Upgrade from v11 to v18 dramatically increased PDF file sizes

Upgrade from v11 to v18 dramatically increased PDF file sizes

Posted by: mspost on 6 March 2025, 9:26 pm EST

• 

  mspost

  • Post Options:
  • Link
    Copy

  Posted 6 March 2025, 9:26 pm EST - Updated 7 March 2025, 1:44 pm EST

  I just upgraded from ActiveReports 11 to ActiveReports 18 via the automatic upgrade tool. I had to make some minor adjustments, but everything seems to be working OK except for two issues…

  1. A single page SectionReport that used to be 5K when exporting to PDF is now 50K+.

  2. I WAS getting “random” NullReferenceExceptions in ActiveReports designer code that is calling SetStylesheet() internally which then calls System.ComponentModel.TypeDescript.GetPropertiesImpl. I was able to solve this in the designer.cs by having the StyleSheet.Add() lines before the Sections.Add() lines. If this in fact is required, the ActiveReports upgrade wizard should move that data accordingly.

• 

  akshay.rajput

  

  • Post Options:
  • Link
    Copy

  Posted 10 March 2025, 2:46 am EST

  Hi Michael,

  >> 1. A single page SectionReport that uses to be 5K when exporting to PDF is now 50K+.

  If I had to guess, this seems be occurring because fonts being embedded into the PDF now(vs before). You can check this by opening the PDFs in Adobe PDF Viewer and check ‘Document Properties/Fonts’

  If you don’t want to embed fonts you can do that by setting NeverEmbedFont Property of the PdfExport Class

  If the issue persists then please share a sample report with the exported PDFs so we can compare the two and get back to you accordingly.

  >> 2. I WAS getting “random” NullReferenceExceptions in ActiveReports designer code that is calling SetStylesheet() internally which then calls System.ComponentModel.TypeDescript.GetPropertiesImpl. I was able to solve this in the designer.cs by having the StyleSheet.Add() lines before the Sections.Add() lines.

  I was unable to reproduce this issue at my end. To reproduce this issue, I followed the following steps:

  • Created a Code-based Section Report
  • Removed all the code for StyleSheets
  • Exported the report.
    
    The report worked fine. For reference, I have attached the sample application I used to test this with.

  Please share a sample report file reproducing this issue or edit the attached sample application such that it reproduces the issue, so we can get back to you accordingly.

  WindowsFormsApp3.zip