Indesign error when exporting PDF

[prepress cindy]

Ever since changing to CS6 we randomly get either an error that says "failed to export" or crashes InDesign. We then have to go thru page by page (we print magazines) and find the page that is causing the issue and flatten it. Not my ideal solution. Anyone else have this problem? Its getting worse and I called Adobe which was no help.
thanks!

 

[bvbayer]

It would be helpful if you stated the settings you were using in InDesign for the export.

 

[prepress cindy]

I use several different settings, depending on what I need the PDF for, it doesn't matter what I use the result is always the same until I find the page that is causing the "issue". What would be nice is if Indesign could give an error with some sort of clue on what is the problem.

 

[WharfRat]

Run it through Distiller.
You should get a log of the failure that may help narrow it down.

MSD

 

[almaink]

Have you run Indesign's preflight to see if it can find the problem page?

 

[rich apollo]

If you isolate the offending page, can you export it by itself? I suspect a memory issue.

Doesn't really solve the issue, but you could use Batch Output, or Output Factory, to export each page as a single-page PDF, and then recombine them in Acrobat. Might be quicker than rooting around to find the page in question.

 

[prepress cindy]

So I tried doing a file print and printing postscript which Im assuming is what you mean when you say distiller and it does not give me an option to save as a pdf, just indd. Also where is the ID preflight?

 

[buckeye]

I think what WharRat meant, was to print to a postscript file, then run it through Distiller. You should end up with a .ps file that you would send to Distiller and hopefully it would maybe give you a little more info on why it errored out. See attached.

Erik

 

[prepress cindy]

Why do I not have an adobe pdf printer? I have some pdf creator that I downloaded from the internet, and the error I get is "The Adobe print engine has failed to output your data due to an unknown error"

 

[buckeye]

Do you have the Adobe Creative Suite or just InDesign by itself?

Erik

 

[prepress cindy]

I have the entire Suite

 

[Sev]

So I tried doing a file print and printing postscript which Im assuming is what you mean when you say distiller and it does not give me an option to save as a pdf, just indd. Also where is the ID preflight?

InDesign's preflight is in the Output menu. Set up your own preflight profile, and have it turned on. I use it on every job.

-Sev

 

[buckeye]

Not sure why you don't have a adobe pdf driver installed but pick whatever's in the pulldown menu just so you can save it to a postscript file and then be able to Distill it. I'm curious also, like others have stated, to see if InDesign's preflight flags something. Are you exporting the pdf locally or across a network?

Erik

 

[prepress cindy]

Preflight says no errors, its not something simple like a missing font. Ive tried every possible choice and I cannot make a ps file, it always gives the unknown error on the problem page. I prepare 300 magazines a month and this problem comes up several times a week on different files. This is super annoying. Our files are located on the network and I export/save to my desktop.

 

[Colorblind]

The joys of troubleshooting... I suggest you export directly as PDF from InDesign (File/Export then choose your PDF preset) by page batch such as 1 PDF for pages 1 to 10 then another PDF for 11 to 20 and so on. If you get an error on one or more multipage PDF, you can then narrow your search to 10 pages instead of 300. You will be most likely to discover the problematic page this way.

 

[buckeye]

...and find the page that is causing the issue and flatten it.

How are you flattening it? If you're saying that flattening fixes it, will saving it as a PDFX1a work or did you mean flattening it in Photoshop?

Erik

 

[buckeye]

Ever since changing to CS6 we randomly get either an error that says "failed to export" or crashes InDesign.

Do you still have CS5.5 on your system so that you could save it back and see if it errors out in CS5.5? Was just wondering if it's actually CS6 causing it, or if it's something in the file itself.

Erik

 

[prepress cindy]

So I was able to dig up a CS5 Indesign and the most recent problem file was still a problem. When I say flatten I am dragging the pdf file into Photoshop and saving, then relinking the file in Indesign.

 

[Colorblind]

When I say flatten I am dragging the pdf file into Photoshop and saving, then relinking the file in Indesign.

Well that's not flattening, that's rasterizing which means taking all your PDF content (images, vectors, fonts) and changing the whole thing into one pre-defined resolution single image. You should do that as your very last resort IMO. Flattening means getting rid of all native transparency zones which is what happens when producing a Postscript file or exporting as PDF using a preset such as PDFX/1a. Distilling a Postscript file using any PDF preset will produce a flattened (no native transparency) PDF since you already got rid of transparent elements when producing the postscript file.

 

[WiseGuy]

If you would like, contact me offline and I can share with you a copy of our Connect YOU beta software... we have an export plug-in for InDesign which uses the same export as you are now, but maybe our error handling might catch the problem? I'd love to see you try it out if you'd like.

Just PM me or write back to [email protected].

Michael Reiher
Product Manager, Enfocus Connect