Better PDF export on the admin

Posted over 6 years ago by Joao Figueiredo

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Joao Figueiredo

PDF export still lacks quality for the printing industry. This plugin works well for very small products but it's a nightmare for bigger prints like posters and even high quality calendars. On the Admin, I still cannot export a PDF for all of my products with the needed size. Support says and I quote:


"The developer says that this is simply due to the limitations of the server. With images that are that very large and then scaled up this is simply only possible to a certain limit. It should be better when you use the .jpg format instead of .png. Other then that you can always use an image editing program to scale the output image."

I am very sorry but this is not what I paid for - more than once! The image I attach is a print of what you promise on Code Canyon. You say "fit any product" and "no limitation". Not to being able to print high quality posters (100x70cm or smaller) or calendars without using Photoshop is a huge limitation. If I get 50 orders per day (between books and calenders with at least 8 pages which), I will not be doing anything else than just being in Photoshop the whole day long to adjust exported files and increasing resolution (which will also inevitable kill image quality!), if I even ever catch up!


It is also very poor to provide a solution that is on a server that is not able to export a PDF that is only 1136 per 796mm with 300 DPI. Printin industry has standard paper sizes (https://www.prepressure.com/library/paper-size). How can one work then? How can admin solution work? High quality print needs also PNG quality images! JPG is great for web, PNG is what should be used to print - always!

Summary:


image


5 Votes


43 Comments

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N

Nick hooykaas posted almost 5 years ago

Hi Have the issues of the initial question been solved? What are now the specs for output? And what file types available for out put? Regards Nick

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rady kal

rady kal posted over 5 years ago Admin

@Andreas Please create a ticket and share your login credentials.

0 Votes

Andreas

Andreas posted over 5 years ago

@Radykal: Thanks, but it is still not working for newer orders. Example: order 59138 (Standard Hoodie product). I just checked that the print area (blue line) is saved in the Product builder.

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rady kal

rady kal posted over 5 years ago Admin

I do not see the printing box in this order, otherwise you would see a blue rectangle. Its only working with orders that already includes the printing box. If you define the printing box afterwards, it does not show up.


Indeed for such big amount of orders, you need a special automatization. If you are interested in a custom pdf workflow, we could do a custom development. Please use our customization request form for that, if you are interested and explain all your requirements.


https://fancyproductdesigner.com/customization-request/

0 Votes

Andreas

Andreas posted over 5 years ago

Site URL is russeprofilering.no, and one the orders that I tested was ID 58956 – with the line item 12165 being one I set Printing Box in (Standard Hoodie - Large). Generated file is attached here.

Your plan sounds good. But we get a lot of big orders, like the one mentioned here is for 25 products. In high season we can see 500+ products ordered in one day. That is close to two hours of wait time for generating files (not counting downloading). If it was on our own server, I'd rather have the extra traffic from a few abandoned carts than that cost of time. But, of course, since you keep all that traffic on your server, it's a whole different situation for you.

A good solution would be for it to generate files in the background some time after the order is completed. Every completed order will need files at some point. An even better solution would be if those files could also be synced to a Dropbox folder.


But clicking a link to get a file generated, with no more steps, sounds great to me for now. Hopefully it won't delay too long until we see it implemented. Good luck!


Attachments (1)

0 Votes

rady kal

rady kal posted over 5 years ago Admin

@Andreas

Please tell me your site url and an order ID, then I can check it myself.


The automation process will be the next thing we are going to implement, but we are not generating the pdf when an order is made or a product is added to the cart. You and your customers will get a mail with a link and when you visit the link, the pdf is created on the fly. Creating a pdf when a product is added to the cart, makes no sense and would cause a lot of unneeded traffic on our server. Adding something to the cart, does not mean the enduser is going to buy it.


But first we want to check if the new pdf export is working properly.

0 Votes

Andreas

Andreas posted over 5 years ago

Hi Radykal. Thanks, but this is not working very well for me. The download does not provide the Printing Box I set. It cuts off the design at a much smaller size.

Setting these new boxes, managing files from an external site, and having to wait while files are generated for each file for every product ordered takes a lot of time.


A perfect solution would generate the files from the existing bounding box as soon as the user clicks to add it to the cart, then just add a link to download the files in our admin order-screen or e-mail. The PDF-software could still be on your server, not ours, no? Time is money, so putting all this time on us instead of the client, means we either lose from profit or need to raise our prices (meaning less orders).


This really is the only really bad thing with FPD. I have tried and looked at several solutions, and you really have a great product here. But this is a dealbreaker, and it should be the only thing you work on – not making a Shopify version etc. Nobody would be able to compete with you if you did.

0 Votes

rady kal

rady kal posted over 5 years ago Admin

The new PDF export is now available in our ADMIN solution, you can find the help article here: https://support.fancyproductdesigner.com/support/solutions/articles/13000054514-exporting-a-layered-pdf-to-any-format


I am also curious if the new features for the PDF export (Exclude layers from export, printing box, export format) fits for your business or if you need more features to get a print-ready PDF, e.g. crop marks, bleeds? If yes, please share your feedback. Any visualization that helps to explain the requested feature is welcome.

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R

Robin Valk posted over 5 years ago

Hi,

Is there any news on this status yet?


With kind regards,

Robin

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NWKT posted over 5 years ago

Hi there


PDF export after order in 300 DPI to a specified Email or Url would be the solution to have, it`s a must! 


Any news on this status?


best

Jürgen



0 Votes

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jolinps posted almost 6 years ago

Hi,

I am actually considering this plugin.

We print large format 320 cm wide machine Fabric.
I have gone through the Feature Requests and found amazing thing you FPD and you guys making here.

I am just wonder if this high-res pdf export will be able to export enough to my printing size 300 cm wide and 10 m - 20 m.


From what I can imagine is:

Once the customer upload their file, the plugin create the thumbnail so we can work with smaller graphic on the canvas.

The background is also represent by thumbnail so it can become lightweight.
Then after all editing is confirmed then it can be saved or sent to admin size.

Actually I am thinking if the export pdf location address can be specified so I can create the folder according to the job from our client and print out right away.

Maybe all these ideas have already been implemented.

I am new.  So if anyone can let me know if my expectation is also part of this feature please let me know.



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J

Joseph O Mahony posted almost 6 years ago

Also another feature required for this to be used for production printers would be the printing box is created as a spot colour which would allow automated cutting etc


Any updates on the ADMIN solution guys?

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N

Naille posted about 6 years ago

Also waiting on any update about bleed visible from client side, and as well what is the latest developements regarding the hi quality output from admin ?

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m

michael step posted about 6 years ago

any word on bleeds being visible for clients editor?

0 Votes

J

Joseph O Mahony posted about 6 years ago

Hi,  

 

New features coming on through admin solutions will really bring the plugin to the next level i believe for production printers if they are done correctly.

 

Have just set up all the admin solution beta test - we will be printing anything from greeting cards to large signage ( aluminium dibond + acrylic etc) We would need the new feature of small canvas representing a much larger print size so a customer could design there own very large sign from a range of templates we would have - eg 1200 x 900mm for example or larger

 

Running into a few difficulties - everything is set up and the orders are coming into my woocommerce as well as the admin section but the orders cannot be exported from the hosted admin section. I am getting an unspecified error as shown in screenshot

 

Issues I would like to know

- is it possible for customer wanting a large sign with following specs image @ 150 dpi eg size40 x 30inches to be able to upload and view a design on the one page ( i mean not a huge canvas stage  of 5000 x 4000px which makes it impossible for ux?


0 Votes

M

Mike Carey posted about 6 years ago

Has this been implemented on the jQuery version? If so how do we add bleed lines etc??

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m

michael step posted about 6 years ago

I was told that Bleed was implemented, but i dont see anything in regards to showing it in the editor for the client.

Like a ruler button, but for margins, so Clients wont add anything in bleed or safe area

0 Votes

b

bret konsdorf posted about 6 years ago

I am getting an error when trying to output PDF from the admin and no images can be retrieved. I had my webhost turn on CORS as the modal says but it still doesnt work. I understand its in beta but any idea how I can get it to work? Thanks

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G

Gadupudi posted about 6 years ago

Thank you for the update. As mentioned, we were trying to export the orders from your admin. But its throwing internal server error. What could be the issue here?

 

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c

cheras posted about 6 years ago

Will the Php version have new PDF export ?

0 Votes

rady kal

rady kal posted about 6 years ago Admin

Yes ADMIN includes now the new PDF export in BETA. The article how to create high-res pdf can be found here: http://support.fancyproductdesigner.com/support/solutions/articles/13000044441-exporting-high-resolution-pdf-beta-


Please be aware that its currently in BETA and a full representation from FPD to PDF is not achieved yet. To give you an idea what we are currently doing....we are trying to implement a full FPD2PDF service, that means the service reads every element in every view and embed the element as own layer. This means we also need to reset all styles like color, font family etc. with help of the PDF library we are using.


You do not need to create extra large canvas anymore in order to get a high-res PDF, you can now easily define the output format for the PDF and our FPD2PDF service will create a PDF with all elements embedded that are visible in the printing box.


This PDF library is a high-professional software which is widely used by many printing companies and is not free to use, that's why we can only offer this service on our server and can not include it in the plugin files that you download from codecanyon. In the near future we will also charge for this service, but we will offer fair pricing plans so any company from small to big can effort the new PDF service.


There is still some styles and features are missing, we are trying to implement in the next days:

  • Bounding Box Clipping
  • Colorization of PNG and SVG
  • Text Patterns
  • Flipped Elements
  • Text: Line Height, Letter Spacing, Stroke, Alignment Right, Alignment Justify

Please let me know your thoughts and if this service will satisfy your needs!

0 Votes

G

Gadupudi posted about 6 years ago

Observed that this topic moved to In progress. Does that means its available? If yes, I will buy and start experimenting this great plugin. Let me know at the earliest.

 

0 Votes

rady kal

rady kal posted about 6 years ago Admin

@Jason

Right now you can already generate PDF with 300 DPI unless your images are uploaded in high-res as well. Our application can not resample images from 72 dpi to 300, but this can not be done by any solution. I also wrote you a mail, maybe you can answer me there.

0 Votes

rady kal

rady kal posted about 6 years ago Admin

Sorry for not informing you guys about the latest development state. But I can say that we are close to the end of the first stable version.


Here a little preview of the new PDF export, so you can see that we really working on this.


http://recordit.co/OTll5jRv4q


As you can see, the scaling of images in the PDF is not working 100%, but we are close to have this fixed soon. The problem with the development is that we are using a third-party software for generating professional and high-res PDF. We invest a lot of money in this software, but its necessary because right now we could not find a open-source library that fits for our needs to have high-res PDFs.


The new PDF export will be exclusively available in our ADMIN solution, due we need to host the PDF software on our system, we can not deliver it with the plugin files.


Sooo...what can you expect?


  • You can define a printing area in every view, this area can be different from the actual canvas size. In future you do not need to create a very big canvas in order to create high-res images. Just use a canvas size that working well for the browser. Then define a printing area in MM, this area will be visible in the exported PDF. In ADMIN you can set the DPI for the embedded images.
  • You can even upload a "background pdf", this pdf can included the color profile etc. which is necessary for some printing industries. 
  • In ADMIN you will have new UI to see all orders easily and download the PDF from an order with one-click. No need to open it first in the order viewer.
  • In future: Auto-send mail with link to PDF. The system will send automatically a mail with the link to the high-res pdf when an order is made.

I hope it will satisfy your requested features for the PDF export. If we have this done, you will not find any product designer solution on codecanyon with this professional PDF export. You can even expect more features in the next month to improve the workflow from creating products to receiving orders. All the feature request that are marked as planned will be implemented with the new PDF export and at the end we will even offer some more features that will blow your mind.

Regards,
Rafael


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the.rampage.rado posted over 6 years ago

@Joao Figueiredo - don't be too harsh.

I'll tell you only one thing of your recommendations that will not be able to happen - the bleed lines. If they are to be implemented the whole printing process should be described to the customer in order to have a proper printing file with no need for manual work from your side.

This is impossible! 


The plugin is made to offer visualisation for the end product. If you want to have bleed line of iphone cover with sublimation plate how on earth will you offer your customer the proper visualisation so he can be confident in the product looks when ordering?
If I have a rechtangle and  I place some graphics in it (jpg) now I can put this vital design that I need just at the end of this jpg to be aligned with the end of my sublimation material. If I have visible bleed lines and you force your user to use them they will be confused will ask you tons of questions and believe me the support time invested will outweight the manual editing of those files.


Back on topic:


For me the most important thing is:

- full functionality on my site - I want to have all the functions of export in my admin section where I can work securely and quickly.

- FONTS export - this is really a must - I need all the fonts that my system have to be corectly exported, including spacing, color, rounded fonts, etc. At this moment every line of text that my customers order have to be redone in our vector software in order to print quality prints. Yes, the raster images may have to be redone but I would value pdf import of all vector information AS-IS this will really speed my work because most of my projects now are engraving items where there's only text. So proper font export, and proper values.

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