Some tests:

In Acrobat, take your imposed PDF and Save As a PostScript File. Select the driver for your printer and make sure you use the same settings (language level, etc.). This will at least tell you how long it takes to save the file as a PS file. If it doesn't take long, probably not the issue.

Take the imposed PDF, and open it in Photoshop (I would avoid doing this for actual production). Rasterize it at the correct size and colorspace at 300DPI. Save it out as a PDF (it's now basically an image with a PDF wrapper around it). Then send this to your printer. If it prints faster, it shows that the RIP may be slowing down chewing on the complex data.

Could be some other file variables, but without seeing it, hard to say.

Greg

 

[kdw75]

Saving the files as a 300dpi JPG image causes them to run as fast as the printer can spit them out. Unfortunately the very small type and vector art suffers.

 

[Greg_Firestone]

Then must be the RIP grinding away on the complex file... How long does it take to run the job compared to the raster file? >5 mins, >10 mins?

You might be able to optimize the file ahead of time, however it's an additional process and could take time as well. Not sure how much of an impact it would have on the printing.

Greg

 

[kdw75]

I used the Acrobat fixup "discard hidden layers and flatten visible layers" and that seems to have sped things up dramatically.

I also turned off the flightcheck feature in InDesign CS6 and that gave me enormous speed increases when dealing with these files that have 5,000 pages.

 

[Greg_Firestone]

That's great! Glad you were able to speed things up.

Greg