ArcGIS Annoyance: Arc Map Crashes or Hangs when Plotting or Printing to PDF or a printer

ArcMAP will repeatedly crash when you try to print your map sometimes, usually when you are dealing with a large amount of on-screen data (in terms of both space it occupies on the hard drive as well as how complex the polygons are). If you are attempting to print or PDF a file that has, let's say a huge raster background and a very complex polygon layer draped over it, often ArcMAP will hang or crash. It may or may not give a memory message.

The reason for this is usually memory related. ArcMap manages memory poorly by comparison to some other software. Generally, as a rule of thumb, when you have a document open and it takes a long time to draw the layers when you pan, you might have this issue when you try to print your MXD.

The solution: Since it is usually memory related, there are a number of memory related fixes you can try to get ArcGIS to print or plot your document.

1) Try restarting your PC and immediately, once it has booted, go into the ArcMAP document and try to print/ export to PDF. This may work because on a fresh boot your RAM is clear, for the most part. Any actions you do after a fresh reboot slows your computer because the clean space in your RAM never fully recovers. More RAM will give the PC more space to create a PDF or make a file to be sent to the printer.

2) Reduce the output resolution DPI. Do this only if the quality level is acceptable, if you need the quality to be ultra high try one of the other solutions. Lower print qualities, especially for rasters, can really diminish the appearance of your mapping output.

3) Increase your pagefile size. If your document is failing to print for memory reasons, there may be no other solution than making your windows page file size larger so ArcMAP can handle the memory load. You can set page file size (maximum) in your control panel. This may fix this annoying ArcGIS 9.2/9.x issue.

AutoCAD Annoyance: Can't Select Some Text - SOLUTION!

AutoCAD 2008 (as well as 2007 to the best of my knowledge) features an annoying bug where you can select some of the Mtext on the page, but not others. There does not seem to be a rhyme or reason as to which text you can or can't select. It generally occurs in paper space, but I have had it happen in model space. You just can't select some of the words you have written. I have no solution to this issue, but I do have a work-around.

When you can't select some of the things you have written as mtext in autoCAD, simply type the command QSAVE (which is short for quick save). This saves you document and, inexplicably, enables you to select all text again. If this doesn't work for some reason, save your DWG document, close AutoCAD and re-open your DWG. This is a surefire way to 'fix' this bug.