* FH PDF Not Displaying All JPEG Images

[BobWard]

I have created a FH pdf file using the Individual Summary Report option for all people in my database. Upon opening the pdf file (over 3,000 pages), I notice that around 30% of the JPEG images in my database do not display, i.e., I just see a blank page where those images should appear. When I generate an ISR report using the Publish command in FH, the images all appear correctly. For unknown reasons, a lot of these images disappear when I save the file as a FH pdf file.

Any ideas as to why this occurs?

[Jane]

Try using the Book option and add the Summary reports in several batches, sometimes where there are many pictures, the PC can run out of memory when processing. Alternately simply append batches of people to an existing PDF file.

[BobWard]

Thanks for the suggestions, Jane.

I do want to maintain an "Index" for the report, which is currently generated by the FH pdf option. If I add multiple, smaller pdf files to the Book option, how is an Index going to be generated? The same problem (no Index) would seem occur if I were to incrementally add smaller pdf files to a master pdf file.

The existing FH pdf file (which has the missing images) is 818,724 KB.

[tatewise]

If you add multiple Reports of any type to a Book it can generate a global Index.

You are correct that appending PDF will NOT give a global Index.

[Jane]

Indexes in Books are across the whole book, have you tried the option did it help or were you still missing images.?

[BobWard]

I tried the Book option. It was created within FH with all images intact. Total book size was 3002 pages.

As before, the problem occurs when I save the file to a pdf format, i.e., the saved pdf file (for the Book) was missing 30 to 40% of my images.

The problem appears to be some type of a failure in the pdf conversion. This pdf file was about 1.3 GB. Perhaps there is some limitation in the pdf format that limits file sizes?

Has anyone else tried to compile large FH reports, books, etc. to a pdf format and lost images in the process?

[tatewise]

This sounds the same as Problems with Book saved as PDF (10959) and I think should be reported to Calico Pie.

[BobWard]

Mike, I read that link and it sounds pretty much the same as the problem I am experiencing.

In my case, the missing images are also those attached as Source documents. There is no "thumbnail" image on the blank pages, i.e., the page is just blank except for the Source note that appears below the missing Source image, and of course, the page number is present. It is odd that some Source images still appear while others are absent.

I will report this to Calico and hope for a resolution.

[Jane]

I have not been able to reproduce this on version 6, so it might be fixed, does anyone with V6 get missing images in the PDF when creating a HUGE file?

[tatewise]

If it is fixed, it is an example of one of my pet annoyances.
The free upgrades list all their fixes, but the initial major release such as V6.0.0 does not list its fixes.

[BobWard]

I did report the problem to Calico Pie 2 days ago. Have not received any response yet. I will report back when I hear from them.

As an experiment, I tried just saving (to pdf) pages 1 to 1000 from my 3220 page book that was open in FH. Hoping that the smaller file size might cure the problem. No luck. The smaller file also had 30 to 40% of the Source images missing. I also noted that some pages were completely blank, i.e., there was nothing on the page, not even page numbers.

[BobWard]

Calico Pie's response to my reported problem with the disappearing images in the conversion to a pdf file is as follows:

We did hear about a problem similar to the one you have reported, but we thought that we'd fixed it in 5.0.10. Are you quite sure you're on 5.0.11? You can check this on "About Family Historian" on the Help menu. If you are, the next question is - does the problem still occur in version 6? Do you have a second computer that you could use to download the version 6 trial on, to see if the problem still occurs on version 6?

Yes, I am using Version 5.0.11. So, I guess I am going to have to (reluctantly) buy Version 6 in order to get my database published.

[tatewise]

Bob, Calico Pie are saying try the FH V6.0 free 30-day trial version first (on a second PC if possible, with a Copy of your problem Project & PDF).

To migrate to a second PC, I suggest you follow the how_to:family_historian_migration_guide|> Family Historian V5 & V6 Migration Guide for V5.0.11 first, then upgrade the second PC to FH V6.0.

If you have no second PC, then make sure you take a Full Backup of all your Projects, and use Backup and Restore FH Settings Plugin, before installing FH V6.0.

Then if you choose to revert to FH V5.0.11 you can do so without any hitches, because FH V6.0 can make significant changes to you Projects and Settings that may not be easy to reverse without backups.

If FH V6.0 fixes your problem with large PDF Books/Reports, then you will need to buy it, but if it does not then Calico Pie will need to investigate further, perhaps with your assistance in providing samples.

[AdrianBruce]

Do we actually know if this is a problem with FH or the print driver that converts to .PDF?

I ask because I had problems with missing images years ago when producing a document for my father's 80th birthday. This was written in Word and I was converting it to .PDF for printing elsewhere. And I was losing images then... Note that FH did not come into that issue. I have no idea what .PDF converter I was using (either a freeby or novaPDF as supplied with FH) but think that the only way round it was to take the Word document elsewhere and print that instead.

I just offer this as a possibility to consider.

Adrian

[BobWard]

Adrian,

I use the "novaPDF 7 Printer Driver" that is automatically installed with Family Historian, Ver 5.

For those of you that are using FH Ver 6, is that the same printer driver that installs with Ver 6?

Yes, this does seem like it would be caused an error in the PDF conversion process, since all the images are intact when I create the reports within FH. It is only when I save the reports to a PDF format that the images are lost.

Update: Just received this additional reply from Calico Pie:

We have not been able to reproduce the problem on V6, but it may simply be related to the size of the generated file.

If you are able to try on version 6 if it still drops images, we may need to look at a method for you to get a copy of the problem project to us.


So, I will download the V6 trial to my laptop and see what happens.

[PeterR]

I have FH v6.0.4 and novaPDF 7.7 printer.

You could also try printing your PDF from FH using something like PDFCreator or Foxit Reader PDF Printer.

[BobWard]

I tried Adobe Acrobat Professional and it dropped more images than the FH "novaPDF 7 Printer Driver" did.

Surely there are lots of people using Version 5.0.11 that have tried converting large (2,000 to 3,500 pages) FH reports to a pdf format. I would like to hear from those folks to see if any of them had problems with missing Source images when they did the pdf conversion.

[Jane]

One thing you could try, is printing the first 1,000 pages to a PDF file and then the next 1,000 to another PDF etc and then use one of the PDF tools to merge the files together.

[mjashby]

Or, possibly, try using a Word Processing app that can output directly to PDF, e.g. Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, LibreOffice, especially if the Text/RTF report output from Family Historian already produces the initial results you desire. However, if Adobe Professional can't do it, that may signal something. - Adobe did, after all, invent the format.

I fear an assumption that there are 'lots of people' who would be directly producing 2,000-3,000 page PDFs (with or without graphics) from any version of Family Historian may be a little wide of the mark; and I very much doubt that very many will have seen a need for such a tome, let alone have attempted the feat.

Mervyn

[tatewise]

Bob, have you not tried FH V6.0.4 yet?

If that still fails, and it is the same (or similar) images that get omitted each time, then perhaps an analytical approach might help. Try compiling a list of the missing images, and review them in your Project.

The first thing to consider is are they all cropped Face/Detail Frames, or all full frame images?

In any case, run the Show Project Statistics Plugin that reports any unusual frame coordinates and other unusual Media characteristics in its Result Set.

Inspect the characteristics of the problem image files in your Media folder. Open them in an image editor such as IrfanView that allows the details to be reviewed. Look at the EXIF data, etc, to see if there is anything in common. Were they all taken with the same camera, imported from the same website, have odd EXIF data, are particularly large/small, use the same unusual file type, etc?

[BobWard]

The missing images seem to always start appearing around pages 140 to 150 out of 3,220, i.e., the first 150 pages or so have everything intact, then beyond that the Source images disappear. FYI, I have my FH Source>Picture settings selected to print all these images at a max height of 8" and a max width of 7", i.e., I want these images to always fill the entire page if possible. Works fine until after about page 150.

I can do reports on any single person, from within the range of those that are dropping images in the 3,220 page report, and they always convert to pdf with all Source images intact. So, this definitely seems to be related to file size.

Jane, I will try your suggestion as well and just try printing, say, 140 pages at a time to pdf. 3,220 divided by 140 = 23 pdfs to merge back together. A little cumbersome, but that may be a last resort option to keep all my indexing intact.

Mike, yes, I need to download the Version 6 trial to my laptop and see what happens. Since Calico Pie thought that this problem had been resolved in Ver 5.0.11, I wanted to try and get that version to work before fooling with Ver 6, but I think I am at the point where the Ver 6 trial needs to be tried.

I already have Version 5 on my laptop, so to keep things clean I think I will just delete Ver 5 from the laptop and do a clean install of the Ver 6 trial. Then restore a current full backup from my external hard drive to the laptop. I do all my work from my desktop computer, so there is no threat of harming that with this Ver 6 experiment on my laptop.

[tatewise]

If the theory about size is correct, then reducing the max size should allow many more images to be retained in the PDF. Try that and see.

When you say "just delete Ver 5" then I hope you mean uninstall?

This will still leave behind all the Ver 5 Windows Registry settings, C:\ProgramData\Calico Pie\... folders, and the ...\Family Historian Projects\... folder, which FH V6 should automatically inherit.

I trust you do NOT have any of those folders synchronised with your desktop via a cloud service such as Dropbox.

[BobWard]

Mike, yes, I mean "Uninstall".

No, the 2 computers are not synced. I never do FH work on the laptop.

BTW, I just tried Jane's suggestion of converting smaller sections of the overall report to pdf, and, then merging those back together.

For the first segment, I converted pages 1 through 140 - all images came through intact

For the second segment, I converted pages 141 through 280. The first 107 pages were good with all Source images intact, beyond that page, they were all missing. Very baffling.

Sounds like Ver 6 may be my only hope.

I still cannot believe that more people have not run into this problem. I only have 1,337 people in my database. I thought that would be a pretty small database for genealogy work. Don't most people want to compile their entire family tree in one continuous book?

[tatewise]

It is probably not the number of pages, but the number of images, that determines the size of each successful segment. Also, if it is some PDF or PC resource limit, then when you join the segments together the problem may reappear.

I suspect most people are not interested in producing narrative books. At least, not for the whole database. One reason being, that as soon as they make one small change, the whole book needs reproducing.

Users do create large printable Diagrams/Charts, or publish the whole database on the Internet or DVD in HTML pages.

[BobWard]

What is odd is that the problem seems to be limited to only Source images. All the pictures that are attached to Individuals, Spouses, Families continue to be visible when the pdf conversion is made, i.e., just the Source images disappear after about 140 pages into the report.

BTW, a suggestion was made about saving as an rtf to Word. That does not work due to the 512 MB file size limit in Word. I am way over that limit.

Also, I did a web search on pdf file size limitations and came across this: Architecturally there is only one limit in the PDF standard: the overall file size must be below ~10GB as the cross-reference tables which define the PDF structure use 10 bits.


So, the pdf architecture should not be the problem.

Update: Just loaded the Version 6 trial to my laptop and opened an older version of my family project file. Created the Individual Summary Report for everyone in the database and it came out to 2,908 pages. Converted to FH pdf and the resulting file size was 698 MB. Opened the pdf file and all Source images were there!

I will upload my current project file tomorrow (it will be around 3,220 pages) and give it a try. Should convert ok I would think, since it is only slightly larger than the old file that just converted with no glitches.

Looks like I will have to buy Version 6 to finish my project.