PDF References Very Slow

[dparsleyXDGXX]

I'm working with Civil 3D 2025 and am having trouble with drawings with PDF external references being very slow and lagging with every command/pan that I do or try. It becomes almost unusable, even when the PDFs are small. The drawing has been purged, audited and has ONLY these few PDF references in it. Any advice on how to get these drawings to not lag so much? Is there a program setting maybe? Thanks.

[rl_jackson]

Use PDFIMPORT to convert it to a drawing file and then X-Ref that into your drawing. Should speed things up substantially.

[NateSarles]

Another option, that my firm uses, is converting the PDF's to .tiff files, then inserting them. This also helps by generating a flatter version of the file with less depth of information.

[brian.strandberg]

Generally I find images to be faster to use than PDF's, and single sheet pdfs are faster to reference than multi sheet pdfs.

In bluebeam, you can export a PDF sheet as an image very easily.  

I tested this in Civil 3d 2024.  I spent the time writing a script for testing this because there was an argument to be won, I won

[NateSarles]

     "I spent the time writing a script for testing this because there was an argument to be won, I won"

@brian.strandberg, I can respect that statement! hahaha

Now, can you quickly modify that test to include TIFF to compare to PNG?

[brian.strandberg]

I could do that - I used .png because .png will be smaller than .tiff for the same number of pixels in the image.  If you need extremely high quality images (usually not the case for details being referenced), .tiff is a better choice.

[lim.wendy]

Hi Drew, 

Thank you for submitting your question in our discussion forums. Welcome to the Autodesk Community! Have you had a chance to review the suggestions our experts provided? Those are great suggestions, especially in converting PDF to other formats. Using PDFIMPORT, converting to TIFF files, or exporting PDFs as images like PNG could significantly help speed things up. Let us know if trying those methods improves the performance issues you're experiencing with the PDF references.

If the suggestions helped you, please hit the "Accept Solution" button, as it helps make the solution easier to find for others who might have the same issue. Knowing which topics are solved or not can also help our many users find the questions that still need to be answered. It’s also a great way to say thank you and recognize whoever helped you.