Can't upload InDesign PDF to Wordpress site

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
December 30, 2022
7 replies
738 views

Every month I create an InDesign file, export to PDF then upload the PDF to my WordPress site. Ever since I updated my InDesign last month, I have been unable to upload the PDF to the site. What am I doing wrong?

Import and export

This topic has been closed for replies.

K

KERREE277477772ka4Author

Participant

Firstly, I want to thank all of you for trying to help me. I'm not very computer minded and this has been driving me crazy. It did also happen when I exported it as interactive but I just tried to upload a PDF that was exported from InDesign two years ago and it gave me the same message (Unexpected response from the server. The file may have been uploaded successfully. Check in the Media Library or reload the page.) I guess Bob is right, this seems to be a WordPress issue. Thank you all for taking time out of your day to help.

rob day

Community Expert

The Media Library upload tab should work independently from your theme, so it could be a server problem—attach the PDF to a reply and I’d be happy to test on my server.

K

KERREE277477772ka4Author

Participant

Obviously I needed to include a lot more information. I apologise. I've never done this before. There's nothing like being almost in tears trying to solve a frustrating problem, reaching out for help and being made to feel stupid. (Thanks, Robert). And no Bob. I am not spam.

Anyway, I have attached a screenshot of the settings I use. This is how I've always done it. This time I also tried to do it in several other presets (smallest size etc) and none of it worked. It exports as a PDF but then it won't upload to my WordPress site. It comes up with this message:

Unexpected response from the server. The file may have been uploaded successfully. Check in the Media Library or reload the page.

Because it said server, I contacted my hosting company first. They did some checks and said everything was fine. Then we uploaded some other random PDFs and all the PDFs could upload except for the ones exported from InDesign.

When it first happened, I tried to Google a solution. There was one person who said she had exported the PDF from InDesign, then she had opened it in Preview and exported it as a PDF from there and it had worked fine. So I also tried that solution and it did work. However, once it was on my site, the hyperlinks wouldn't work and I really need those to work.

Jeffrey, it's not an upload file size limit. I went through that with my hosting company. That's all good. I'm just not sure what has changed because, as I said, I've never had a problem before I updated InDesign. When I wrote my question I really thought someone was just going to say, oh, when you upgrade you have to tick this box now. Pretty naive but I was hoping it would be a pretty quick fix. I have to think it has something to do with the upgrade because that is the only thing that has changed.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

I'm sorry if I've been too harsh 😞

When you say "other random PDFs" uploads successfully - have you tried some old PDFs generated from the previous version of InDesign - that imported before ?

For me, it looks like rather something is wrong on the WordPress side ... Can you share more info about your WP configuration - plugins you have installed / activated and how EXACTLY are you uploading?

I would upload using FTP connection - so directly - but it looks like you are using some WP's mechanism - which is not treating those PDFs as just "files" but is actively analysing them - and rejects them for some unspecified reason 😞

Can you try to open those affected PDFs in Acrobat Pro and re-save them? Maybe this will help temporarily?

BobLevine

Community Expert

I'll be happy to be proven wrong, but I can't help thinking this was an aborted attempt at spam.

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

Geez 😞 Again 😞 When people finally learn how to ask questions 😞 We are not mind readers 😞

It's like "I can't open the door of my car - it was fine before".

First of all - we have no idea HOW you were doing it before - so how can we tell you what could be wrong now ?

Do you have any error messages ?

J

Jeffrey_Smith

Community Expert

My guess there is an upload file size limit on website. In which you or your webmaster can increase the limit. Or you may need to downsize the PDF with compression, downsampling and optimization.