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Better PDF export on the admin

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:


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5 people like this idea

YES. This is so incredibly important. I would also gladly pay $1000+ to see an easy way of exporting high quality files. We are not talking huge billboards or banners here. I am even having problems with small files (only 24x34cm or 9x13" at 300 dpi)! It's not many MBs, and shouldn't be a problem. I don't need many settings or file options, I just need the cropped bounding box area with the customised design (not the whole stage), at 300 dpi, and preferably in a file format that supports transparency, like PNG or PDF.


Your great plugin is basically limited to only work with smaller products or screen based ones, while you're still selling it off as a complete tool for all kinds of products and businesses. It's to focused on the customer/designing-part, and not what comes after, rendering it pretty much useless for us. We used Tshirtecommerce before, and it looks like I will have to go back to them, unless something happens here.


If you don't have time to do this, please hire someone to implement it, and send me and Joao the bill!

I have looked at Inkxe before – and the one major difference between the two (apart from the price): It is made with focus on PRODUCTION. And they do that part great. You get high quality production ready files, neatly set up in a folder for each view, with a detailed order sheet so there are no misunderstandings.


For this reason, I am considering switching. But I don't want to. Not because of the price. If it wasn't for this issue, I would pick FPD over Inkxe – even if they were priced the same! I believe it's a better designer tool, and FPD would destroy all competition, if it only had more focus on what comes after the design is made.


Radykal, please stop what you're doing, and focus on this. Everything else is great the way it is!

There is an easier way to make sure you get the highest quality print - I originally had problems with this plugin, but, since I've been playing around with it - having been originally declined a refund through PayPal, I must say I'm actually amazed at what is possible here. If you want to print larger quality images - there is an easy way to do it. 


1. Make your product, and make the product canvas size A4 (EU) and of course - Letter (US) in PIXELS. NOT MM. 

2. When you make your product, ensure that it is fully responsive on the front end so the canvas is correctly sized.

3. When you go to your FPD, call it via a custom hook and fill that out. Google how to do this, I can't remember the info off top of my head.

4. When you export via Admin, select "Image" and then "PNG" and it will export at the exact ratio you requested. Including 300 DPI. This works for me.


I'm able to print at maximum resolution with PNG, PDF is still an issue - but I find PNG to be superior to PDF anyway. Hope this helps.

When setting up the canvas in pixels instead of mm or inches, the canvas can in some cases become too large. A4 is not big, but if that is the print area of a t-shirt, the canvas showing the shirt/mockup can still be quite large.


This can cause some functions in FPD (e.g. curved text) to not display properly. A bigger problem though, is that the file export is not set to support bigger files, and will in many cases either simply time out or download empty (0kb) files.

 

If there only was an option to set the order viewer to only show the custom designed area (the bounding box) instead of the entire canvas with the mockup pictures, this could fix a lot of these problems.

@Andreas


I agree it would be nice, but - you know that setting the canvas area to a larger area isn't a problem. I'm sure that clicking "Responsive" above the area is just fine. It works for us no problem. 


As for the timing out issue, this can be resolved by upping your memory limit in php.ini for your website. I recommend a minimum of 1024mb for WooCommerce & Wordpress. Try that and it should help.

Setting the canvas area to responsive does not solve the problem for us. Either that or something very wrong is happening. As for the timeout issue, we cannot do anything since the document is being exported on Admin, not on our servers otherwise we would have solve it long ago. As for PNG exporting - it is completely out of the question for a high-end printing industry like us. This plugin was not made and is not being developed for big format print and neither for high-end print. Therefore misleading marketing by the developer when he writes that the plugin works fine with any kind of product. It is simply not true.

To be fair - in the defense of the plugin - anything from A4 downward is perfect. However, for the export on the new admin solution - I cannot say that I use it. I do all my exports on our own backend using the "old method" and this works great. We can export PDF in much larger sizes than A4. A2 export is fine too. 


I suggest trying to export PDF on the main admin panel on your backend, and try setting the DPI to 300 using the little menu on the right. This works too. 


As long as your image creation tools, like your designs etc are clear enough, it will export fine. 


What are you printing to if I can ask?

Yes. Increasing memory-limits was the first thing I did. But that didn't help. In our case PNG could work, but the files would have to have a high enough quality/resolution.


When I try to download a PDF with standard settings, the loading icon spins for a while, then stops, generating no files.

When I choose Image instead of PDF, I get a PNG-file that is 0 kb. Have had some luck with SVG, but not stable enough.

 

Loading the designed product is very slow as well, although the custom design is only a 156 KB logo and three lines of text, on a background image that is <180 KB.

What size canvas are you working with for your bigger products, Phil?


For us: To get a a 25x35 cm print area at 300 dpi on a long sleeve shirt, we need an area that is 2953x4134 px. With my background image of the shirt, this leaves my canvas at a giant 9000x9000 px.


Because of this I have to increase the font point-size about 10 times. Here is a screencast showing how the Curved Text behaves at 300+ pt: WATCH SCREENCAST ..

What size canvas are you working with for your bigger products, Phil?


For us: To get a a 25x35 cm print area at 300 dpi on a long sleeve shirt, we need an area that is 2953x4134 px. With my background image of the shirt, this leaves my canvas at a giant 9000x9000 px.


Because of this I have to increase the font point-size about 10 times. Here is a screencast showing how the Curved Text behaves at 300+ pt:

Link: jumpsharedotcom/v/FYnHphGUjctXso5CV23w

We cannot go for complicated changes, high resolution of canvas or mockup leads to problems in responsive , or adding texts, curving, uploading low resolution image, so on, 

we are not against "FPD" we are just expecting out something which is core requirement for printers like us , who manage designs above A3 size , 

let us wait for the update , and then we can come back to this , till then i am fixed with tshirtecommerce, 

but i rate FPD UI best ever compared to anyother, 

Hope for the best !! 

hi radykal , 

Happy to hear , that some development you are looking forward in this aspect of exporting high quality print files, 

i am happy to help you , but i have not purchased this plugin just because of this problem , 
so i could not raise the ticket to be part of beta test, 

any alternative ? if not no issues, 

thank you ! 

@radykal 

1) Final export most preferred format for printers is PNG , among your options .
2)300 DPI is must for printing sector who deal with garment printing , to provide accurate print for the customers. 
3) export must be like: Irrespective of layers used , output must be single image and RTP( ready to print ) 
4) export size of image must be exactly as bounding box, like if bounding box is set to A5 size( export must cover just A5 size) 

NOTE: above requirements are based on sublimation and DTG ( direct to garment) print technology, it may vary for screen printers. 
i print max size of garments of 42cm x 56cm .

thank you ! 

  • Generated/Exported PDF/SVG files MUST come with bleed lines of AT LEAST 3mm!
  • Colour profile of the PDF/SVG files MUST be Adobe PDF/X-1a:2001 and CMYK
  • Canvas SHOULD already have 3mm bleed lines included by default or easily configurated in the product builder so that the admin doesn't have to spend hours or days trying to get them right to every single product and view, manually, one by one
  • 300DPI is a must and a default on printing industry, no matter size of the document!
  • Printing industry prints out LARGE and not only stickers and small phone cases. Think of wallpaper, billboards, roll-ups, posters, calendars, books, etc. Make the system robust enough to be able to work with that (exporting the files at 300DPI) or stop marketing your plugin as proper for that!


You do these 4 "musts" and the workflow will be:

  1. Creating product and publish it
  2. Receiving an order
  3. Administrator generates a PDF/SVG
  4. Administrator sends the generated file directly to printing machine
  5. It gets printed - everybody happy


Without those, the process is:

  1. Creating product and publish it
  2. Making adjustments so that the bleeding line is OK both for the user and for the printing, for every single product and view, which takes countless hours and days
  3. Receiving an order
  4. Administrator generates a PDF/SVG, most of the times with low DPI because of the size of the document
  5. Administrator has to artificially and manually increase DPI of the generated files which will definitely KILL the image quality and will take countless hours per product
  6. After step 5, use Illustrator or inDesign to make the document ready for printing
  7. Administrator sends the generated file directly to printing machine
  8. It gets printed
  9. The company prays so that the customer doesn't complain about the image quality and the placement of the images on the product and doesn't have to give money back


Do you see the difference @radykal?