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Another Composing Speed question


KayEll

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I'm hoping someone can help me.

 

We are new to FusionPro Desktop. One of our first jobs seemed quite simple, lots of fields, but no rules or resources needed. The job has about 9500 records.

 

We composed to PDF, which was very, very slow. It took about 12 seconds per record, which seems to be unbelievably slow from what I've read in other threads, especially with 9500 records to compse.

 

When my boss asked someone at Printable about the slowness, he was asked which method he was using to compose. When he replied "PDF" he was told, "well, that's why it's so slow." We were very new to FusionPro and needed to just "get the job out", so he continued on, with no time to test other methods.

 

Now that I've had time to do some more testing, I am not finding another method that is any faster. Admittedly, I've only tried three . . .

 

PDF: 12 seconds per record, final PDF size is 285 K.

 

Postscript: 12 seconds per record, final .ps size is 981 K.

 

PPML: 12 seconds per record; final zipped file is 2,055 K.

 

These are the only three I have had time to test, but there seems to be no difference and they are all quite slow. Can someone suggest a better compose method? Or can someone look at our files to see what is wrong? This is a job we will do again, and the composing is just taking way too long. Factor in that we have to do compose it in small chunks, and it is making things difficult.

 

I'd love any suggestions you can give me for how to compose this particular job.

 

Thanks for any help.

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A full analysis would require an examination of your job files. You can feel free to post them here as an attachment, and someone might take a look at them, but I can't guarantee it. The only sure way to have your files looked at is to contact Support.

 

 

A few other general observations:

  • In my experience, which seems to match your own observations, composition time doesn't vary much by output format. RIP speed, however, can vary widely by output format and other factors. Specifically, just about every output format that FusionPro supports is optimized for VDP, with the notable exceptions of PDF and PostScript. So when "someone at Printable" was talking to your boss about PDF output, maybe they were talking about RIP speed.
  • You will see faster composition speeds with FP Server or FP Direct than with FP Desktop. If you're routinely doing compositions of around 10,000 records or more, you may want to consider investing in one of these higher-end products. FP Server customers also have access to add-on features like load balancing and image caching to further optimize large compositions.
  • There are many factors which can affect composition speed, including large graphics, complex JavaScript rules, copyfitting, imposition, font embedding, Unicode support, and a whole host of other things too numerous to list. FusionPro is a complex application with lots of features. Again, though, without seeing the job, it's hard to guess what the limiting factor in your composition speed might be.

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VDX output problems still arise with some variable jobs. I just finished one using FP Direct and the VDX took 10 times longer to output each chunk of the job compared to Postscript. I was outputting 55,000 records in 1,000 record chunks. The biggest problem, though, VDX didn't output the second file correctly and errored out on the 3rd. The Postscript files output very nicely and quickly (seemed faster using fp 6.0 than 5.8). I've been trying to get Printable to fix the issues between Postscript and VDX output differences for over a year now. It seems like they get one working then the other has problems again.
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So when "someone at Printable" was talking to your boss about PDF output, maybe they were talking about RIP speed.

 

No, the question was clearly about compose speed, not RIP speed. I will send the files to Support and see what they can tell me.

 

Thanks Dan!

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