Extremely frustrated about chat archive

I have my grievances about the dysfunctional chat archive for years, but it is really getting to the point there it will be reason for me and my group to stop using Roll20 for good. - Printing it to PDF lately makes the PDF non-searchable. - The PDFs get insanely big compared to a year ago.  - When printing not the newest, but an older page (for example not 1/9 but 2/9 or older, the font size gets smaller, because the header then shows 4 boxes beside one another instead of 2. Does anyone have an idea if this will be improved sometimes? A response from a developer would be great (though, I am waiting on that for over a year by now...).

Hi Kathrin! I'm not a developer, but I'll see if I can direct any attention here. I know that the chat archive had to be paginated as it was becoming browser-crashingly big, but I agree that the current system is still not ideal. If you don't get a dev response here, I think your best recourse is a  Help Center Request .

Thanks Keithcurtis. The pagination actually wouldnt be a problem. I know that perhaps a year ago or a bit more, I could make a 1000+ pages PDF. It was searchable and had still less than 50 MB in size. Now that same archive would be a many times larges and not searchable anymore. I dont understand why.

Eeek, and good question. I would like to know the answer(s) too. 

HI Kathrin,  As a workaround, when you create a PDF I would clear the chat archive (permanently). That way the next time you create a PDF it is starting from scratch and doesn't have this issue. Yes, you will wind up with multiple PDFs as snapshots, but perhaps you can merge them externally to Roll20. 

@Gauss: That's a workaround I'd rather avoid, because it does not solve the issue of the pdfs not being searchable. And IF the problem will be solved (which I still hope it will), there's no way to get it right again after the archive is cleared.

Ok, first question: How are you turning it into a PDF?  Second question: How are you trying to search?  In my test I created the PDF and used Ctrl+F to successfully search for keywords.

I've used either Firefox or Edge and from both the "Microsoft print to PDF" options and the "save as PDF" options. The former makes a smaller file, but still a lot bigger than they used to be perhaps a year ago. The latter makes it perhaps 10times bigger. I dont remember exact sizes (I deleted the big files right away). My most recent archive from a DND5e campaign is 292 pages (just the last part of an over 1500 pages archive). These 292 pages are 62.488 MB made by Firefox's "Print to PDF" option. I think using "save as PDF" created a file over 300 MB. Both couldnt be used for word search. Edge made the PDF slightly smaller, 58something MB, also not searchable. A year ago I made an earlier archived PDF that had close to 800 pages but only 20something MB and searchable, using "Print to PDF".

added: And how I search? I open the PDF using Edge or Firefox. I use CTRL+F - but typing anything in doesn't yield results. It is also not possible to mark text. Basically just feels like a scan of a document. It works in both browsers with the older archives - so certainly not related to the browsers.

I was using save as PDF, then opening via Adobe Acrobat. 

I'm curious: What do you use the chat archive for? Or is yours a text-based game? The only thing that I've ever used the archive for is to sometimes review die rolls from the latest session in case of a rules-related question. Unless such a question comes up, I usually delete the archive before each new game session.

@Gauss: I tried opening it with Acrobat today from my office. It can be opened (as expected), but the PDF is not searchable with it either. @Rick: I'm running an intrigue-heavy game where my PCs interact with a lot of NPCs. Sometimes I need to read up on which clues the PCs got (and from whom) to make sure I don't contradict previous statements, alibis and other information. My campaign is running for almost 2 years and if all the dialogue would be printed in one piece, it's about 2300 pages. Obviously the ability to keyword-search is important to keep track. ^_^

Thanks for that response! Your need makes perfect  sense in that  context. That wouldn't work for me since all of our RP is via voice during live play with no record other than manual note-taking. RP between live sessions is via text on Discord, which I copy/paste into a running rtf document. Kathrin M. said: @Gauss: I tried opening it with Acrobat today from my office. It can be opened (as expected), but the PDF is not searchable with it either. @Rick: I'm running an intrigue-heavy game where my PCs interact with a lot of NPCs. Sometimes I need to read up on which clues the PCs got (and from whom) to make sure I don't contradict previous statements, alibis and other information. My campaign is running for almost 2 years and if all the dialogue would be printed in one piece, it's about 2300 pages. Obviously the ability to keyword-search is important to keep track. ^_^

Kathrin M. said: @Gauss: I tried opening it with Acrobat today from my office. It can be opened (as expected), but the PDF is not searchable with it either. Hmmm, not sure why. Was it created via the "Microsoft print to PDF" option or the "save as PDF" option?

Based on Kathrin's workflow, I think there are a few questions with this, 1. Is there any Configuration / Settings for your browser's Print-To-PDF option? Example of Config choices would be Images compressed-or-uncompressed, Fonts embedded or not embedded, that sort of PDF creation settings.  2. What did the Game Players put into the Chat that could make it larger? Sentences of text of any-length would be negligible. The plain text parts wouldn't add much bulk to the filesize at all. But, did your players post pictures into the chat?  3. What has Roll20 changed-or-added to the Chat Archives, that could be bulky in a PDF? An example would be the Quantum Roll icon, but are there other contents like this (image, audio, video, or other background data) in the Chat Archive? I think that the answer or solution to the OP's question might come from a mixture of all 3, or any 1 of those. Kathrin M. said: I've used either Firefox or Edge and from both the "Microsoft print to PDF" options and the "save as PDF" options. The former makes a smaller file, but still a lot bigger than they used to be perhaps a year ago. The latter makes it perhaps 10times bigger. I dont remember exact sizes (I deleted the big files right away). My most recent archive from a DND5e campaign is 292 pages (just the last part of an over 1500 pages archive). These 292 pages are 62.488 MB made by Firefox's "Print to PDF" option. I think using "save as PDF" created a file over 300 MB. Both couldnt be used for word search. Edge made the PDF slightly smaller, 58something MB, also not searchable. A year ago I made an earlier archived PDF that had close to 800 pages but only 20something MB and searchable, using "Print to PDF".

@hey to all, thanks for replying. Trying to answer those question in order: To Gauss: The file I took to my office was made with "Microsoft print to PDF" from Firexfox. To Gold: 1. There's not really much to set in the printing menu. If there's a way to config this, I don't know where - and that would be something I hope someone can tell me perhaps, because I can't figure that out myself (which, however, also means I didn't change any settings on my own at any time). 2. Nothing. We use pngs representing characters during dialogues - but that was always the case, even before the file sizes became that much bigger, so it cannot be the sole reason. 3. There are no audio or video data, because we don't use video but only chat. Also, just for comparison so you can see the amount of difference: a) log file from 23rd May 2023: 1.899 pages, size 105 MB, searchable PDF b) log file from 6th June 2024: 292 pages, size 62,4 MB, non searchable PDF c) log file from 9th June 2024: 54 pages, size 11 MB, non searchable PDF all these files are from the same campaign, totalling the pages today would be about 2.300 pages. All these files were created with Firefox's "Microsoft Print to PDF" from the same computer. I can give you another example from a different campaign that's on hold for a while (this one WoD, not DnD): a) log file from 14th March 2023: 2.099 pages, size 25,1 MB searchable PDF b) log file from 14th January 2024: 2.149 pages, size 330 MB PDF - and here it gets weird: text search works for the text in dice-roll results, but NOT for text in dialogues. This seems to me clearly something related to how Roll20 handles the archive when it is converted to PDF. Obviously 50 more pages cannot be the reason the file size inflates by a magnitude of more than 10. So, what it comes down to: Why could Roll20 last year create an archive of 1.899 / 2.099 pages as a searchable PDF and this year it can only create MUCH larger PDFs that are not even searchable anymore? What changed? Is there a setting to reverse this?

Hi Kathrin! I can't answer the PDF size issue, other than to say that a lot of things can affect PDF size. Since it is likely either a Roll20 coding issue, or a PDF creation options issue, your best bet is to file a  Help Center Request . It's not a question likely to be answerable by the community.

As an option, have you considered saving the chat archive as HTML? You could load the file with a browser and search it from there. FWIW, I get a timeout when I try to view on one page, so I can't test anything on my end. Edit: I also get different post history between Firefox and Chrome. This feels kinda janky.

Kathrin M. said: To Gauss: The file I took to my office was made with "Microsoft print to PDF" from Firexfox. That may be the difference. I used the "save as PDF" option. That option allowed me to use Ctrl+F on the PDF afterwards. If the file size of that is too large I suggest reprocessing it with a PDF program.

keithcurtis said: Hi Kathrin! I can't answer the PDF size issue, other than to say that a lot of things can affect PDF size. Since it is likely either a Roll20 coding issue, or a PDF creation options issue, your best bet is to file a  Help Center Request . It's not a question likely to be answerable by the community. if there is an optimal way to do PDF creation, or Browser export/print/save-as PDF.... The Help Center probably won't answer it, and would at-best refer you to your browser's documentation.  The Community more likely could answer something like that, as it is a Usability question about Roll20 that may be unrelated to Roll20's own functionality. 

Gold said: keithcurtis said: Hi Kathrin! I can't answer the PDF size issue, other than to say that a lot of things can affect PDF size. Since it is likely either a Roll20 coding issue, or a PDF creation options issue, your best bet is to file a  Help Center Request . It's not a question likely to be answerable by the community. if there is an optimal way to do PDF creation, or Browser export/print/save-as PDF.... The Help Center probably won't answer it, and would at-best refer you to your browser's documentation.  The Community more likely could answer something like that, as it is a Usability question about Roll20 that may be unrelated to Roll20's own functionality.  I can't really answer that well. If you are using a system-level feature to create a PDF, you probably don't have a lot of choices. I'm used to creating PDFs through Acrobat Pro or other Adobe apps, where you have a wealth of fine-tuning options.