An error occurred while exporting to:

[3Dshark]

I'm getting this very unhelpful error message when trying to export my Adesign or Apub documents if more than one page / artboard.

 

[3Dshark]

Forgot to add, it's when exporting as PDF and on Mac

[Callum]

Hi 3Dshark,

Does this happen with all files or is it just one file? Please could you try exporting to your desktop so we can look into this further with you?

Thanks

C

[3Dshark]

Hi Callum,

I've not noticed it before, it's just started happening with some the designs I need to get to my client rather urgently (always the way when things go wrong).

When you say exporting to my desktop, what do you mean exactly? That's the error I get when I try to export the designs or is it something else?

I now suspect it may be a font issue, as turning off one of the fonts means I can now export without the error but also without the client's corporate font so not ideal. Hmmm what to do next?

I found a workaround for my client's proof by printing to PDF from Apub, but not idea.

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, 3Dshark said:

I now suspect it may be a font issue, as turning off one of the fonts means I can now export without the error but also without the client's corporate font so not ideal. Hmmm what to do next?

Possibly a known font issue in Affinity with some old Postscript font files. As a workaround you could try to convert text to curves, either on export as setting in the More options or, if this doesn't prevent the error message, before export of the according text frames within your document.

[thomaso]

> 3Dshark reacted to this

If it text-to-curves did help then you might consider for future work to convert the clients corporate font into a different format, e.g. with one of the online font converter tools.

[Lorox]

Had the same problem today. After converting the type elements to curves it worked, though.

BUT:

As this was only about 2 banners with very little text on them it was OK doing it that way, but if it had been some text heavy document, I would have been REALLY annoyed...

Actually, the font (Mac Postscript) has been very big on those banners: around 1200 pt – I should possibly check if the problem persists when using more normal sizes, shoudn't I?

[walt.farrell]

You can always try enabling PDFLib logging, and see if there are any error messages indicating corruption in the fonts. That sometimes prevents exporting the file unless the text is converted to curves.

 

[Lorox]

1 hour ago, Lorox said:

Actually, the font (Mac Postscript) has been very big on those banners: around 1200 pt – I should possibly check if the problem persists when using more normal sizes, shoudn't I?

As it turns out, the sort of giant point sizes of the font used don't really matter – the problem persists even if it's only 36pt... In fact, it seems like that whole font family (Postscript from 1998) somehow causes Affinity Publisher to not export a PDF. Once I assign a different font to the text the problem's gone.

So you obviously don't need to delete these font (files) from your machine (as some users seem to have been thinking) or deactivate them with your font manager, just don't use them in your document (or convert to curves before or while doing the export [via the settings]).

[thomaso]

10 minutes ago, Lorox said:

Had the same problem today. After converting the type elements to curves it worked, though.

(...) Actually, the font (Mac Postscript)

26 minutes ago, Lorox said:

just don't use them in your document

There is a known issue with older Postscript Type 1 fonts.
There are various topics regarding this unspecific export error message & Postscript Type 1. Also note this announcement  from a former PS Type 1 developer.

There is no need, to not use them any more, it may depend on the specific font file. As a workaround you can try in Affinity to curve the text either/or...
– within the document (before export)
– with the according Export > More > Fonts option (on export only).

[Lorox]

1 hour ago, thomaso said:

There is no need, to not use them any more, it may depend on the specific font file. As a workaround you can try in Affinity to curve the text either/or...
– within the document (before export)
– with the according Export > More > Fonts option (on export only).

Yeah, that's how I see it. In my case – like I said – it seems like the complete font family is problematic.

1 hour ago, thomaso said:

Also note this announcement  from a former PS Type 1 developer.

Oh, that'll sure make folks happy who are in the trade for more than 2 decades and who have possibly purchased extensive libraries of PS Type 1 fonts before OpenType set out to become the new standard...

This seems to me like another proof of Adobe's arrogance towards longtime users who used to be able to work perfectly well with their old but legitimately purchased assets. Just like taking away the possibility for getting the various "in-version-patches" for CS5 (which you'll certainly miss should you be forced to re-install your legacy software on an old machine).

"Oh, you cannot use your(!) fonts anymore in PS? Too bad.. But never mind, just go for the subscription and use ours – at least as long as you keep paying..."

 

[thomaso]

35 minutes ago, Lorox said:

arrogance towards longtime users

I doubt that was the intention, then this PS Type 1 font issue would not necessarily hit Affinity. Although I must admit not to know any details I rather suppose  technical  than marketing reasons. The fonts I experienced yet being affected are from the late 90s and thus from the beginning of DTP. Consider the development of operating systems since then, which also cause applications not to run any more. It might simply be not worth the afford to carry over all codes of former instances like apps and fonts without increasing customer costs. Concerning fonts the Open Type format was/is a great improvement which reduces limitations of former formats and increases compatibility both within and between operating systems.

I haven't tried yet but possibly there are tools around which convert your old PS Type 1 fonts to a more compatible format, e.g....
https://convertio.co/de/ps-otf/
http://luc.devroye.org/t12ot.html

[Lorox]

5 minutes ago, thomaso said:

I haven't tried yet but possibly there are tools around which convert your old PS Type 1 fonts to a more compatible format

That's possibly right. With font design software you have been able for long time now to choose the final output format (Postscript, TrueType or OpenType). So I think these formats are some kind of "envelopes" for the basic properties of the fonts and with these converters you sort of take the "basic font" out of its packaging (say "Postscript") and put it into another one (say "OpenType"). This may be overly simplified but I actually remember having a font that had an issue (which I cannot quite recall) converted by one of these online converters. It somehow worked, but I felt one can't be 100% sure to get an 1:1 conversion – there still is quite a lot of information in these font files besides the characters' vector shapes...

And well it's always been some sort of welcome excuse for tech companies to cite technical reasons for some discontinuation when in reality they actually just wanted to sell you something new or a second time instead of letting you use what you already have purchased once. Especially Adobe has over the years been one of those who readily cancelled support for older OS versions when there was a new one. Affinity/Serif on the other hand (and quite a few others) have been rather more benevolent in this respect. Which seems to prove the point: it can be done if you really care your customers.

I've been working with Adobe products for more than 2 decades and I initially was very happy with Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator and the money I paid seemed well spant. Truth be told my love for their apps lasted for years until they introduced their subscription model thus forcing everybody who just wanted to use a small handful of their (up to date) apps to subsidize those users or angencies who actually embraced the whole gaint package in their work – paying the very same monthly fee. That's not fair and I just don't trust them anymore with anything...

However, whereas I've seen – especially – design students taking Adobe's subscription model for the "new normal" in the past few years, I currently see these upcoming designers use other software more and more (especially the Affinity apps, but also Inkscape, Gimp etc.). Also third party suppliers of app related stuff (like brushes etc.) are increasingly adding AD and AP (and Procreate, too) to the software their products support. I'm quite happy to witness this and it gives me some hope that we designers might eventually not be slaves to the Adobe monopoly in the degree we sort of were during the last 10–15 years...

[Sig. Galvani]

Greetings all,

So, i had this exact same problem (Affinity Publisher+PDF export) and seemed to track down the problem and find a solution.

So, to brief it, the error message1 would come up whenever i tried to export this APub file (w/ 30+ pages, images of many sizes; text titles and subtitles, up to 5 different fonts, and interactive hyperlinked elements) into a PDF.

Initially i thought it was the size (i thought like: "really? ... can't be" - a i have a pretty reasonable rig). I tried almost all PDF export methods available in APub, and the only one that worked was the rasterize everything... which is a bit 'yucky' ...

So, as soon as i got a lil' time i went to track the problem down: I started exporting sections (pages 1-10, then 1-15, then 1-20, etc.) until i found which page was the problem, and then to make sure, i tried to export the section after it, and then that page alone. It was only one page.

So, in my case, it had nothing to do with Fonts; as i happened to find, there were 2 picture frames with very long (height wise) images inside; i rasterized those 2 picture frames and voilá, it worked. [update: It had to do with only one of the images, regular .JPG file, less than 1000 KB; see end of the post for JPEG detailed info]

It shouldn't happen, i know, and would be great if Serif/Affinity team could solve these almost random issues; but i hope it helps.

If your case is different, my 2 cents' advice is to try to track down what page(s) is the trouble-maker, and see what could be messing with the export.

Best Regards

SG

1 - "An error occurred while trying to export to: (...)"

PROBLEMATIC JPEG INFO:

Format                      : JPEG
Width                       : 844 pixels
Height                      : 1 804 pixels
Color space                 : YUV
Chroma subsampling          : 4:2:0
Bit depth                   : 8 bits
Compression mode            : Lossy
Stream size                 : 976 KiB (100%)
ColorSpace_ICC              : CMYK

[thomaso]

8 minutes ago, Sig. Galvani said:

So, in my case, it had nothing to do with Fonts; as i happened to find, there were 2 picture frames with very long (height wise) images inside; i rasterized those 2 picture frames and voilá, it worked. [update: It had to do with only one of the images, regular .JPG file, less than 1000 KB;

Thanks for this feedback. I wonder whether the image .jpg file itself was causing the error – or rather a kind of corrupted combination of certain properties of the page layout, picture frame object and image (or possibly an applied effect/adjustment). I would be interesting to know if you can reproduce the error with a copy of this picture frame + image, placed in a new .afpub document. If you like upload an .afpub and the jpg for a test.

[Sig. Galvani]

Hi thomaso; you're welcome.

I just created a new Apub file (A4), random picture frame (1st thing), placed the image, the error still happened.

Then, did the same thing, but copied the same image to a different directory before placing it. Same export error.

Hope it helps.

I can upload both the file and the image. Is there a private link?

[thomaso]

That sounds indeed odd and I'll test your file if you upload it to my private  https://www.dropbox.com/request/ChVBpRP7i9JUA6suyl9x

Or you can request here again for an upload link of a Serif moderator literally to get it investigated by the Affinity developers team.

[Sig. Galvani]

Just uploaded the files to your dropbox. Can you forward them to the team if needed? I'd appreciate.

Thanks for your time

SG

 

[thomaso]

3 hours ago, Sig. Galvani said:

Just uploaded the files to your dropbox. Can you forward them to the team if needed? I'd appreciate.

Thanks for your files. Unfortunately I can't forward anything unless uploading it here, so I guess a Serif moderator will read this posts and react with offering an upload link to their dropbox.

It's strange with this .jpg. I also tried a copy, saved with macos Preview but get the export error, too.

Besides your mentioned rasterization (I haven't tried), another way to avoid the error seems to be related to its color space or profile. I can successfully export
– either by choosing PDF/X
– or after switching the .afpub to CMYK + the image to K-Only.

In this clip the continuous "Calculating..." process indicates an error message on export, whereas an estimated size indicates successful export.

[Sig. Galvani]

On 1/21/2021 at 2:11 AM, thomaso said:

Besides your mentioned rasterization (I haven't tried), another way to avoid the error seems to be related to its color space or profile. I can successfully export
– either by choosing PDF/X
– or after switching the .afpub to CMYK + the image to K-Only.

In this clip the continuous "Calculating..." process indicates an error message on export, whereas an estimated size indicates successful export.

Thank you so much for your time, Thomaso. And for the explanations on the video. Very explicit
I thought the delay in the calculation had to do with the large size (which wasn't that large). But thanks for the info. I'll be paying attention.

Hope Affinity team can solve this

Best regards,

SG

[thomaso]

51 minutes ago, Sig. Galvani said:

I thought the delay in the calculation had to do with the large size (which wasn't that large).

Just a note: In my experience an export always will fail when this Calculation process appears to run "endless". In particular for 1 single layer this calculation usually happens quite fast (as visible with PDF/X in the clip above). I suppose that the image file got calculated for onscreen display (relative to screen resolution + zoom level) in the computers video-memory or RAM during layout already / before choosing "Export...".

[KristaM]

Hello! I'm having the same error that is in this thread. I've isolated the issue to a single page that won't export if I select even that single page. All other pages will export without issue. Test-to-curves doesn't do anything. I've event deleted everything off of the page and I still get the error on that page.

This is blocking me from ordering my proof from the publisher, so I'm hoping I can get some help! Thanks!

Edited September 16, 2022 by KristaM

[KristaM]

My issue ended up being a text box that I had under the image (it has the index and anchors for the image in it). I don't know what was wrong with it, but deleting the text and putting it back fixed things. (I even used the same font and kept the original anchors and index flags.) Still a mystery, but not blocked.

Edited September 16, 2022 by KristaM

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, KristaM said:

My issue ended up being a text box that I had under the image (it has the index and anchors for the image in it). I don't know what was wrong with it, but deleting the text and putting it back fixed things. (I even used the same font and kept the original anchors and index flags.) Still a mystery, but not blocked.

Do you still have a copy of this page(s) / this text frame(s) + anchors you could upload to the forum? It might help to investigate the culprit of this error.

Alternatively a result of the PDF export protocol maybe useful for the Serif development. @walt.farrell posted here a link to the how-to.

[benskinner]

Thank you for the advice everyone. I had this issue using Affinity Publisher 2. After trying several of these troubleshooting options with nothing working when exporting to PDF, I tried changing the compatibility option to PDF/X-1a:2003. This allowed me to export without any issue.

When saving a PDF, you can find this in the "Advanced" tab.

Cheers!