Publisher v2 crashes when exporting book to PDF

[Cathy Lewis]

I have managed to export this book to PDF a few times today before it started to crash and now it crashes every time. Have performed preflight without faults, so I don't understand where the problem is, but it is somewhere.... I have a deadline to publish and would really appreciate some help. I have attached the crash report and I am using Publisher version 2.5.6 on macOS 14.6.1.

Publisher crash export pdf.pdf

[MikeTO]

Two crash bugs for exporting Books to PDF have fixed in the 2.6 beta. I don't know if these are the same issue you're experiencing, but it might be worth installing the beta and giving it a try.

Warning: 2.6 is still in beta and I wouldn't use it for production use yet. If you try this, make a backup copy of your entire Book (the afbook and all the afpub files) before proceeding. Note that if you back up your entire book's folder and then open the afbook in the folder copy, Publisher will still open the chapter files from the original folder because the afbook file uses absolute paths. I recommend backing up your book folder and then renaming the original folder so that Publisher can't find the chapter files there when opening the copy.

Good luck

[Cathy Lewis]

18 hours ago, MikeTO said:

Two crash bugs for exporting Books to PDF have fixed in the 2.6 beta. I don't know if these are the same issue you're experiencing, but it might be worth installing the beta and giving it a try.

Warning: 2.6 is still in beta and I wouldn't use it for production use yet. If you try this, make a backup copy of your entire Book (the afbook and all the afpub files) before proceeding. Note that if you back up your entire book's folder and then open the afbook in the folder copy, Publisher will still open the chapter files from the original folder because the afbook file uses absolute paths. I recommend backing up your book folder and then renaming the original folder so that Publisher can't find the chapter files there when opening the copy.

Good luck

I have installed 2.5.7and it got a bit further so I managed to select PDF-export, but the pdf is corrupt and can't be used. My book is going into production and I have a deadline....

Edited December 11, 2024 by Cathy Lewis
PDF corrupt after export.

[Cathy Lewis]

7 hours ago, Cathy Lewis said:

I have installed 2.5.7and it got a bit further so I managed to select PDF-export, but the pdf is corrupt and can't be used. My book is going into production and I have a deadline....

Tried to export again, but this time it crashed after i entered the filename to save

Publisher crash export pdf 20241211.pdf

[MikeTO]

7 hours ago, Cathy Lewis said:

OK, but my book is going to the printers and as an ebook, so it feels a bit scary to use beta. Is there any other way?

The only other option I can think of to work around these crash bugs in 2.5.x is to avoid using the Book feature. Here's how to combine your documents.

1. Make a backup of your files first. Do not open the Book file.
2. Open the first chapter file.
3. Choose Document > Add Pages from File and add the second chapter file to the end of the document. Repeat for all of the chapters.
   1. If any of the chapters had pages padded or merged before them, you might need to manually add or remove a blank page to ensure the page sides don't change
4. Save the combined file under a new filename.
5. Update the TOC and Index. If you have Cross-References, check that none are missing. Check Preflight for other obvious issues.

Combining Book chapters is much easier than splitting a document up into separate files for each chapter and should just take a few minutes. You might find that this combined document works perfectly well on your computer and that there was never a need to use the Books feature.

[Cathy Lewis]

10 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

The only other option I can think of to work around these crash bugs in 2.5.x is to avoid using the Book feature. Here's how to combine your documents.

1. Make a backup of your files first. Do not open the Book file.
2. Open the first chapter file.
3. Choose Document > Add Pages from File and add the second chapter file to the end of the document. Repeat for all of the chapters.
   1. If any of the chapters had pages padded or merged before them, you might need to manually add or remove a blank page to ensure the page sides don't change
4. Save the combined file under a new filename.
5. Update the TOC and Index. If you have Cross-References, check that none are missing. Check Preflight for other obvious issues.

Combining Book chapters is much easier than splitting a document up into separate files for each chapter and should just take a few minutes. You might find that this combined document works perfectly well on your computer and that there was never a need to use the Books feature.

But this is quite messy since I send different chapters to different people and authorities for review during the updates of the book on 200 pages. I see this as a fault since it has worked before in version 2.5 and should therefore be fixed immediately. How do I get in contact with support and escalate this to treated as fault and not a minor bug?

[MikeTO]

28 minutes ago, Cathy Lewis said:

But this is quite messy since I send different chapters to different people and authorities for review during the updates of the book on 200 pages. I see this as a fault since it has worked before in version 2.5 and should therefore be fixed immediately. How do I get in contact with support and escalate this to treated as fault and not a minor bug?

Sorry, those are the only two workarounds I can suggest.

You've already posted in the right place to get Serif's attention. They aren't always able to respond to all issues immediately.

[Cathy Lewis]

12 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

Sorry, those are the only two workarounds I can suggest.

You've already posted in the right place to get Serif's attention. They aren't always able to respond to all issues immediately.

Is there a way of going back to 2.5.7 if 2.6 beta does not work?

[MikeTO]

1 hour ago, Cathy Lewis said:

Is there a way of going back to 2.5.7 if 2.6 beta does not work?

Installing the beta version will not interfere with 2.5.7 - they will co-exist side by side and are completely separate. After installing it, you can copy some of your settings from 2.5.7 to 2.6 by choosing Settings > Beta Program.

[Cathy Lewis]

1 hour ago, MikeTO said:

Installing the beta version will not interfere with 2.5.7 - they will co-exist side by side and are completely separate. After installing it, you can copy some of your settings from 2.5.7 to 2.6 by choosing Settings > Beta Program.

Thanks😊 I installed 2.6 beta but it crashed there as well. I also upgraded macOS from 14.6.1 to 14.7.1 but it still crashes in both 2.5.7 and 2.6 beta.
From my point of view it seems that when a new version is released, new faults occur that worked in previous versions... Perhaps I was too naive when changing from InDesign to Publisher. So, how do I export .afbook to .indd or .idml?

Edited December 11, 2024 by Cathy Lewis
New question on export to idml

[Oufti]

2 hours ago, Cathy Lewis said:

how do I export .afbook to .indd or .idml?

Sadly you cannot export to .indd or .idml. These are proprietary formats from Adobe. 

[MikeTO]

If it's still crashing in the 2.6 beta then this is likely a new bug that hasn't been previously reported - I think the two fixed bugs might be the only known ones with exporting a Book. Somebody else might know more than I do.

You said you use the Book feature because you send chapters to others for review. That's okay as long as they don't make edits - Publisher's Book feature is not intended for collaboration and you can't check out a chapter and check it back in. If you edit one chapter, Publisher may need to open another chapter in the background, make changes to it, save it, and then close it again, without you even noticing. I don't think it would cause huge issues to overwrite a chapter with one that was edited externally, but it's not advisable.

If you're just sending chapters to others for review but not editing, then you're likely sending them as PDFs. Is that correct? Are you able to export every chapter file (including the front matter and back matter you may not have sent for review) as a standalone PDF? If so, that rules rules out any issues not related to the Book feature.

If you can export every chapter file as a PDF but not the Book itself, I think your only option at this point, given it won't export in 2.6, is to merge the chapter documents into one. But before you do anything, make a zip file of the entire book the way it is now because Serif may ask to see a copy of it at some point to figure out the issue.

Good luck

[Cathy Lewis]

17 hours ago, MikeTO said:

If it's still crashing in the 2.6 beta then this is likely a new bug that hasn't been previously reported - I think the two fixed bugs might be the only known ones with exporting a Book. Somebody else might know more than I do.

You said you use the Book feature because you send chapters to others for review. That's okay as long as they don't make edits - Publisher's Book feature is not intended for collaboration and you can't check out a chapter and check it back in. If you edit one chapter, Publisher may need to open another chapter in the background, make changes to it, save it, and then close it again, without you even noticing. I don't think it would cause huge issues to overwrite a chapter with one that was edited externally, but it's not advisable.

If you're just sending chapters to others for review but not editing, then you're likely sending them as PDFs. Is that correct? Are you able to export every chapter file (including the front matter and back matter you may not have sent for review) as a standalone PDF? If so, that rules rules out any issues not related to the Book feature.

If you can export every chapter file as a PDF but not the Book itself, I think your only option at this point, given it won't export in 2.6, is to merge the chapter documents into one. But before you do anything, make a zip file of the entire book the way it is now because Serif may ask to see a copy of it at some point to figure out the issue.

Good luck

Thank you. I realized that my stubborness of using Book is just because i have been used to work like that over the last 9 years, but times change and I have grown to like Publisher. I moved everything to one file and after fiddeling around, I managed to export everything to pdf for print and pdf for conversion to epub. Thank you for your patiense and excelent advise. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

[NathanC]

Hi @Cathy Lewis apologies for the late response,

If you could provide a copy of the original .afbook and associated .afpub chapter files we can confirm if the crash is replicable and get this logged with the developers, I've provided a private upload link below.

https://www.dropbox.com/request/8YD5uavCgWvgasSPL4UQ

Thanks

[Cathy Lewis]

7 hours ago, NathanC said:

Hi @Cathy Lewis apologies for the late response,

If you could provide a copy of the original .afbook and associated .afpub chapter files we can confirm if the crash is replicable and get this logged with the developers, I've provided a private upload link below.

https://www.dropbox.com/request/8YD5uavCgWvgasSPL4UQ

Thanks

Sorry but I had to copy the book and subscribe to Adobe InDesign, since I had to publish it. On top of that I couldn't find a place to convert it to ePUB3 in fixed format. In InDesign I can easily export both to PDF and ePUB3 fixed format.