InDesign 2021 getting stuck at 'Creating PDF' when packaging files

This could be caused by high resolution bitmap graphics. 
InDesign takes ages to downsample bitmaps (we had this issue on different computers  (at least) in CC 2019 and CC 2022). 

Often times InDesign isn’t able to export the PDF at all. 

To test this, you could disable resampling of bitmap graphics. – This should be enough to circumvent the problem.

A more permanent solution is to scale down the images in Photoshop, so that the effective resolution is below the maximum export resolution (as in the PDF export setting: »Downsampling for images with resolution above xxx ppi«). 

If you want to find out if the problem occurs on a specific page, you could export the PDF from the book panel. As this export isn’t a background task, you can watch the export status and maybe spot the section where it beginns to stall.  

it happens to me all the time with all my versions of indesign... stays stuck at creating pdf and IDML stage.  

Hi,

Can you try this with a very simple indesign file, and make sure that it can process the document the whole way through? This will guide us as to whether the problem is with the application or the document.

Hi,

Can you please provide InDesign version and platform in use. This will help debug issue at the earliest.

Regards

Pooja Rathi