Export issues in ArcGIS 10.0

Question

I'm working on a bigger map for panaflex, 12'*10'. Since basemaps in ArcGIS cannot b exported as vectors (or may be I don't know how), I have to export a jpeg file or a pdf etc (pdf, even, without basemap has stripes of image). I have tried to export the file and I rec this error: "Invalid image parameter has been specified while rendering/writing the image". File gets exported in ai format but does not open in coral or adobe.

I would like to receive suggestions on how can I export this image to the best of quality with smaller size so that my designer may not have to work on this as exported map tends to be of huge size.

I do not receive any errors on page size A4 or A3 etc.

Answer 1

I think you're getting these errors, because the map is just too big to process. I can imagine that the size of the exported file is a couple of gigs.

You need to ask yourself a few things.

• Does your designer need a basemap or can he be satisfied without? With other words: is the basemap essential for the final product or is more a guideline for your designer?
• You can let the designer download a basemap, so you won't have to export it from ArcMap. The results are the same, because he is editing the map anyway.
• Tweaking your export settings will help reduce the filesize and processing time enormously

Good luck

Answer 2

I've done a few maps that are 10x12' but my approach was to export 8 maps with cut marks then after plotting i glued them together.

First of all, forget PDF export out of GIS for anything but simple vector maps. Any transparency or raster will rasterize anything bellow that particular layer and the size is simply enormous. Exporting complex maps containing many layers, annotation classes, rasters and transparent layers has ALWAYS been problematic in ArcGIS and it has never been resolved. One approach that always works for me is to export to a TIFF @ 300DPI or more then convert that tiff to PDF using Acrobat. Acrobat renderrer works amazingly well with lossless tiff (not so well with lossy files such as jpeg). Initially, the Tiff will be huge but acrobat down-samples it to a great quality image pdf that is also small in file size.

Back to the 10x12' map - I basically digitized 8 rectangles for the 8 extents to be assembled together with a little bit of overlap, then added some lines and tics for cut marks and then using data drive pages created a single map document for the whole job. This way I could still place all my annotations in single document and export all final maps from the same document. (as tiff then used acrobat to convert to PDF)