Oversize PDFs

Started by FPGprepper, February 09, 2018, 07:38:54 PM

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FPGprepper

My company is starting to get deep into large-format printing. After scouring the internet, I have yet to find a straightforward answer to this question: How does one circumvent the page size limit of 200 inches x 200 inches for PDFs? Although it is possible to scale up PDFs upon output on our in-house equipment, some third-party service providers require artwork to be uploaded at 100% of the desired output size. Some sources indicate that there is a way to expand the maximum page size to "millions" of inches by changing the "UserUnit" value in the PDF. Have any of you successfully done so, and if so, how did you do it?

pspdfppdfxhd

Good question, anxiously awaiting some insight on this one...

mc hristel

I can't comment on how well changing the UserUnit value works unfortunately, but I can confirm that we set up jobs using the scale up method to get around the size limit. To be fair we are doing all our large format printing in-house for everything, but we do work things as diverse as banners, stand up displays and whole room installations.

In the case of the third-party services asking for artwork actual size, I'd check with them to see how they suggest you get around the size limitation. After all it's their requirement and they must have dealt with it in the past.

beermonster

 :drunk3: :git off mah lawn: generally artwork is done to a scale value - i.e. say 25% of final size of 50% or whatever. Depending on the project and file sizes yeah jobs can arrive full size Most RIPS for wide format can blow up files to huge sizes (think building wraps) and on the whole make a good job of it. since ya don't really design in "pdf" the most important thing is that the artwork is to scale

since i dint trust designers (shocking news) i prefer to drop artwork into illustrator and check the scaling and tiling and export out again
Leave me here in my - stark raving sick sad little world

FPGprepper

Thanks for confirming what I suspected was true all along. Scaling the source file is not an option.

ninjaPB_43

I know this won't help much because I don't know what our vendors are doing on the backend - but we ship files off to printers for full size billboards and it always exceeds the limitations. Therefore our vendor gives us templates based on scale like Beer mentioned, and then they make their magic happen. A lot of times, 1 foot = 1 inch but not always.
People will notice the change in your attitude towards them, but won't notice their behavior that made you change.  -Bob Marley

FPGprepper

Your reply is helpful Ninja. If I ever crack the secret of oversized PDFs I'll be sure and share it here. I guess the real mystery is why, in the age of giant output devices, Adobe hasn't added support for documents much larger than 200 inches in any of its software products, even though the PDF 1.6 standard, released way back in 2005, allegedly allows for impossibly large page sizes.

rickself

You can also look at it as a 1 to 1, not in inches but for example in centimeters or noogies or whatever. 200 x 200. Or whatever size. The proportions should remain the same, but again, the output provider will need to enlarge the image to fit.
Rick Self, Prepress Oldie
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