File size of PDF'd Visio file & watermark

[Beth]

Hi-

Visio 2002 Pro, may be SP'd but I can't tell (controlled
through corporate IT). Acrobat 5.0.5.

I create business process flows using a standard swimlane-
type template. Each page in the flow can have 5-40 process
boxes (with text) and associated connectors and other
objects (files, reports).

First question: Recently, on a page or two, I've added
some transparent boxes that have dashed lines and a bit of
text. I use these to visually group a set of boxes
together. Whenever I put these boxes on a page in the
flow, the size of the Acrobat file increases
exponentially. For instance, I have a 2-page flow without
the 'bounding boxes' that is 96k. I added two bounding
boxes that take up about 2/3 of the page and now the file
size is 1.4 MB. Is there a way to duplicate the effect I
want without increasing the file size? I have added
bounding boxes to other (longer) flows and also
experienced file size increase. Oh, and when looking at
the flow in the PDF it takes probably 30 seconds for the
bounding boxes to slowly draw their way onto the page.

Second question: On this same flow I wanted to add a
watermark. So I created a huge 'draft' text box (120
pt.), and made the font 90% transparent. I put this on
the background page. The PDF file size increased to 2.7MB
and the second page of the PDF was completely blank (maybe
it eventually would have drawn but I got tired of
waiting). I could not print this PDF.

Any suggestions on how to add a watermark effect that
preserves file size?

I have tried File > Properties > preview=none but that
seems to affect the size of the Visio file, not the
resultant PDF.

Beth

 

[Beth Miksovic]

Hi -

Any takers out there for my message? Would it help to
create 4 dotted lines and group them together to make a
box to do what I want it to do?

How about the watermark issue?

 

[James Roe-Smith]

I feel your pain. Visio does some weird stuff when converting to PDFs. It
always has, but it seems to be better with Visio 2003.

Nevertheless, I can't get transperant background shapes to render properly
in PDFs.

Maybe with two people querying this that we'll get a reponse?

James.

 

[teamplay]

I'll be the third user with this concern. I'm leery adding any gradient fills
or transparency. I experience three types of problems:

1. file size grows dramatically
2. PDFs can get screwed up
3. printing grinds to a crawl and may never complete; colors suddenly change

Interestingly, sometimes Acrobat does a better job of printing accurately
and promptly than if I print directly fromVisio. Just last night, I finished
an 11x17 poster -- all in Visio -- with several hundred Visio objects on it.
The last two objects I added were transparent gradients behind other objects.
Printing direct from Visio suddenly became a 10-minute job and colors of some
objects unrelated to the gradient objects got messed up. When I printed to
Acrobat, then printed from Acrobat to the color laserjet, the result was
perfect. I've also noticed that Acrobat prints the smallest objects with more
resolution and sharpness than Visio does.

I've wondered about all of this for some time. Would welcome wisdom...

Dave