Fastest way to make a PDF

OL Connect Professional
1

Hi all,

Moved from PlanetPress 7.5 with PlanetPress Image and mostly merge “simple” letters via a .csv file and was always impressed by the speed of PlanetPress.

We have moved to Connect (a steep learning curve) and am using the generic PDF option within output creation sadly it’s five times slower spitting out a PDF, ran a test with 11000 doubled sided letters, same letter, same data. I can’t seem to get Connect Design to send a .ptk file to the workflow that Image can use and if I use the digital action with postscript output from the output creation it’s slower and I get memory errors.

I’ve tried passthough PDF, simple fonts removing the PDF letter completely, changed the number of merge and weaver enginers and nothing seems to make it faster.

Any tips, we do have Image available in Connect but it looks like it is more for legacy support as if I drag the .ppk file from the old server to the new one and run the job its faster but then you lose the benifits of data mapper and makes using the new server a bit pointless as I have to design the file in the old server.

Thanks,
Barry

2

Barry,
Firstly, you’re right, Imaging is for classic forms only (PTK).

As for the speed, Weaver should in fact be quicker and so I would ask, have you tried using the Create Preview PDF plugin as this is like the old Create PDF in PlanetPress Suite 7?

Is that any quicker?

Regards,

James.

3

Hi James,

Thanks for the reply, I tried to use the Create PDF preview but it only spat out one record (one letter) and I could not see an option to edit this as it looks like Create PDF preview is only meant to give one record as a proof?

4

You’re right - it’s to generate one record at a time but it means you could have it setup to split your CSV and then generate one record at a time across multiple threads hitting Create Preview PDF simultaneously.

5

Hi Jim,

I could not get this to work properly, if i split the CSV (generic splitter) then I get odd errors:
W3001 : Error while executing plugin: Socket Error # 10061
Create Preview PDF: W1603 : Plugin failed - 08:24:51 (elapsed time: 00:00:01:004)

Thought this might be as I was trying to concatenate the files but got the same issue with or without concatenate, very odd.

I have a days Webex with the reseller of PP and a two day training course in Manchester with OL hopfully that will help.

1

This just spits out a single csv for each record no PDF with the errors above

2

This works but I only get one letter