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Claus

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Printing PDF file is extremely slow

I am printing a 7 MB PDF file to a HP LaserJet 5Si printer and it takes forever.  It will probably take 1-2 days to print the entire file, so I have stopped trying to do it.

I have tried reducing the printer resolution to 300 dpi but it didn't help much.

What can I do ?

I don't care if I get the document out in a lower resolution or without images.
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Karl Heinz Kremer
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Which version of Acrobat/Reader are you using? How many pages do you have in this document? Do other documents print faster? How fast is your computer? What is "Print as Image" set to (this is a setting on the Acrobat print dialog, it depends on the version where you would find this)?
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Claus

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I've tried with both version 4.0 and 6.0 of Adobe Acrobat.  Both are installed on my PC.
The document contains 64 pages.
All other documents print fast as they should on a HP Laserjet printer. We have never had the problem with other PDF documents before either.
My PC is quite new (1 year old) with a recent CPU and plenty of RAM and harddisk space. So it should be fast enough.
The "Print as Image" setting is greyed out and cannot be set (in 6.0).
Under 4.0 it was turned off.   I just tried turning it on and tried printing again but it doesn't seem to change anything.


If other PDFs print with an acceptable speed, it's the PDF file, and there is not much you can do about this. Does this file contain transparent items? Some applications flatten transparency by creating hundreds of thousands tiny images that take forever to render. I've never seen a print time of multiple days, but it's possible.

If you have the full version of Acrobat, you could try to extract pages from this document, and print the document in several chunks. It's possible (but not very likely) that this could speed up printing. You would e.g. select the first five pages of the document in Acorbat's thumbnail view, right click and select "Extract Pages". This will create a new document. Just print this and see if it prints any faster. If it does, keep on extracting and printing.

Can you make this file available for analysis?
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ASKER

Yes, I believe it contains transparent items, in fact.  In general, it contains a lot of graphics.

I have tried to extract the first two pages, and it is not faster.

Yes, I can email you the first two pages - or make them available in some other way, as you prefer.

Thanks,
Claus
You can either put the file up on a web server and post the link here, or email it to the email address on my profile page (https://www.experts-exchange.com/M_1037718.html)
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ASKER

I have sent it to your email address.

Thanks,
Claus
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Karl Heinz Kremer
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Thanks for all the help.  I guess this is as far as I can get.  I will award you the points for all the help.
One other point could be to use a PDF to DOC converter.

Thanks,
Claus
The PDF to DOC converter would also convert the thousands of images.