Publisher 2.3.1 (iPad) crashing on large photo book export

[Coriso]

Hello there!
I have created a 150 pages photo book in Publisher 2.3.1 on my iPad Pro (M1, 256 GB (8GB RAM)) and would love to export it to a PDF file so I can share and later print it. However, whenever I try to do that, Publisher gets to about 50 % and then crashes.

I tried splitting the file into two 75 pages documents and those can be exported properly, even though this also takes FOREVER.

I know it‘s probably just a very very huge project for Publisher – but shouldn‘t it be able to cache the files somewhere on the iPad‘s local storage so even with the limited RAM the iPad should be able to handle this?

In general, PDF exporting with a lot of images takes sooo long. It‘d be great if Serif could speed this up.

In addition, it would be super great if I wouldn‘t have to create a separate file for this split-export: Why is there no option to select specific pages on the export dialog?

 

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

[walt.farrell]

What format are your images in, and are they Embedded or Linked?

[Coriso]

Hello Walt,

the photos are all in .heic, PNG or JPG and most of them are linked. Since we‘re talking about a lot of photos, embedding would explode my file size. But do you think it might be worth a try to embed all the images and try if the export is faster then?

Thanks in advance!

[walt.farrell]

No, I wouldn't recommend Embedding. Mainly I was concerned that you might already be Embedding or that you might be Linking (for example) .afphoto files rather than simple image files.

 

[Coriso]

There might be 1 or 2 afphoto files in there – but it‘s not the majority  

[stokerg]

Hi @Coriso,

Can you check and see if you have a crash report that you can attach?  To find the report, Go to Settings > Privacy > Analytics > Analytics Data

You will see an alphabetical list showing all crash reports on your iPad. Find and open the one that corresponds to the Affinity app that's crashing. Click Share to save to an .ips file and save it to local or Cloud storage and attach it here.

So we can look into this and see if something needs logging with the Developers, could you save your afpub files as a Package, as this ensures we get all the images used and upload them to our Dropbox here.  To save as a package, see here.  It would be best to create an Empty folder on the local storage of the iPad first, so you can point to that folder when you create the package  

 

[Paul Mudditt]

19 hours ago, Coriso said:

There might be 1 or 2 afphoto files in there – but it‘s not the majority  

Embedded afphoto files can be very large. Try replacing with jpgs.

[Joe Gavilan]

I seem to have the very same problem with Publisher on my iPad like the original poster.

I made a book of 212 pages with a lot of pictures. The very most pictures are ordinary JPGs – many of them in rather poor quality of under 500 KB. Publisher 2.5.2 crashes during export. They are all embedded, because coneccting from iCloud did not work. I had to reconnect at every launch.

The less DPI I set, the more percent are rendered before the crash. Obviously I need 300 DPI. I don't even get 95 DPI. I also tried 10 DPI, which worked.

I can separate the book in sections. 20 pages can be rendered in 95 DPI. But I lose correct page numbering and connected text frames get a mess. (That is why I also miss the option to export a defined section of the book.)

I run an iPad Pro (12,9'', 3rd generation) with iPadOS 17.5.1
Unfortunately there is only 10 GB free space.

I tried to find a relevant crash report like @stokerg suggested. But there are a lot of them and sadly nothing of this makes sense to me.

I appreciate any ideas. Thanks in advance.

[Paul Mudditt]

2 hours ago, Joe Gavilan said:

I seem to have the very same problem with Publisher on my iPad like the original poster.

I made a book of 212 pages with a lot of pictures. The very most pictures are ordinary JPGs – many of them in rather poor quality of under 500 KB. Publisher 2.5.2 crashes during export. They are all embedded, because coneccting from iCloud did not work. I had to reconnect at every launch.

The less DPI I set, the more percent are rendered before the crash. Obviously I need 300 DPI. I don't even get 95 DPI. I also tried 10 DPI, which worked.

I can separate the book in sections. 20 pages can be rendered in 95 DPI. But I lose correct page numbering and connected text frames get a mess. (That is why I also miss the option to export a defined section of the book.)

I run an iPad Pro (12,9'', 3rd generation) with iPadOS 17.5.1
Unfortunately there is only 10 GB free space.

I tried to find a relevant crash report like @stokerg suggested. But there are a lot of them and sadly nothing of this makes sense to me.

I appreciate any ideas. Thanks in advance.

Only 10GB free?, you have subscribed to iCloud and turned on Optimise Storage, never had an iPad run out of space when using iCloud.

[Joe Gavilan]

7 minutes ago, Paul Mudditt said:

Only 10GB free?, you have subscribed to iCloud and turned on Optimise Storage, never had an iPad run out of space when using iCloud.

So you suspect that the 10 GB could be the problem. That is reason enough to try an upgrade. (My 50 GB iCloud space are already consumed by Photos and Backup.)

[Paul Mudditt]

9 hours ago, Joe Gavilan said:

So you suspect that the 10 GB could be the problem. That is reason enough to try an upgrade. (My 50 GB iCloud space are already consumed by Photos and Backup.)

You need to subscribe to more iCloud storage than the capacity of your iPad to get the best out of your device. I use the 2TB option because I have >700GB of photos and videos and other files yet still have 60GB free on my 128GB iPad Pro.

Remember you can use family sharing to share any iCloud with family whilst still keeping everything private from each other so as to be a single purchase. 

[Joe Gavilan]

Now there is more comfort on iCloud but the performance of Publisher did not increase. There is still only 10 GB on the iPad's own SSD. Could it be, that I can not export under these circumstances?

I have a MacBook Pro and could buy Publisher for it, too. Can I open an iPad project with embedded pictures there an export it?

[Paul Mudditt]

56 minutes ago, Joe Gavilan said:

Now there is more comfort on iCloud but the performance of Publisher did not increase. There is still only 10 GB on the iPad's own SSD. Could it be, that I can not export under these circumstances?

I have a MacBook Pro and could buy Publisher for it, too. Can I open an iPad project with embedded pictures there an export it?

Yes of course all the apps on all platforms are file compatible. Save your work to an iCloud folder structure you create and import into Macbook and export from there.

It will take several days connected to Wifi and to power overnight for Optimise Storage to work its magic and clear up space on your iPad.

The current 50% off deal I think is the best they have ever done, buying the universal licence (6 apps for your iPad and Macbook for a little bit more than the price of one of the desktop applications is a really good deal.

[Joe Gavilan]

A Summary

It seems that 10 GB is too less free space on a iPad for the export of a file which is 1,75 GB big. A lot more iCloud storage did not free local space, sadly. The export in Publisher 2 on my old MacBookPro from 2016 did work perfectly. (Left space there: 6 GB)

File closed

[Paul Mudditt]

1 hour ago, Joe Gavilan said:

A Summary

It seems that 10 GB is too less free space on a iPad for the export of a file which is 1,75 GB big. A lot more iCloud storage did not free local space, sadly. The export in Publisher 2 on my old MacBookPro from 2016 did work perfectly. (Left space there: 6 GB)

File closed

Under iPad storage, how much space is Affinity using?, you may be able to save more space by removing older projects from your Affinity home page in the app and saving them to an iCloud folder rather than being held permanently on your iPad 

[Joe Gavilan]

On 6/25/2024 at 9:57 PM, Paul Mudditt said:

Under iPad storage, how much space is Affinity using?, you may be able to save more space by removing older projects from your Affinity home page in the app and saving them to an iCloud folder rather than being held permanently on your iPad 

Thanks for this idea. In despair, I already thought of this myself. I moved all projects (from any creative app) into a remote archive; since they are finished anyways. The thing is, I should have spend a few more bucks on my iPad, which has to cope with 64 GB. Back then, I did not see coming how much I would love to design with a stylus.

[Paul Mudditt]

22 minutes ago, Joe Gavilan said:

Thanks for this idea. In despair, I already thought of this myself. I moved all projects (from any creative app) into a remote archive; since they are finished anyways. The thing is, I should have spend a few more bucks on my iPad, which has to cope with 64 GB. Back then, I did not see coming how much I would love to design with a stylus.

If you have not had the iPad long you should be able to trade it in at apple for a discount to a larger iPad, 128GB or 256GB. No point in going higher as iCloud covers the rest.

[Alfred]

On 6/16/2024 at 10:00 PM, Paul Mudditt said:

The current 50% off deal I think is the best they have ever done, buying the universal licence (6 apps for your iPad and Macbook for a little bit more than the price of one of the desktop applications is a really good deal.

 

On 6/25/2024 at 6:59 PM, Joe Gavilan said:

The export in Publisher 2 on my old MacBookPro from 2016 did work perfectly.

If you already have Publisher 2 on your MacBook, there’s no point in buying a Universal Licence. Go to the App Store on your iPad and purchase ‘Affinity Collection for iPad’, which is all three version 2 apps for the price of two. While the 50% off deal lasts, that’s all three for the regular price of one.