AE 6.1 M080 - creating pdf of DITA xml is very slow

[kregimbald]

Using PE and print composer to publish pdfs. It is much quicker to use "print preview" but this is no longer an option since switching to DITA. Are there settings that will improve the time to create the DITA pdfs? The other issue we have is that when the pdf finally appears, if we make further changes to the xml, then we need to close the current pdf so that a new pdf can be created with the changes. Annoying and time consuming. Is there a way to keep the pdf window open and refresh with the revised content? Thanks

[GarethOakes · Accepted solution]

The easiest way to speed up PDF publishing is to use a faster machine. If you are using PE then move it to a faster host, preferably a "bare metal" server rather than a Virtual Machine. Ensure you have sufficient memory, core count and core speed, and network connectivity to meet your performance demands. If you are using Print Composer on a laptop then try it on a fully specced desktop machine to see if that helps.

BTW the Arbortext publishing process is not designed to refresh only what's changed, it has to rebuild the PDF each time from XML.

[kregimbald]

Thanks for the info!