When using Corel X5 I have had a lot of problems using linked images.
I have tried saving the suspect files (which is every one I work on) as X4 and opened it in X4 to test. All of the files output in a matter of minutes. If I then open the same file in X5 it hangs again. This leads me to believe that it is X5 that is causing the problem.
I am running Windows 7 on a 32 bit system with 3.00 Gb of Ram and a Tb hard drive.
Help
That needs to be checked out in depth and you need to zip all the files and put them on a server where they can be accessed. If you don't have access to a server then use Drop Box. You will need to keep it under 2GB to do that.
Yani
Thanks Yani, I will upload all files and will post the link when done.
Cheers, Darren
So I put up with the issue of massive file sizes using linked images and along comes Corel X6.
Installed and same damn problem. I have just created a file, 32 pages with one externally linked image on each page. Guess what. The file is in excess of 956Mb.
Can anyone explain what is going on here? There is an obvious but that has been overlooked in the past 2 versions of Corel Draw.
I have been using X6 for a number of multipage files with up to 50 linked images in each and have found it to be remarkably reliable, file sizes around 10Mb. However I have found that X5 was very buggy in this regard, files created in v12 with linked files came in to X5 OK but when saved the linked bitmaps were not visible and they could not be made visible unless you reimported them. Those self same files opened in X6 still had the problem so I had to reimport them.
Since then X6 has worked very well for me. One thing you do need to be aware of is printing. Save the file rpior to printing and DO NOT save the file AFTER PRINTING as in order to render the bitmaps at full res Draw has imported each file again at full resolution, thats why a file gets bloated.
What I do is, with every image I import this way is to scale it as necessary, then Bitmaps>Update From Link before saving. Also Use the document Properties report (File>Document Properties) to find the files with the huge sizes. On X5 files use the Object manager to check each bitmap to see if it is visible
Thank you, all of he linked files are showing as less than 1mb in size in the document properties. I have not printed this yet so that can't be an issue.
Pone thing I have not mentioned, each page is to be a poster which is 1200mm x 1000mm. Can page size increase the file size even if images are linked?
Darren Edwards - Invisage said: I have not printed this yet so that can't be an issue.
Exporting may well do the same thing as printing. Other things may give the same result. Put simply, save it regularly and keep checking the files size.
If you import an image, place it as a small image approx 1/10th the size of your page. Do Bitmap>Update From Link, then scale it to full size manually, this will reduce the dpi of the visible file to 5dpi or therabouts, as long as you don't Update again it will stay at this dpi. SAve before printing and always revert after.
I think you are asking a hell of a lot of Draw in this situation, 40 pages of 1200mm x 1000mm at 45dpi. If then Draw extrapolates to 300dpi for output, basically creating added pixels for every bitmap youre looking at nearly 500Mb per image. I'm not saying this is happening, but working on files this size with full page bitmaps should really be 1 page only documents I think.
Great suggestions thank you. I am thinking that I might downsize the pages to 1/10 the final output size and upscale on the rip for final output. I have already hacked the registry which was at 45 dpi default.
Really appreciate all of yor help.
Your welcome. Just keep thinking about the above as you work on the file. The original image will have a dpi value embedded which Draw will use to extrapolate to when outputting and it will like as not be inflating the image size. Unless youre images are heavy duty 20Mpx+ DSLR images to start with then you will likely be upscaling them a lot. Think about this and do the maths, then in your image editor change the value of the original image dpi to something suitable for a poster. Then hack the registry and change the dirplay res to 5-10dpi or thereabouts.
No familiar with RIPS at all so maybe Yani will chime in on this, and how upscaling will work.
We've asked a few times that Corel revisit this function and consider giving it a makeover. It could be so much more usefull. The ability to set the display dpi on a per doc basis for one, the ability to relink broken images and one thing I would find very useful, the ability to repackage all the linked images into the zip file that is the current cdr format. Makes it so much more portable whilst still keeping the operating overhead low.