9 replies to this topic

[antoniolocandro]

Anyone experiencing PDF Export Issues? Actually any export will be wrong. If you zoom to the country boundaries you will see odd pixel like error. It is just one shapefile. Using ArcGIS 10 Service Pack 4 on Windows 7, no issues before, but recently installed Inkscape and GIMP.

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[David Medeiros]

Anyone experiencing PDF Export Issues? Actually any export will be wrong. If you zoom to the country boundaries you will see odd pixel like error. It is just one shapefile. Using ArcGIS 10 Service Pack 4 on Windows 7, no issues before, but recently installed Inkscape and GIMP.

Arc has a very strange way of handling it's map exports to PDF (or AI). Even though these are vector exports Arc will re sample the line-work based on the screen resolution of the map and the output DPI of the PDF. If you capture your export map at a small scale and low DPI, complex line-work gets down sampled and blocky like your example. The way to remedy is to use a very high export DPI (like 1400 or more) for the PDF or AI file. Just be sure there are no rasters present or transparency used in the map as these cause the entire export to convert to raster.

HTH

[antoniolocandro]

Well I have tried that and on 4 different machines running windows 7, vista, xp and the same output. It all worked great before but I installed Inkscape and Gimp and this issues appeared. I think this is a bug, a very expensive bug. I will need to try this on a machine with no Inkscape or Gimp installed to check if there is a possibility they cause an issue.

Currently I can not export to any format and I really need to do this, no matter what resolution I choose the same problem happens, and since I am not in the USA customer service will be a piece of junk in my country.

I will try using a PDF printer to see if it makes things better

Anyone experiencing PDF Export Issues? Actually any export will be wrong. If you zoom to the country boundaries you will see odd pixel like error. It is just one shapefile. Using ArcGIS 10 Service Pack 4 on Windows 7, no issues before, but recently installed Inkscape and GIMP.

Arc has a very strange way of handling it's map exports to PDF (or AI). Even though these are vector exports Arc will re sample the line-work based on the screen resolution of the map and the output DPI of the PDF. If you capture your export map at a small scale and low DPI, complex line-work gets down sampled and blocky like your example. The way to remedy is to use a very high export DPI (like 1400 or more) for the PDF or AI file. Just be sure there are no rasters present or transparency used in the map as these cause the entire export to convert to raster.

HTH

[frax]

This has always been there, and is not related to those other programs you installed. Crank up output dpi to 25000 and the "pixelation" will go away, and it will export the full paths.

[antoniolocandro]

Well this is actually true, I just tried it on six other machines and same problems, somehow odd considering this is my first time in 8 years where I find this problems. I can't stop my work waiting for ESRI to find a fix so I will have to do a dirty method of using a 1% transparency so all converts to raster at a high resolution then optimize the PDF for web.

This has always been there, and is not related to those other programs you installed. Crank up output dpi to 25000 and the "pixelation" will go away, and it will export the full paths.

[frax]

Doesn't a high dpi fix the problem?

[antoniolocandro]

Very high dpi indeed which I can not afford since maps are to be downloaded, no problems before. Well I got a workaround not ideal situation but better than halting production.

Doesn't a high dpi fix the problem?

[David Medeiros]

Very high dpi indeed which I can not afford since maps are to be downloaded, no problems before. Well I got a workaround not ideal situation but better than halting production.

Doesn't a high dpi fix the problem?

As long as there are no raster layers or trasparencies set while exporting then the very high DPI is irellevant to file size since the PDF will be a vector file. It only matters to Arc in terms of how coarse it redners the linework. If there are any rasters or trasnparencies Arc will render the whole export as a raster.

[frax]

A very high dpi only affects the linework in the sense that it does not simplify it in the export process. If it is still too big/complicated, simplify it in ArcGIS before export using the generalization tools. Or use e.g. Adobe Illustrator to simplify.

[antoniolocandro]

Not really an option but thanks for the time

A very high dpi only affects the linework in the sense that it does not simplify it in the export process. If it is still too big/complicated, simplify it in ArcGIS before export using the generalization tools. Or use e.g. Adobe Illustrator to simplify.