# PDF::Writer memory error **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [July 27, 2006, 9:05pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/pdf-writer-memory-error/100218 "2006-07-27T21:05:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![john\_sikorski](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/b4bc9f/32.png) [@john\_sikorski](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/john_sikorski)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2006, 9:05pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/pdf-writer-memory-error/100218/1 "2006-07-27T21:05:56Z")
I’m trying to use PDF::Writer to generate a PDF version of a phone list but I’m having out of memory problems. The document is formatted for 2 column output. I originally added all names (about 500) to a single four column SimpleTable object which ran without error, albeit slow. I then tried creating seperate tables for each letter of the alphabet, resulting in an out of memory error. Google searches found a few others experiencing the same problem. One suggestion was to set split\_rows=true which did prevent the error but the pdf generated was poor, rows spilling over to the next page, column headings appearing twice, and a few other odd problems. Does anyone know how to make this work with PDF::Writer? Any suggestions for other Ruby PDF API’s? Thanks, John ---
**Author:** ![john\_sikorski](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/b4bc9f/32.png) [@john\_sikorski](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/john_sikorski)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 12:31am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/pdf-writer-memory-error/100218/2 "2006-07-28T00:31:35Z")
On 7/27/06, john sikorski [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > work with PDF::Writer? Any suggestions for other Ruby PDF API’s? > I don’t have any suggestions right now, but you may want to check the > Rails list for a post about a version of SimpleTable that doesn’t use > Transaction::Simple. You’ll need to ensure the pagination yourself, > but I will be reviewing SimpleTable’s use of Transaction::Simple in > the future to fix this. I’ll tag this to look at it again next month when I get back to PDF::Writer work. -austin ---
**Author:** ![john\_sikorski](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/b4bc9f/32.png) [@john\_sikorski](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/john_sikorski)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2006, 3:07am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/pdf-writer-memory-error/100218/3 "2006-07-29T03:07:52Z")
In case anyone is interested, I found a work around for this problem. If you manually set the table width the out of memory error does not occur. In my case I was adding multiple tables to a page formated for 2 column output. Setting table.width=260 worked for me. John