Urgent: Affinity Publisher Unable to Export to PDF

[Phoenix on Fire]

Hi,

I hope someone can assist me with a frustrating issue I've been trying to resolve for the past 24 hours. Affinity Publisher is refusing to export to PDF, and despite my best efforts, I haven’t been able to find a solution.

Here’s what I’ve tried so far:

• Reduced the file size (though it wasn’t large to begin with).
• Attempted multiple export profiles (PDF for Export, PDF Small File Size—even though it’s unsuitable for my needs, and PDF for Print).
• Turned off GPU processing based on tips from the forum.
• Verified that all images were properly linked and even resized them externally to reduce file demands.
• Restarted my computer.
• Factory reset the software.
• Uninstalled and reinstalled Affinity Publisher three times.
• Switched to the BETA version to see if it would work.

Unfortunately, none of these steps have resolved the issue. The export process proceeds through the interface smoothly but stalls during the actual export. The software doesn’t freeze or lag at this point, but even after letting it run for six hours, there’s no progress. If I cancel the export and try again, the program then freezes entirely and requires a force shutdown.

I’ve attached a screenshot of where it gets stuck, along with a package ZIP file of the original document that first encountered the problem.

This issue is causing me significant delays and lost income, so any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you so much for your time and support!

Best regards,
Phoenix

Package.zip

[Komatös]

I can confirm the error behaviour on both macOS 15.2 and Windows 11. Publisher also freezes if you cancel the export during the preview phase after a short time. Although the export dialogue is closed, Publisher can no longer be used and can only be ended by forcibly terminating the task.

[Hangman]

Hi @Phoenix on Fire and welcome to the forums,

Your file is failing to export because of the way the colour fills have been applied to the flower and leaf graphics on Pages 5 and 20, i.e.,

The colour fills use scribbled strokes which is not advisable... I've changed the stroke colour here just so you can see the issue...

Some of these will randomly export but most will cause the export to fail. Even though it's going to involve a couple of hours of work, you need to replace these with closed, filled shapes instead, i.e., from the scribbled stroke on the left to the simple, closed filled shape on the right...

If you hide doodle flowers 3.svg on Page 5 and hide all the colour fills used in the leaf graphic on Page 20 your file will export but with both visible the export fails...

If you do this and then still have issues exporting to PDF (digital - small size), PDF (digital - high quality) or PDF (export) uncheck the Tagged PDF option in the Advanced section of the PDF export window and the file should export... This is because of a known bug when this option is enabled affecting certain, but not all files...

Let us know how you get on...

[Phoenix on Fire]

Absolutely! I'll get started on this and report back. Thank you so much!

[Phoenix on Fire]

I just wanted to update that this was exactly the issue and I was able to export. Thank you so much for your help!

[Hangman]

That's absolutely no problem at all... I'm glad everything is now working as expected and that you've been able to successfully export your file, that is really good to hear...

[Kagaku]

With the latest update of Publisher I have the problem with the Export freezing when I try to export  a large book with multiple chapters to PDF. I need to flatten the file and choose CMYK for colour settings. Sometimes it works. But most of the time it freezes before I can get the file to save. This is a major problem as I have a deadline and I am dead already....

[Phoenix on Fire]

Is there a way you could save first than flatten afterwards? I'm not an expert so I can't give a true answer. 

[Kagaku]

I managed to finally rush through a very simple PDF save (in the book-export panel)...then I tried to reload the save PDF back into Publisher, so I could do a second PDF save and convert it to PDFx-1a format. But, this is where I noted another very strange problem. For some reason (I have never seen this before in a saved PDF) the dotted indents in my lists were all misaligned (this occurred only when I brought the file back into Publisher, in the original saved file the indents were OK !).

Anyway...despite this problem I then found I could finally do a work around, which was to cut and copy the affected parts from a prior PDF file (which I made on version 2.6.1 of Publisher), Then, with all the pages back to normal, I was then finally able to could create my PDF/x-1a file, from the Export menu at the top menu bar of Publisher....I needed the x-1a file format as this is the only format that works reliably for uploading files to Lulu Books 

That was a massive workaround, and it took me a whole day to work out how to solve all these issues.

What I have seen is the export from the top menu of Publisher actually seems to be OK. This is perhaps why no-one is reporting it

The problem with the program freezing only occurs in the Export form the "Book" creator (this is when you are trying to create a PDF from multiple chapters of a book - in my case I had over 100 chapters and over 500 images), and the program appeared to have difficulties in creating a PDF from all the different files.

Note...I still have not tried it with my PC version. (The project I was working on was on a Mac).

Anyway I thought I should give people a heads up that there is an issue here, especially if you are trying to save a PDF/x-1a file for use in Lulu Publishers.

Though version 2.6.1 was also slightly buggy, it did not freeze so often as 2.6.2. Currently (for me) 2.6.2 is unworkable, and I will be reloading an older version until the problem is fixed.