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Question

Wrong page numbers on PDF export (ID CS5.5)

Forum|Forum|14 years ago
June 20, 2011
13 replies
32270 views

The Export to PDF out of a book document (with 12 single documents in it) results in wrong pagination (30, 31, 33, 31, 35, 31 ...). Direct Export out of the same single document is right. I cannot see any difference between the single docs, but the phenomen is only in some parts of the book.

What is the thing about this? Did anybody have similar effects?

Thanks for any idea!

Carsten

MacBookPro Core Duo

Snow Leopard

InDesign CS 5.5 (Design Premium Collection)

This topic has been closed for replies.

R

ralfellis

Participating Frequently

Had the same problem – drove me mad. Only one or two chapters in each book were effected. And because we did not spot this, we were selling books with the same page number all through a chapter.

Solution.

I found a solution that works every time, and it is quite simple. The problem lies in the Master Pages section.

The solution is to create a new Master Page (but not copying the previous Master). Copy details from a Master Page that works! Make sure the new Master has the same dimensions and indents as the old one.

Then change all the pages in that chapter to the new Corrected Master. (A global change to all pages – easy to do).

Presto – you should have proper page numbering in the resulting pdf.

Cheers,
Ralph

L

Liz_P

Participating Frequently

I recently developed this problem, too. US InDesign 5.5 v7.5.2; Mac 10.6.8; export smallest file size; booked file of 18 documents, each with 22 pages or less. Happy to find workarounds but disappointed there is no cure yet.

John Hawkinson

Inspiring

Happy to find workarounds but disappointed there is no cure yet.

Funny you should ask, Liz_P.

More carefully hedged speculation

Over in the semi-public precursor announcements to releases, this morning (Apr. 2) there was an update: "InDesign Family CS5.5 7.5.3 dot release tentatively scheduled for 4/30/2012."

So, if we take that at face value, and again assume that the bug likely to have been fixed (something I think is likely given its severity), then we could assume that this bug fix is tentatively scheduled to be released at the end of this month.

L

Liz_P

Participating Frequently

How tentatively encouraging.

Thanks for your quick response, John!

Shlomit Heymann

Inspiring

I just wanted to add that no only the page number is wrong, but also section markers.

The problem does not show up in CS5 only 5.5. I have left some jobes in this version.

My only solution was the export each file sepreately and combine them all via acrobat pro.

this makes me really sad

prepress_girl1

Participant

Huh. If I duplicate the text box on the master page that has the page numbering in it, the DUPLICATE is fine, but the "original" page numbers still number incorrectly! Curiouser and curiouser...

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RobotGod

Participant

I have this problem and it HAS cost me money because I didn't find out about it until it got to the printer. Pretty soon I'll be paying more in fixes than the program actually cost me to purchase.

In my case, I have ID CS5.5 (7.5.2) and created a book with about 30 chapters. It looked fine in ID, but exporting to PDF caused three chapters to repeat the even-numbered page numbers throughout that chapter. (Each chapter was built using the same template -- most chapters are fine, but some are not.) I fixed this by going into the Master page for that chapter, deleting the offending page number reference, copying the one that worked (on the odd-numbered side of the page), and pasting it on the even-numbered side. This seemed to fix the problem.

But being a small press without a lot of capital, this sucks.

John Hawkinson

Inspiring

Some carefully hedged speculation

If we were to imagine that, in the best of all possible worlds, Adobe has worked hard to fix this problem and it will be fixed in a future patch release of CS5.5 (I think that is a good assumption in this case), then if we look at the semi-public precursor announcements to releases, we would see that the latest CS5.5 patch release candidate was birthed on December 12, and they generally take about a month to bake before seeing public release, though everything takes longer around the holidays.

So one might be optimistic about a potential fix for this the second week in January or so.

Shlomit Heymann

Inspiring

Hello,

Got the same problem on the Middle East version 5.5, glad to see it's not an ME issue but what we call US verison.

Obviously it's a serious bug. I have lot's of books with hunderds of pages, I will just close each file seperately.

Hoping there is a solution.

all the best,

Shlomit

U

Univocal

Participant

Same problem here, its pretty disappointing that Adobe has regressed in such a key feature, and to let this bug drag on… I've just been exporting each document separately and then merging the .pdf files and haven't yet noticed any problems, its annoying but it should get me through until they patch the bug or release CS6.

M

macromacAuthor

Participating Frequently

I think this problem is too heavy to solve for Adobe. What about changing from ID2Q? Does anyone think this bug will be away in CS6? It's really funny because CS5.5 is made for people who create books and ebooks.

The post of Graphic Extensions gives a good idea where the bug may be located. So, Adobe, hurry up and do something for your true customers.

@Univocal: I am sure you will update. Otherwise you will loose your advantages for the next but one update (CS7). This is Adobe's new strategy of enforcement instead of kindness/politeness.

Nevertheless all the best for the new year,

and keep on being creative and smart

CA

M

McShaman

Inspiring

OMG! I cannot belive this problem even exists and even still exists!

I have the most recent version of InDesign and have been doing an annual report for a few months now and am just getting the file ready for print. LUCKY that I was doing a task in which I had to ceck the page numbers that I stumbled appon this issue!

THIS COULD HAVE COST ME THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS!

What the hell!?

Peter Spier

Community Expert

Failure to set the indiviual documents to section numbering can cause problems, too.

G

Graphic Extensions

Participant

I found a solution that works. The problem seems to reside on the master pages, so if you take the text block that holds the page number from the master page and paste it in place on each page (fill with paper color to block the master items), the page numbers then pdf perfectly. This saves you the trouble of having to idml and resave the files. Hope it helps!

S

simonvg

Known Participant

Today I installed the latest update for InDesign CS5.5 - the 7.5.2 update, hoping it would fix the problem, and it seems to have partially fixed the problem, in that there do seem to be fewer errors in the pdfs, but the problem is definitely still there, with missing headers and footers in places, missing or moved page numbers, etc. Let's hope they're still working on this.

Peter Spier

Community Expert

If you are still seeing problems, you should file another bug report.

S

simonvg

Known Participant

I'm experiencing a similar problem - Indesign CS5.5 updated to 7.5.1 on a mac running Lion. All pdf-x exports result in errors to do with master page items - wrong page numbers, misplaced text boxes, missing page elements. Of the pdf-x settings, pdf-X-4 works best, but I still need to thoroughly check documents as it still produces incorrect page numbering from time to time. Sat on the phone for an hour with tech support - eventually sent some files to the guy, got a response a few days later asking me to specify a day and time for a call-back - did so, but no call-back, probably because i'm in South Africa.

Also experiencing problems using variables in running headers - all will be working fine, then suddenly something changes in a document and variables will only work if they are all part of a single story. Never had this in CS4.

Hoping adobe can issue an update to fix these soon - wishing I'd stayed with CS4 a while longer - have wasted many valuable hours on these problems.

M

macromacAuthor

Participating Frequently

Simonvg,

I started this thread in June and there is no solution until now. I returned to InDesign CS4 with all my projects and recommend this for all who work with book documents. Maybe there are no problems in CS5 – I did not try, because CS4 is perfect for me now.

I hope Adobe will take care of the strange behavior of CS5.5 book documents and fixes it soon.

S

simonvg

Known Participant

great to know i'm not alone in this problem and that adobe are supposed to be working on it. Let's hope they issue and update to fix it soon.

X

xSarahHx

Participating Frequently

Bumping up this thread to see if anyone has figured out anything new regarding this problem. It is really bumming me out. I reported it to Adobe on their bug report/feature request form, but they don't reply back, so I have no idea if anyone is looking into it or not.

Any new thoughts?

Sarah

John Hawkinson

Inspiring

It looks like this problem is sufficiently complicated that that

without a copy of your test file, it's a pain to reproduce.

If you want a response from Adobe, you need to use the Adobe Support

Portal. http://adobe.com/go/supportportal. Among other things, that

will allow you to attach demonstration files, and also ensure someone

from Adobe gets back to you.

If you post a file publicly, I think a number of us would be

interested in looking at it. (Or you could email it to me.)

X

xSarahHx

Participating Frequently

Thanks, John. If anyone wants to look at this, the files should be available here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/38282222/cs5.5tests.zip

These are just some small excerpt files that show the problem (starting on what should be page 25). Most of my books are giant text books, so the problem becomes quite a bit bigger.

I have also submitted a case to Adobe. Their first suggestion is to export to idml, even though I told them I already tried that and it doesn't solve the page number problem every time. The Adobe message to me was actually a verbatim copy and paste of Step 1 through 5 from this webpage: http://www.creativeprogression.com/indesign-book-pdf-export-problem/. Good to know they can use Google, just like me.

C

Cathleen24

Participant

I downloaded the 7.5.1 update, and the problem went away. But I also read on IndesignSecrets.com that if you install the 7.5.1 update, that some plug-ins from CS5 won't work (or something to that effect). But that may have been resolved so do your own research. I don't pretend to be an expert.

M

macromacAuthor

Participating Frequently

In my case the update makes no difference.

John Hawkinson

Inspiring

In my case the update makes no difference.

Meaning it did not cause you problems with plugins, or meaning it did not solve the wrong page number issue?

Thre is no concern with plugins, unless you have purchased a third-party plugin that is not compatible with CS5.5. That is a minority of users, chiefly enterprise users, catalog users, and font management utiity users.

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More carefully hedged speculation

Some carefully hedged speculation

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