Using hatches and having small .pdf file size exports

[ilimatiare]

Hi all, Long time VW user, on a Mac - I go between an Imac and a powerbook. Running MontereyOS.

 

I've recently started having issues with hatches and too large of file sizes. I do residential design and often have concrete hatches on many plans/site plans. Is there a way to NOT have this create huge file sizes once output to .pdf? Anyone have a decent concrete hatch that does not create a million little vectorlines? Wondering if anyone has a work around... different idea than a hatch that won't vectorize once a pdf? Export settings that would makes it so hatches aren't exporting as vector objects? My municipality has gone all digital and my files are being rejected due to file size... I have to have material delineations on my plans but really need to resolve this somehow. any thoughts appreciated.

[tsw]

You could try making a tileable image from your hatch and then give your objects an Image fill instead of Hatch fill. I'm not sure if it would reduce the file size by much, but could be worth trying. (Vector based hatches should be pretty lightweight to begin with.)

 

If you go this route, you could further optimize file size by ensuring your image is saved as a true binary bitmap (black-or-white only) or at least grayscale.

 

[ilimatiare]

That's a creative idea... i wonder if it would work. i think the problem isn't even so much in vectorworks direct output but rather what happens to the .pdf file when another vector reading program like adobe opens it... My output file was only 10MB but then it got opened in adobe and stamps applied and all of a sudden it's 171 mb due to that program reading all the tiny vectors of the concrete hatch which must have been millions of lines over the 6-7 large scale sheets...

 

Unfortunately my files have to be able to go through a pdf reader and retain their small file sizes...

[Jeff Prince]

You can always rasterize your PDF during publishing.

 

Complex line hatches are a problem in a number of programs.  I’m not sure if the PDF format has a way to define a hatch that is lightweight or not.  If it does, then perhaps there is something Vectorworks could do in the publishing to fix it.

 

I’ve had similar problems with cropped images, sketch overlays, and other heavily layered graphics when publishing to PDF that could only be fixed by rasterizing.