PDF Choking APPE - Best Practice?

[arossetti]

I have a customer provided PDFX4 with over 1200 vectors and a few hundred transparancy layers - don't ask. It is choking my APPE and it is running out of memory while trying to RIP it. In Caldera I can change the flattening behavior of the APPE to allow this thing to RIP however it is not ideal especially in our workflow which is touchless.

Is there a Acrobat preflight best practice that can be used to get this file to process without manipulating the APPE of the RIP?

 

[prepressdork]

Is flattening transparency in Acrobat before handing it off to rip an option?

pd

 

[Mark Force]

If flattening transparency in Acrobat doesn't help we sometimes have luck placing the PDF into InDesign and then exporting a PDF/x-1a.

Mark

 

[Ulrich]

Is it a single or a multi page file?

Might be flattening (as PD suggested) will even cause changing vector into bitmap of some (or all, depending from the special constructions and what kind of) objects, so you can try to save as a picture file also.

Highest possible resolution of course (depending from sujet...) and you have to check your colormanagement-settings might be. Have a look at the quality to exclude a double compression if jpegs involved.

 

[michaelejahn]

I think flattening is the answer

Transparency flattening (Adobe Acrobat Pro)

Flattening may be necessary when you print or when you save or export to other formats that don’t support transparency. Follow these steps in Adobe Acrobat Pro to create or apply a flattener preset.

helpx.adobe.com

I believe you can create a droplet that will automate the flattening process.

Automating document analysis with droplets or preflight actions (Adobe Acrobat Pro)

Automating document analysis with droplets or preflight actions (Adobe Acrobat Pro)

helpx.adobe.com

 

[michaelejahn]

If flattening transparency in Acrobat doesn't help we sometimes have luck placing the PDF into InDesign and then exporting a PDF/x-1a.

Mark

or, simply save out as PDF 1.4 ( Acrobat 5 )

 

[abc]

Anything you can share, I see an awful lot of these kind of files?
Number of nodes on a page is a real issue, really complex vectors that as you say can really choke a rip.
There are a few techniques for cleaning them up, but they varying depending on the actual file.
Number of nodes on a page, number of nodes in a defined area, there are a few preflight checks you can use to identify these kind of files and move them out of the way before they kill your output workflow.
if you can send it over I can take a look. [email protected]

 

[Ulrich]

flattening which way ever would be my first choice too, but if complicated vectors (some difficulty layered maps or such things like tensor product meshes Type 7 smooth shades are also in there) are the problem, they might be kept and not touched by flattening...

 

[Joe]

Flattening or saving as PDF/x-1a or PDF 1.4 ( Acrobat 5 ) are all horrible solutions and only a very last resort. Let abc have a look at it and I'm sure he can show you ways Pitstop can help. Right tool for the right job thing.

 

[arossetti]

So I have been unable to flatten, it crashes my Macbook Pro. I have also tried to open the file back up in AI and save out as a PDFX1, same issue. It is almost like there is a conflict with one transperancy layer that when either the APPE or Adobe goes to flatten that layer it locks up. I'm starting to think it is more of a file issue than anything, but it doesn't explain why changing the flattening option in the APPE allowed it to process.

 

[arossetti]

To answer some questions, a single page file.

Number of nodes in a path greater than 1000 = 95

 

[abc]

If you have PitStop, open the Inspector and go to this tab.
Don't select anything and it will give you some other feedback on the document.
This is from a file that is quite complex as an example, nearly 1.4 million nodes in a single A4 page.

 

[Ulrich]

To answer some questions, a single page file.

Number of nodes in a path greater than 1000 = 95

so, we do not know the file, but if the nodes are the reason and you do not have PitStop but Illustrator as you stated, give a try to this, if it is not allowed to send them to abc:

select all opened in Illustrator (black arrow, should does not matter when bitmaps will be selected also by that...) ->menue -> object-> path-> simplify with 100% and Preview

 

[arossetti]

First off thank you everyone for your help thus far. Unfortunately, as you may have guessed, due to InfoSec/customer file retention policies I can not share this file.

See the attached result from Pitstop:

 

[arossetti]

And also here are the simplify results.

 

[Ulrich]

Just to isolate the problem:

Try simplify with a less quality (not maximum 100%, try 1% or/and activate „create straight lines“, no matter curves are not acceptable anymore, it is just for testing with the aim to reduce the nodes remarkable...

Which shading types are listed in a preflight report? (Make a screenshot please with the opened listing in the report. There are 8 shadings in rhe file...)

Are there layers in the file?

At least: decalibrate the file and change the alternative colorspace into cmyk globally. Might be there is an icc-profile tagged to any object, you stated 100 transparencies, a lot to do for the RIP to generate from maybe different colorspaces into that one of the device and for a pdf/x-1 saving too...

No more ideas anymore here at this time (fonts are checked already i guess)

 

[Ulrich]

This does not match:

A few posts above it is reported there are 95 objects with more than 1000 nodes

PitStop info says there are only 517 nodes the most in an object

 

[abc]

Looks like you have one image of 834 mb's.
Not sure how big the page is, but you should probably take a look at resolutions as well.
You might be able to reduce the amount of data the rip has to process