30 replies to this topic

[Harry Staab]

Is anyone else experience significantly slower PDF exports? When exporting plan sets (all pages, or single), I'm seeing very long export times. On 3 office PCs, all assuredly speedy, it has been taking up to 30 minutes to export a single plan set (about 10 pages). On 1 PC (of course it's mine) there have been instances where it doesn't want to export at all.

 

I fiddled around with our borders, whether title blocks are local or network referenced, etc. I've discovered that floor plans will export pretty normally, but any drawings with lots more linework are a drag. Some elevations, simple ones it seems, are ok. Bigger projects with lots of different hatches and linework are having trouble. Pages full of detail drawings are very slow.

 

SoftPlan seems to be "thinking", using some system resources I can monitor via task manager, but it is disappointingly slow. I've let SoftPlan know with a few support tickets, but hope someone here may have some advice or have found a solution.

 

Any suggestions?

[Jim Crook]

Harry, while not a solution to the Softplan issue, maybe a temporary solution would be

to use a third party PDF printer program like Cute PDF until SP comes up with a fix ?

 

Cute is free and works great.

 

JimC

[Tim Stockton]

I have exported several plans - both single sheets and full plans - and have not noticed any slow down, especially to the degree that you are talking about.  You might check to make sure nothing is running in the background that can cause this... just a thought...

[Harry Staab]

Thanks for the feedback. Scratching my head since this doesn't appear to be entirely SoftPlan's issue given your lack of the issue, but unsure since this is repeatable over multiple PCs in the office. I will take your advice to use CutePDF, though it is too bad you can't print a full plan set to a single file, or can you?

[Brian Berzinskis]

I have noticed slower PDF exports also but have not had any as bad as 30 minutes. Sometimes it even looks like SoftPlan froze but I wait it out and it comes back.

[Thomas Roman]

Harry,

 

smallpdf.com has a nifty free "MERGE PDF" utility ... as well as a number of other PDF related utilities...

[Harry Staab]

I've got acrobat pro, so merging them isn't a problem. Thanks for the ideas.

[admin]

Thanks for the feedback. Scratching my head since this doesn't appear to be entirely SoftPlan's issue given your lack of the issue, but unsure since this is repeatable over multiple PCs in the office. I will take your advice to use CutePDF, though it is too bad you can't print a full plan set to a single file, or can you?

Right click on the Plan Set in the navigation window .... export PDF ... all pages.  All pages are sent to a single PDF file. 

[Tom McConnell]

2016 pdf export very slow. Maybe even slower after moving project to new location on hard drive.

[Warren Ducote]

Yes, Much slower that 2014.   ???????????????????????????

[Brian Ficek]

I have noticed it is slower plus I have had a couple of times after it was done exporting upon opening the pdf file I would get an error and only about half the drawing would show up.

[Ron Mejeur]

I've never exported to pdf.  I have pdf995 that I use as a printer driver.  Just specify where I want the file printed and it's done.  Works quickly and never have had any issues.

[Brian Ficek]

I've never exported to pdf.  I have pdf995 that I use as a printer driver.  Just specify where I want the file printed and it's done.  Works quickly and never have had any issues.The

The nice thing about Softplans export to PDF is you don't have to select the file location.  It defaults to the project directory you are working on.  I used PDF995 too and it worked good but I hated it when I forgot to change the directory.

[Harry Staab]

I made two copies of a simple project and conducted an experiment. Exporting 8 pages to a single PDF using SoftPlan's "export PDF" function, 2014 took about 45 seconds while 2016 took at least 20 minutes. I uploaded both versions to SoftPlan+ support and they confirmed that they were able to replicate this issue. It is a relief to know that it's not just our office, but it is certainly slowing down our workflow significantly. I encourage everyone who is having similar issues to make it known to SoftPlan so that this is fixed soon.

[Joseph Smith]

Did they fix this?  Reason I ask is I just tried and it worked as fast if not faster then V2014

[Mark Petri]

I've only tried it on concept sets and not a full set yet. It seems okay to me. Still getting huge file sizes due to using multi-format notes. Wish it would compress the final files better.

[Harry Staab]

Very interesting to me that some of us have issues and others have none. There hasn't been a patch and it is still a problem for us. I wonder what the common denominator is for us problem exporters..

 

It seems to me there must be something about our drawings that SP doesn't like. I can export a blank plan set (with borders) without issue, but any attempt to export with a floor plan is slow. Some simple pages, like some elevations, exports ok. Perhaps it just doesn't like projects that were started in 2014. I haven't yet had the opportunity to do a project from scratch in 2016..

 

Hmmm... hmm indeed!

[Brian Ficek]

Wow I can’t believe it took 20 minutes.  Mine seems a bit slower but not that dramatic.

[Harry Staab]

At first I didn't think it worked at all, so I would impatiently have to force close a project after several minutes. After a couple other drafters at my office reported that theirs worked, slowly, I began to let it sit, while working on other projects. 20 minutes is an accurate report for most exports I've attempted.

[Ron Mejeur]

Just tried export with a 5 page 24x36 plan set with a fair amount of detail and it took approx. 4 min.