Participating Frequently

Question

Export Book to PDF renders poor quality images

Forum|Forum|10 months ago
April 20, 2025
4 replies
1673 views

Hi All, first post here. Hope someone can help.

Re. Mac OS M1 Max - Sonoma 14.7.5 – InDesign 20.2

I have an Indesign book comprising 10 individual indesign files. All links in all the files are good. When exporting each individual indesign file by themselves, the resultant PDFs are all good with no poor quality images. However, when exporting the same files using the "Export book to PDF" command from Indesign's book palette, I get the warning: "Some files/URL(s) are not accessible..." [attached] and some of images on the resultant PDF are poor quality as if not linked.

Having done some troubleshooting, I've made sure that my system settings allow full disk access for all abobe software, especially Indesign. The "Files and Folders" setting clearly shows that access to my iCloud drive, in which the project files sit, is allowed.

To elimate any concerns with iCloud, I have packaged the same book to my local drive (outside of any cloud), and tested the "Export book to PDF" making sure that all links have changed path to the new local location. Alas, this didn't make any difference - the "Some files/URL(s) are not accessible" warning still showed and as before the resultant PDF showed poor quality images. Interestingly, not all the poor quality images were the same images as before. ie., images that were poor before, rendered ok and inversely images that were ok before rendered poorly - suggesting that braking links are somehow random.

I am convinced that this is a bug with ID 20.2. This never happened with ID19 and frustratingly the only way for me to "Export a book to PDF" now is to downsave – specifically, I have to package the ID20 files and open the IDMLs in ID19, which still exports books to PDF without any problem.

Any advice appreciated.

leo.r

Community Expert

I am convinced that this is a bug with ID 20.2. This never happened with ID19
By @delc7342130

Judging by your description, it does sound like a bug in InDesign 20.2 (or 20.x). It's definitely an uncommon bug as otherwise we'd hear about it from other users.

I wonder if you had the same problem in earlier versions of InDesign 2025 (20.0, 20.1), or you didn't use those versions? If you didn't, then try to downgrade to an earlier 20.x version (Creative Cloud app > InDesign > Other Versions menu). Will it make a difference?

Also, it's highly unlikely that this causes the problem you describe, but I noticed that you're using special characters in your folder names (', &):

Again, I'd be surprised if this makes any difference in your particular case, but in general you'd want to avoid special characters in your file and folder names.

D

delc7342130Author

Participating Frequently

Hi Leo, thanks. Mac users have traditionally enjoyed a more lenient OS in regard to file naming conventions. However, you raise a good point: I will investigate and if this turns out to be the issue, I'll post it. Cheers.

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

If the links are good, then have you checked the Hyperlinks panel?

However, that should affect the quality of the images. How much RAM do you have, what is your OS, and what is the exact version of your OS?

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

D

delc7342130Author

Participating Frequently

Re. Mac OS M1 Max - Sonoma 14.7.5 – 32GB of RAM

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

Can you show a portion of the PDF? If you don't want to post it, click on my name and message me.

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

D

delc7342130Author

Participating Frequently

Hi Dave,

No problem - I've given you x2 screenshots: one from "export book as PDF", the other same area but normal export PDF.

I'm intrigued, what are you looking for?

Thanks.

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

I was wanting to check it on a different system. Can you screen capture your PDF export settings and the info panel with the sailboat image selected.

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

E

Eugene Tyson

Community Expert

For any book files I have ever done - I have always found it better to export the files to IDML in the previous version.

Open them in the newer version.

Save them as the newest version.

Then recreate the book file in the new version.

Anytime I've used the book file itself from the previous version it's always caused unforseen issues.

I've always created a New Book File.

Maybe this is what you need here - create a new book file first see if that remedies your woes.

But I've always found starting fresh with all files from IDML and a new book file works out better when changing versions.

D

delc7342130Author

Participating Frequently

Thanks for your response Eugene.

In this case the book was created from scratch in the new version. Though the documents therein were orginally created in ID19, they've been updated and saved as ID20 files. It's just a bear having to saving everything back down to ID19 (and reproof to make sure nothing has fallen off) to be able to export - when it should just work in ID20.

E

Eugene Tyson

Community Expert

Save as idml in previous version.

Open in new version and save.

Create a new book.

Add each as new files

Export to PDF as you add each, see where the issue is coming from.

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded