InDesign fails to export book to PDF larger than 256 pages

[Klangphoton]

So, InDesign v20.0 crashed whenever I tried to export any number of pages from a book to PDF. Fortunately, with the recent update to v20.0.1, this issue seems to have been fixed. However, as I am working on a book with close to 300 pages, I noticed that exporting to PDF still fails.

I tried exporting smaller portions of the book, which worked fine, and then gradually increased the page count. But as soon as I exceeded 256 pages, the error dialog reads: "Failed to export PDF file." and "Possible cause of the error can be found on the printed sheet with the page number '259'" (translated).

Interestingly, the page number referenced in the error is always the last page of the export range. For example, if I attempt to export 280 pages, the error suggests the issue is on page 280.

Can anyone replicate this issue and confirm?

Working on a MacBook Air M2 with MacOS Sequoia 15.1.1 by the way.

[Anshul_Saini]

Hi @Klangphoton,

I understand how frustrating this issue must be, especially when working with such a large project. Unfortunately, I don’t have a sample file with that many pages to replicate the issue. Would it be possible for you to package the file, zip it, and upload it to WeTransfer, Google Drive, or Dropbox? You can then share the download link here or via DM, and I’d be happy to take a closer look and assist you further.

Looking forward to your response.

Best,

Anshul Saini

[Klangphoton]

Thank you @Anshul_Saini for your quick response! I will DM you a link to the project.
In the meantime, I created a very basic document, duplicated it a few times, and added it to a new book, totaling 300 pages. There were no issues exporting it. Sadly, I’m afraid the problem must be specific to this project...

[leo.r]

How much RAM and free disk space do you have?

[Klangphoton]

24 GB of RAM and ~50 GB of free disk space.

[leo.r]

24 GB of RAM and ~50 GB of free disk space.

By @Klangphoton

It looks like memory is unlikely to be your problem. Although you don't want to go lower than 50 GB of free space; better yet, try to increase your free space. What's your disk size?

Still, open Activity Monitor from the Applications/Utilities folder, and keep it open on the Memory tab. Do you see anything suspicious when you export the problematic file? Memory Pressure goes into yellow/red etc.

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @Klangphoton,

Thank you for the update! We were able to reproduce the issue on our end, and we’re currently checking with the product team to find a solution. We appreciate your patience, and we’ll keep you posted on any progress.

Thanks for sharing the details with us! 

Best, 

Abhishek Rao

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @Klangphoton,  

Thank you for your patience! The product team has confirmed that they can reproduce the issue and have logged it as a bug. They are actively working on a fix.  

I’ll keep you posted on any updates as soon as I receive them.  

Best,  
Abhishek Rao  

[Klangphoton]

Sorry for my late response – I've been on vacation.

Disk size is 1 TB. Just in case, I freed up a bit more space and was able to reclaim an additional ~100 GB. So now 150 GB of free storage on a 1 TB disk.

I tried exporting the book while monitoring my hardware with Activitiy Monitor and XRG. There was absolutely nothing suspicious. Even lower RAM-usage than I was expecting.

[Willi Adelberger]

What kind of content does your document have?

If images or graphics, what file type?

Are they linked or embedded?

What file size does your document have?

[Klangphoton]

Hey @Willi Adelberger , sorry for my late response.
Most of the documents contain only a linked PDF file, a text box with dynamic content (a filename for generating a table of contents), and a page number. I know this sounds unusual, but my client's request was to create a printable cookbook from a collection of loose PDF recipes he sent me.

The 125 PDF documents are roughly between 20–40 MB each, as I had to replace some images using Illustrator (the images are also linked). Each PDF file consists of two pages, resulting in a total of 250 recipe pages, plus a foreword and other content. The corresponding INDD files for each recipe are about 4 MB.

While writing this, I realized a few things:
When I first investigated the error, I started by gradually increasing the number of exported documents/pages until it failed at 256 pages. I then randomly excluded some documents and added others to ensure the issue wasn’t caused by a specific document but rather by the total number of documents. This included both documents with linked content (recipes) and regular documents (e.g., foreword, imprint, etc.).

Now that I’ve done the math and concluded that the recipes alone only add up to 250 pages, I tried exporting only the recipes. Et voilà: the export fails with fewer than 256 pages. So, I guess it must have something to do with the documents containing only linked PDF files.