Full pdf does not generate from indb

[Deltaweb]

Hey all,

I have an .indb book I'm trying to print to pdf that stalls at page 491. There's an error as I attempt to start the printing process that states that the book contains documents that possess binary eps files. I've started converting the eps files to tif files in the hopes that I can mitigate the crash, however in doing so, the page count doesn't increase when I try replacing the eps files with tifs and exporting again.  

Does anyone know if there is a way to tell why a pdf wouldn't export in full? Like is there an Indesign Crash Log for pdf printing? Any tips for figuring out where to go from here?

Thanks in advance

[BobLevine · Accepted solution]

Are you really printing to PDF or are you exporting? You should be exporting.

As for the alert, it means what it says. You'll need to track down those files and fix them. EPS is an archaic file format and should be avoided whenever possible.

[Deltaweb]

Thanks for the tip, Bob. The export option was the issue. The print to pdf option was attempted to see if everything looked in order before a final export, but they do the same thing and one better than the other clearly

As far as eps files go, we're working with old documents that use eps files all over the book. Old CAD artwork. I'm the only one in my office who regularly uses InDesign (the others use FrameMaker, lol), so forgive my lack of experience with archaic image formats. By chance, do you know if there is an easy way to track down when an EPS file is saved with binary data enclosed? 

Thank you for your help

[BobLevine]

They do not do the same thing. Exporting is the way to go here.

As for the files, you could package the book and then run a batch on the EPS files to convert them to AI.

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

That Binary warning is a very old thing. You can safely ignore that as the issue. Back "in the day", data in EPS files was saved as ASCII-formatted Postscript and then starting with PS Level II was upgraded to Binary (which was more compact). This caused an issue with older PS Level 1 PS printers that only could handle ASCII-coded PS, hence the warning. Everything this day is Binary, but I suspect they left the warning in for that odd legacy workflow.

As mentioned, you should probably at some point resave your EPS files as AI or PDF files, but since they are legacy files, there's no need to spend all the time converting them now.... especially since they came from various software, and I doubt are file using transparency effects and color management. Instead, just deal with that "bad page" for now.

Can you successfully export page 491 by itself?? If so, there's something else at play. Sometimes such a large page count in one export can choke the process. In which case you might consider exporting your PDF in sections and combining them after the fact. (e.g. p1-490, then p492-XXX if that works, then p491 by itself, and combine accordingly.