0 Replies Latest reply: Jan 18, 2010 11:33 AM by TCarp RSS

    Basic questions about high-quality output and PDFs

    TCarp Community Member

      I do volunteer work in a non-profit that interfaces with local county government.  We've been discussing a project to produce an atlas-type information as a service to the residents.  The maps would be rendered by the GIS software the county uses (ESRI's Arc suite).  The question is what file format should we ask for given the high-quality print and plot output we have in mind and our desire to add some simple vector markup in some cases to the maps.  The markup, when used, would be simple circles, rectangles, arrows or text. 

       

      Our idea is the do most of the printing and plotting ourselves (we'd use something like a local Kinkos).  This allows is to control paper sizes.  In addition, we might want to crop the map and upscale a bit so we need to be careful of data density (dpi).  The question is what file format do we request from the county?

       

      Obviously we can ask for PDFs but, as a novice with that output, I don't fully understand 1) its Tools capability (but I am learning about it) and 2) how to control data density.

       

      Since I think its best to envision a PDF as a "box" for other data, is the quality of the output going to be determined by the data density of the object inside the PDF?

       

      I know I may not be very clear so please help me get clear on the question if I haven't expressed it well here.

       

      BTW, I know I can place a PDF into an AI object and then add the vector stuff if needed, but I don't know from a workflow perspective if that's the best way to assure hight quality output.

       

      Thanks

       

      Tom

       

      P.S. We may end up with GIS viewing software as we move forward (ESRI has a grant program for non-profits).  All this would mean would be we would be the ones making the decision about output format but the question on workflow would still remain.