Max. page-size in PDF?

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Peter2
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Max. page-size in PDF?

Post by Peter2 »

I heard that the maximum page-size in PDF is "200"=5080 mm".

The German Wikipedia writes that since version 7 "381 km" (yes, kilometre) are allowed:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_D ... Dokumenten
(In English Wiki I could not find this info.)

What's the current state of the specification?

Peter
Last edited by Peter2 on Fri Apr 15, 2016 4:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Max. page-size in PDF?

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hi Peter,

Taken from the PDF ISO specification:
Appendix C, “Implementation Limits”
In PDF versions earlier than PDF 1.6, the size of the default user space unit is fixed at 1 ⁄ 72 inch.
Beginning with PDF 1.6, the size of the default user space unit may be set with the UserUnit entry of the page dictionary. Acrobat 7.0 supports a maximum UserUnit value of 75,000, which gives a maximum page dimension of 15,000,000 inches (14,400 * 75,000 * 1⁄72). The minimum UserUnit value is 1.0 (the default).

So yes indeed it seems the maximum PDF page size in the latest specification is 15 million inches or ~381 km :)

Cheers,
Stefan
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Re: Max. page-size in PDF?

Post by Peter2 »

Tracker Supp-Stefan wrote:...So yes indeed it seems the maximum PDF page size in the latest specification is 15 million inches or ~381 km :)..
Will it be considered in the next versions of PDF-XChange? I don't need 381 km, but 6-8 m are sometimes necessary.

Peter
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Re: Max. page-size in PDF?

Post by Will - Tracker Supp »

Hi Peter,

Thanks for the post - I've just spoken to the Dev. Team on this and, I'm afraid, our maximum theoretical limit is actuall about 258 inches, which is a limitation of the Windows GDI, so we couldn't implement the 6m limit that you're after.

Cheers,
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Re: Max. page-size in PDF?

Post by Peter2 »

Will - Tracker Supp wrote:... our maximum theoretical limit is actuall about 258 inches, which is a limitation of the Windows GDI...
Hi Will

258 inches x 25.4 mm/inch= 6553 mm = 6.55 m

This would be an improvement of "+33%" to the current limitation of 5080 mm. Do I understand it right that this should be possible?

Peter
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Re: Max. page-size in PDF?

Post by Peter2 »

Here are some oversized PDFs for testing.

Peter
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Re: Max. page-size in PDF?

Post by Will - Tracker Supp »

Hi Peter,

Thanks for that - the Dev Team have told me that they will try to make this change for the next build, but if they're not able, it should be in build 309.

Cheers,
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Re: Max. page-size in PDF?

Post by Peter2 »

Will - Tracker Supp wrote:Hi Peter,

Thanks for that - the Dev Team have told me that they will try to make this change for the next build, but if they're not able, it should be in build 309.

Cheers,
Thanks :)

Build 309? Printer is at the moment at "5.0.273.2"

Peter
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Re: Max. page-size in PDF?

Post by Will - Tracker Supp »

Oops! Sorry Peter, when I talk about build numbers with clients, 90% of the time it's regarding the Editor, so my mistake there! I'll rephrase with the correct build numbers ( ;) ): we'll try for build 274, but if not, it should be done for build 275.

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Re: Max. page-size in PDF?

Post by Peter2 »

Will - Tracker Supp; 11 Mar 2014, 19:01 wrote:Hi Peter,

Thanks for that - the Dev Team have told me that they will try to make this change for the next build, but if they're not able, it should be in build 309.

Cheers,
The current release still accepts only a max. size of 5080 mm. What's the current state of this topic?

Peter
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Re: Max. page-size in PDF?

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hi Peter,

I will ask the devs again, but in the mean time if you e.g. need a 8 x 1 m page size can't you create it as a 4 x 0.5 m PDF document, and then when printing to paper set a 200% scale?

Regards,
Stefan
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Re: Max. page-size in PDF?

Post by Peter2 »

Tracker Supp-Stefan wrote:...but in the mean time if you e.g. need a 8 x 1 m page size can't ...
For me; I have a special workaround, but in a specific project we try to reduce all the tricky-manually-special-workaround. (BTW. reducing size in AutoCAD has some side-effects respectively special needs..)

I'm confident on a fine solution of your devs :wink:

Peter
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Re: Max. page-size in PDF?

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hi Peter,

Yes I do understand your point.

Cheers,
Stefan

P.S. I got a reply from our devs - we will try to increase the maximum page size to 6553 mm but due to a lot of other higher priority tasks we can't promise it will happen for the next build.
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Re: Max. page-size in PDF?

Post by Peter2 »

Bump up after 2 years - Version 6 still shows old behaviour.

Peter
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Re: Max. page-size in PDF?

Post by Will - Tracker Supp »

Hi Peter,

I've just spoken with the Devs. and they've said that the increase is not really a true size increase, but is a calculated coefficient. I'll see if I can have Ivan explain a little better when he has the time, but for now, can you please send a sample PDF? I'd like to see if the issue is as we suspect.

Thanks,
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Re: Max. page-size in PDF?

Post by Peter2 »

Here is attached a PDF with7011 x 911 mm and a screenshot of Viewer (correct display) and of Editor (wrong).

Regards
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Re: Max. page-size in PDF?

Post by Willy Van Nuffel »

For information:

In the Adobe PDF Reference Guide - sixth edition, that you can find here:
http://www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/ ... ce_1-7.pdf

in appendix H, 177 (at page 1128) they talk indeed about the optional "userunit" parameter that can be set "per page", with a value going from 1 to 75 000. The default value "1" corresponding to 1/72 inch.

I wonder if there is a somewhere a possibility to incorporate this userunit and how to set its value, except by using Java coding. For me, Java coding is still a little bit too complicated for me.

If it would be possible to have an example of a PDF where a userunit value of >1 would be present, then we could check its behavior in different PDF reader, viewer and editor applications.

I do not know if the PDF file attached by Peter2 is a good example.

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Re: Max. page-size in PDF?

Post by Ivan - Tracker Software »

Width of page can be maximum 14400 units.
When UserUnit has value 1, it is equal to 1 * 14400 * 1/72" = 200 inches.

Large page size can be specified increasing UserUnit value (up to 75000) *but not* width of page in units.

In provided document width of the page is 19873.68 units and it is against the specification, so, the Editor crops this page to maximum allowed size in units.

HTH
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Re: Max. page-size in PDF?

Post by Ivan - Tracker Software »

With the driver there is another limitation - Windows GDI limits page size to 65535 tenth of mm.
So, it would be 65535 * 0.1mm = 6553.5mm ≈ 258 inch, which is not big difference with 200 inches and it is the reason why it is not yet implemented in the Driver.
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Re: Max. page-size in PDF?

Post by Peter2 »

Hi Ivan
Ivan - Tracker Software wrote:...In provided document width of the page is 19873.68 units and it is against the specification, so, the Editor crops this page to maximum allowed size in units.
As a user I still would prefer the not allowed, but useful solution instead of the allowed, but useless display.
But nevertheless, if you prefer to crop: Please add a message to inform the user what the Editor has done.
Ivan - Tracker Software wrote:...≈ 258 inch, which is not big difference with 200 inches and it is the reason why it is not yet implemented in the Driver.
It is approx. +30%, and maybe it would cover 90% of the oversized plans which are longer than 5080 mm (and shorter than 6550 mm). So if it is (easy?) possible - please expand the range of the driver by one third.

EDIT:
Ivan - Tracker Software wrote:...So, it would be 65535 * 0.1mm = 6553.5mm ≈ 258 inch,....
But why made the driver my example above with > 7000 mm?
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Re: Max. page-size in PDF?

Post by Willy Van Nuffel »

Still some more information:

I had to search a while to find a sample PDF with a UserUnit value specified in it.

Thanks to iText I finally found such an example on the following page:
http://developers.itextpdf.com/question ... isting-pdf

and in that page, clicking the hyperlink on "pages_altered.pdf":
http://gitlab.itextsupport.com/itext/sa ... ltered.pdf

After downloading that PDF I opened it with PDF-XChange Editor and resaved it (to make it editable via Notepad).

In the sample file I changed/manipulated the UserUnit value from 2.5 to 999 for the first few pages.
You may call this "up-scaling".

And look what this gives in the attached sample PDF. A page width of up to 200 000 mm.
And thinking that you might go to an up-scaling of 75 000 ...

I hope that people at Tracker Software can do something with this information.
(and for now, I am going to sleep).

Best regards.
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Re: Max. page-size in PDF?

Post by Willy Van Nuffel »

When I think more about this, then I think that it makes no sense at all to use the UserUnit value, because it does nothing more than just up-scaling the page. There is still the limit of 14400 by 14400 units (= 200 x 200 inch / 508 x 508 cm when using a UserUnit value of 1, and x-times larger with a UserUnit of >1 ... <= 75000).

It will not offer an opportunity to put "more" elements on a page.
The page will just be x-times larger and so will be the elements on it.

If a PDF needs to be printed on a larger scale, then you could also obtain that via a printer driver that offers a scaling feature for multiplying the actual size. Something like printing a A4 PDF-page on a A3 paper.

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Re: Max. page-size in PDF?

Post by Peter2 »

Willy Van Nuffel wrote:...There is still the limit of 14400 by 14400 units (= 200 x 200 inch / 508 x 508 cm .....
At the moment we have three values:
a) 508 cm, the specification
b) 655 cm, the GDI limit
c) 701 cm (and up to 1155.9 cm), which can be created with standard driver, beside the specs and beside the limit

I just entered 216000 to the registry (= 21600 mm = 21,6 m), and the driver created a page with 11559 mm.
Then I entered 115000 and got a file with 11500 mm - no problem for the printer, no problem for the Viewer.
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Re: Max. page-size in PDF?

Post by dasy2k1 »

I also have this issue, we regulary get PDFs from our clients that are longer than 5080mm (420mm x 5450mm is the latest)

we are expected to work on these and send them back which is currently impossible as none of our software supports this....

it is an absolute contractual requirement that these PDFs are exactly to scale. I know that the way that this works means that the units are just changed in the file but this at least prevents it accidentally being printed or worked on at the wrong scale.
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Re: Max. page-size in PDF?

Post by Ivan - Tracker Software »

I also have this issue, we regulary get PDFs from our clients that are longer than 5080mm (420mm x 5450mm is the latest)
Are there UserUnit specified in these documents or just MediaBox size exceeds the limit?

If there is no UserUnit specified, PDF-XChange Editor will crop page to maximum allowed size.
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