Failed to Export PDF - Book File

[MachineAgeInc]

I have a relatively big book, about 340 pages with lots of images and a handful of layers. It's an InDesign book file comprised of fourteen indd files. When I try to export for print, at various points through the process I'll get a "Failed to Export PDF" message.

I can't save it as an imdl file because it's a book file, which can't use imdls. If I save the individual indd files as indd, they lose their pagination. 

I have turned off downsampling entirely. It seems to help the book get a little further in the export process, but it still breaks down. 

[Derek Cross]

Presumably the images are linked (not embeded) – how much RAM do you have?

[MachineAgeInc]

Is there an easy way to tell if any are linked but not embedded? I try to use the Place command for them. But I may have dragged and dropped a couple, since there's a ton, I'm not sure? 

I am working on a Macbook Pro with 16gb RAM. 

[Eugene Tyson]

This happens a lot for me too.

You could try export the first 7 indesign files - select them in the Book File and export.

If they export ok - then try the next 7.

If it crashes on any of the exports  you know the error is there.

Take that 7 files in indesign and half them again, export 3 files then try the other 4.

You can eventually narrow down where the issue is.

sometimes I'd export 7 files and it works, then I export the other 7 files and that works.

So then I just combine the PDFs in Acrobat Pro.

Or supply both PDFs to your printers.

Hope that helps.

Once you  narrow it down to the file-  you'll have to do the divide and conquer again - half of that problematic file at a time until you hit an error.

it doesn't take long.

[MachineAgeInc]

It looks like two chapters are just not happening. I was able to get them to export by exporting each individual page and combining them in Acrobat. But it took several hours. 

[Willi Adelberger]

Did you select the file each of them and export them from the INDB Panel menu and not from the File Menu?

What type of images do you use? If you are using EPS, stop it immediately, convert the EPS to PDF files, if they were created in Illustrator, open them in Illustrator ans resave them as AI or PDF/X-4, if they come from a different source, convert them with Adobe Distiller without any downsampling. But don't use EPS.