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Garrison_X
Participant
January 19, 2017
Answered

Book Module - Uploading to Blurb :An error occurred while adding texts & fonts to the book

  • January 19, 2017
  • 3 replies
  • 9512 views

I am using the Lightroom Book Module to upload a book to Blurb.  This is not my first book by any means, and I have had the same problem with other books.  I contacted Blurb on this issue.  They replied "...you will want to contact Adobe technical support, as they support the software."  They went on to say, "Blurb only handles the actual printing of your file or the conversion into a Blurb ebook." 

A search of the Lightroom forum shows that this is a common recurring problem among many users.  Their solutions are the result of trial and error and don't appear to have a common solution.  More times than not, they seem to have stumbled onto what they believe is a solution, but it may not be what they think it is.  The Lightroom folks appear to be quiet on this issue, but I expect that they are well aware of the problem.

We are caught in that classic technology conundrum, where each party points to the other - "It's not my problem."

Blurb doesn't want to help, Lightroom doesn't want to help.  Should I look for another way to produce my books?

      This topic has been closed for replies.
      Correct answer Rob_Cullen

      I have come to believe that-

      Not all system fonts are available to LR.  Not all fonts in LR are in the system.!!!

      A  full understanding of fonts that Lightroom uses is a mystery!

      In general- LR uses the fonts installed in your system,

      But-  With exceptions- I think it is limited to true-type fonts?

      And- I can see fonts in Lightroom that are not in the Windows "Fonts" folder!?

      eg. {Bickham Script Pro}  is available as type in my LR Book module, but it is not in my Windows font folder.  C:\Windows\Fonts

      (and Photoshop, earlier versions?,  may have installed a PS font folder, not available to LR! )

      And general suggestions from another forum thread-

      Try a couple of things-

      First- Duplicate the Saved Book Collection in the collections panel- and experiment with the copy (to PDF)

      In the Book Module -

      1. Top Menu: Edit > Select all Text Cells (or Ctrl+Alt+A), then reset the font in the Text Panel using a commonly used font that Lr lists and reasonable text size.

      2. For problem images, Open the problem page image, go back to Library, create a virtual copy, use the VC to replace the problem image.

      3. Check that any text boxes do not have text that exceeds the available size of the text box. ie. some of the text has disappeared from the text cell.

      4. Problems with using 'Background' images appear in forum threads- try unchecking any use of background images both on the cover and Globally within the book pages.

      5. Confirm that any photo you use in the book does actually exist and is available on the hard-drive. (In Library- Right-click and "Show in Explorer/Finder" to confirm,)

      6. Top Menu: Edit > Book Preferences > place a check mark in-  "Constrain Captions to text safe areas"

      7. Error messages that indicate images have "transparency" can be ignored.

      8. Always test your book design by an Export to PDF before an upload to Blurb.

      3 replies

      F
      fabsanchez
      Participant
      February 5, 2020
      Lightroom Classic throws the following error when exporting a book to PDF or sending the book to blurb:
      An error occurred while saving the book.
      An error occurred adding text and fonts to the book.
       
       
      This is my situation and what worked for me. (I'm using windows 10)
      I got a new laptop and moved Lightroom from the old laptop to the new one.
      As soon as I did that I could not export my books to pdf.
       
      1 - Copy my custom text style presets
      I had my own custom text styles presets so I copied them from my old laptop to the new one.
      They are located in C:\Users\{your-username}\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom\Text Style Presets\
       
      2- Open the book in question in Lightroom
      As you export the pdf you can click on the progress bar (top left of the screen) and it will tell you on which page it fails.
      I would go to the page where it failed and turn any "page texts" and/or "photo texts" off and then on again. (they all used my customer text style presets). I would then set the export to pdf going again and check at which page it failed and repeat.
      As I did that the progress bar would go more and more towards completion, until it completed and I could generate the pdf in full.

      Hope this helps someone in my situation.
       
      Good luck,
      Fab
        G
        GlynEvans
        Participant
        April 23, 2020

        I agree this is really frustrating and annoying - I've just finished laying out my first book of 70+ pages with fonts that work really well only to encounter this issue. I've found, if you have Photoshop, a quickish way to find which fonts are acceptable to LR. Type some text in Photoshop, highlight it and click on the font selection box. Fonts that are acceptable to LR are the ones that do NOT have a  >  next to them. I have no idea what the > indicates.

        G
        GlynEvans
        Participant
        April 23, 2020

        Of course, stupid me, the > means that it's a font family and you can click on it to see the options (Bold, Italic, etc). However, my original point holds good - I can only get fonts to work in the book module of LR that are not part of a font family.

        M
        MFERMION
        Participant
        January 11, 2018

        The information posted by worbertc on Jan 19, 2017 is correct, but the following will help you find the specific problem and fix it.

        As suggested by other posts, I found that this error message resulted from incompatible fonts. There are several reasons that a font might be incompatible, but I found the steps below can be used to fix this problem in our book.

        First, understand that Blurb can only receive a book that can successfully be “saved as PDF” without generating an error message. If you are building a large or detailed book in Lightroom, it is a good idea to “test” the ability to save it as a PDF a few times while you are building the book. That way you will discover a problem early, when the problem is easier to find and fix.

        Keep a record of the fonts you plan to use, and make sure you follow that plan as you build your book. (Feel free to change your plan, but it is a good idea to test all new fonts.

        Create a test book with a few sample pages with the fonts you plan to use, and make sure the test book can successfully be saved as a PDF without generating an error message. This verifies that the fonts you plan to use are compatible.

        If you get this error in your book, you can find the page that contains the incompatible test by clicking on the progress bar on the upper left while you are saving to PDF. An information box appears, showing the pages saved from front to back. Waiting for this is tedious, but it will show you the page that is trying to be saved when the incompatible font is encountered.

        Go to that page in your book (and perhaps the pages before and after, just to be sure) and look for the offending font. Here’s how to find it:

        Look at the page text and photo text (and text boxes on page templates that include text boxes).

        Select all the text in these areas to ensure that all the fonts are compatible, and that no incompatible fonts have found their way into your text.

        Empty text boxes can generate this error message if they are formatted to use an incompatible font. Remove any page and photo text that is empty.

        Hope this helps.

        Rob_Cullen
        Community Expert
        Rob_CullenCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
        Community Expert
        January 20, 2017

        I have come to believe that-

        Not all system fonts are available to LR.  Not all fonts in LR are in the system.!!!

        A  full understanding of fonts that Lightroom uses is a mystery!

        In general- LR uses the fonts installed in your system,

        But-  With exceptions- I think it is limited to true-type fonts?

        And- I can see fonts in Lightroom that are not in the Windows "Fonts" folder!?

        eg. {Bickham Script Pro}  is available as type in my LR Book module, but it is not in my Windows font folder.  C:\Windows\Fonts

        (and Photoshop, earlier versions?,  may have installed a PS font folder, not available to LR! )

        And general suggestions from another forum thread-

        Try a couple of things-

        First- Duplicate the Saved Book Collection in the collections panel- and experiment with the copy (to PDF)

        In the Book Module -

        1. Top Menu: Edit > Select all Text Cells (or Ctrl+Alt+A), then reset the font in the Text Panel using a commonly used font that Lr lists and reasonable text size.

        2. For problem images, Open the problem page image, go back to Library, create a virtual copy, use the VC to replace the problem image.

        3. Check that any text boxes do not have text that exceeds the available size of the text box. ie. some of the text has disappeared from the text cell.

        4. Problems with using 'Background' images appear in forum threads- try unchecking any use of background images both on the cover and Globally within the book pages.

        5. Confirm that any photo you use in the book does actually exist and is available on the hard-drive. (In Library- Right-click and "Show in Explorer/Finder" to confirm,)

        6. Top Menu: Edit > Book Preferences > place a check mark in-  "Constrain Captions to text safe areas"

        7. Error messages that indicate images have "transparency" can be ignored.

        8. Always test your book design by an Export to PDF before an upload to Blurb.

        Regards. My System: Windows-11, Lightroom-Classic 15.0, Photoshop 27.0, ACR 18.0, Lightroom 9.0, Lr-iOS 10.4.0, Bridge 16.0 .
          DocSark
          DocSark
          Participating Frequently
          August 4, 2017

          I have been a CC member since its onset and spend a great deal of time using several of its applications. I have published 4 or 5 books in Blurb and have always been disappointed in it's limitations in book size and its handling of text, but have stuck with the application because of its ease of use. With this book alone I have spent HOURS reformatting text and making certain only to use system fonts to no avail. I think it's time to look elsewhere. EVERY THING IS NOW IN ARIAL AND I STILL GET THE SAME ERROR WHETHER UPLOADING TO BLURB OR TRYING TO CREATE A PDF FOR BLURB.

            Rob_Cullen
            Community Expert
            Rob_CullenCommunity Expert
            Community Expert
            August 4, 2017

            Hi DocSark,

            Like you I have also had 5 or 6 books printed by Blurb using Lightroom totally, and my notes above were an assembly of hints I have read in forums and help files.

            The only error message I have ever seen is the "Transparency warning".

            Can you post the exact words of the error message you see, or give more particulars about your book design. (Number and type of photos, where are the original photo files?, are any 'missing'?, etc)

            With more information we (other users like you) may eventually find answers to the 'upload' problems.

            IMHO I believe- that Adobe is ignoring requests to make the Book module any better. (or working on fixing the 'slowness' problems in Lr. Hope for v7 ?) It was added as a 'bonus' feature to augment the prime purpose of Lightroom (DAM and raw Development). It is possible Adobe believes (from a business POV) that if you want something better, then {Adobe in Design} is the go-to program for the purpose.

            The {Blurb BookSmart} program may be useful for you, but will involve exporting photos for the book and doing extensive copy&paste if you have large amounts of text.

            Regards. My System: Windows-11, Lightroom-Classic 15.0, Photoshop 27.0, ACR 18.0, Lightroom 9.0, Lr-iOS 10.4.0, Bridge 16.0 .
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