Hello,
Our situation: We need to create high resolution PDF output for printing (external printer) and we need to create the same identical document but with the lowest possible resolution for archiving purposes.
With PP7 we achieved this quite easily by using the Imaging component in which you could select your document template and set the image resolution settings to whatever you wanted.
Now with PP Connect, I cannot seem to get this to work. The Imaging component doesn’t recognize PP Connect templates, and the PP Connect output components do not allow you to set anything related to resolution settings. It takes the resolution of the images/pdf’s that you use in your template and goes with that.
I can make our high resolution PDFs perfectly with PP Connect, but now I’m looking for a way to make low resolution copies of the same documents, without having to replicate everything in a separate template that uses low resolution versions of the artwork. This is not an acceptable sollution imo.
Does anyone have any experience with this, any ideas on how to solve this issue?
You could use two sections in the same template, one is using high resolution images, the other one having low resolution pictures.
A control script could select the proper section depending on a data field.
Use Connect Server to generate a PostScript job rather than a PDF and use Connect Workflow’s Imaging components to distill the PostScript to PDF using the quality settings you wish.
Hi,
Thanks for your answer. I’m trying to avoid this approach as we have quite a lot of brands, each with their own flavor. Duplicating each visual for low- and hi-res output seems like a lot of work for something that should be easier to accomplish, and effectively was easier to accomplish with PP7 using the Imaging component directly.
Hi, thanks for your answer!
I’m trying to implement this, but I’m probably doing something wrong…
I’ve changed my Output Creation preset to use the “Generic PS LEVEL2” printer instead of the “Generic PDF” printer.
In the workflow I have my All in One component configured which sends it’s output to a PlanetPress Image component where I’ve selected “Do not use a document (passthrough)” and set up an archive folder and filename for the output. On the “Job Options” tab I’ve set my resolution settings to as low as possible.
I don’t get an output file when I feed my XML datafile to the flow, and in the Image-logfile I receive the following error:
I1013 : No pages defined in the index file (i.e. pdi/xml), moving files to error directory
I1005 : Error while processing job; moving file to error folder: .ps
Any thoughts on how to solve this?
Use Digital Imaging instead of Image, which expects indices to have been defined in the PostScript job (same as in PlanetPress 7).
Yes!! This works like a charm!
Thank you very much!
We’re moving closer to production and I’ve started testing with real data files. A few side effects and issues have come up using this approach.
The PDF generated by the postscript output preset is very large. Where a “normal” PDF would be 1.7mb or so, the PS PDF is 9mb large. Once it’s cut up into individual PDF’s per customer and fed to our archiving tool, the individual PDF’s are as small as the ones we could create with PP7, so that’s ok, just annoying to have these bulky files.
The other issue, and this is more troubling, is that I’m starting to get an out of memory error when I feed it large data files (+/- 400 records that produce 400 letters, each letter is a front and a back side, so 2 pages/letter = 800 pages). How can I prevent this? (mind you 400 records is still only a medium data file, sometimes we can exceed 1000 records per data file).
Is there really no other sollution to achieve a small filesize output PDF for archival purposes, just like there was in PP7? (specifically downscaling the images to 75dpi)
I’ve ended up implementing MartinS’s sollution (see below).
Hey Martin,
I’ve ended up going with your sollution, as the alternative (postscript output preset) was generating big and clunky files.
In the end, just duplicating all the media and having a low- and high-resolution version is just a bit more initial setup, but once it’s done, it works fine.
I’m setting a JobInfo variable to a specific value when I want the output to be low-res. I’ve managed to map that JobInfo variable in the datamapper and feed it to Connect Designer that way.
Thanks for your input!
HI I’m fairly new to print shop designer and need to create a VDP pdf for 4000 names using 3 x artworks.
they are just business card size name tags but names vary over three different artworks.
I have put the tree artworks into separate sections and made them Dynamic & Conditional to put the correct artwork with the correct names.
When I preview what I have done in designer its working correctly but when I preview the pdf its duplicating each name three times?
Is there a setting when I go to print that im missing?
Any help would would be appreciated.
David Perrett
Have you put every art work on a different section?
When you are “previewing” in Connect Design, it shows only the current Section selected, hence you see 1 copy.
When you PDF output, it runs the whole Template, hence each records outputted in three art works.
You will need to setup a control script so only the proper Section/ArtWork is active for a specific record.
ok makes sense so will I set up a control script in the same way I would make the artwork conditional or dynamic? I noticed on the drop down list when I right click it gives me an option for new script is this what I need?
Yes…but you could setup each of your section to be conditional…both would work.