PDFs inserted into the drawing make the PDF plot size too large

[Patrick G]

Working in AutoCAD Civil 3D 2016. I have a 24" x 36" sheet set with 30 pages. On average the pdfs are between 350 KB and 600 KB. One pdf with a wall of text is 1,500 KB. Until I get to my last 4 pdfs, the details. Three of these details sheets have multiple PDFs inserted into them (by PDFATTACH) and those three pdfs are 9000 KB, 8000 KB, and 13000 KB.

Looking closely at the first detail sheet. It has 12 pdfs inserted into it. Those 12 pdfs total 385 kb. If I turn off the pdfs and just plot the border the page is only 300 KB. However when I turn on the pdfs, the file size balloons up to 9,000 KB.

9MB isn't the end of the world, but I work for a large company in a remote office and it really drags. Even that isn't the killer, until I had to load them through Project Dox to a municipal website yesterday for our submittal. Literally they took 21 hours to load. I left my computer running over night and when I came in this morning they still weren't finished.

Working for a large company, I have little control over plot drivers, etc. We use "DWG to PDF.pc3"

I know there must be a setting somewhere that is wrong. I've searched and saw some articles that helped inside "PDF Options" on the plot screen in 2017, with hyperlinks. But I do not have the button for PDF Options on my plot screen in 2016.

Any help is appreciated.

My temporary work around right now is going to have to be printing the blank border and then chopping up and pasting in the detail PDFs into the border PDF. The end result is only 320KB, but doesn't look as clean.

Thank you

[cadtag]

one option would be to convert the PDFs to bitonal TIF files and attach those. No guarantees, but worth trying

[Tom Beauford]

Sounds like a strong argument to upgrade so you could bring linework and text from those PDF details into your drawing. Current version of "DWG to PDF.pc3" uses fonts instead of graphics which makes them clearer to read, much smaller file sizes, and of course text you can search for and copy.

[dgorsman]

Thing is when you print a referenced PDF to another PDF, it doesn't "insert" the PDF into the output PDF like a copy-paste. It creates images out of the references PDFs, then creates the output PDF using those images.

You might want to consider using a different program like Acrobat or Bluebeam to create composite PDF sheets. Or if everything is *already* PDF and AutoCAD is only being used to glue-stick them together, just use the PDFs.

[Patrick G]

Thing is when you print a referenced PDF to another PDF, it doesn't "insert" the PDF into the output PDF like a copy-paste. It creates images out of the references PDFs, then creates the output PDF using those images.

You might want to consider using a different program like Acrobat or Bluebeam to create composite PDF sheets. Or if everything is *already* PDF and AutoCAD is only being used to glue-stick them together, just use the PDFs.

Informative Answer. Thank you. Our situation is we have a 24" x 36" border (CAD) and insert a few 8.5" x 11" details (PDF) into them. I love inserting them in CAD because I can size them and align them perfectly.

[Rpunturi]

Don't know if this addresses you problem, but figured I would offer.

One way we have inserted information from a PDF into a drawing is using OLE past.

by using the SNAPSHOT command in Adobe you can copy an image in a PDF and past that into a DWG as an OLE format image.
The image is scalable. However, you cannot change the color or transparency and will not mirror. but its an image none the less.

The advantage is, it is connected to the DWG, it is not an xref. It creates a slightly smaller file.
The disadvantage is, if the OLE is too big, it simply will not plot.