Fix InDesign Error “Adobe Print Engine Has Failed” [Top 15 Ways]

 Adobe Print Engine Has Failed

Are you encountering “Adobe print engine has failed” issue in your InDesign CC, CS, CS2, CS3 application?  Wondering how to fix the adobe print engine failed error?

If YES then you are at the right place as here in this tutorial we will discuss this particular InDesign error along with the resolution to fix it in the most convenient way.

This error usually comes when you attempt to print, in return InDesign will throw the following error:

“Printing Error:

Adobe print engine has failed to output your data due to an unknown problem”.

 Adobe Print Engine Has Failed

Causes Behind“Adobe Print Engine has failed…” Error

There are many reasons for the Adobe print engine error, here check out some of them:

  • Problem with InDesign preference file.
  • The error occurs while printing OPI 2.0 comments.
  • Also when you place PDF files, that were created in QuarkXPress 5.x into an InDesign document.
  • Sometimes the problem also persists in the PDF versions.

How to Fix “Adobe Print Engine Has Failed…” InDesign Error?

Here is the complete listing of the solutions that you can try to fix this Adobe print engine has failed error. So let’s start solving this manually.

Solution 1: Export the PDF file from InDesign as a JPEG file.

Put the PDF file in a new InDesign document. Export the PDF file as a jpeg file and put the JPEG file in the original InDesign document.

  1. Create an InDesign
  2. Choose File>Place, select the PDF file, and then click to open option.
  3. Select the File > Place option, then select the PDF file, and click Open.
  4. Click the page where you have to place the PDF file.
  5. At the time of the selection of PDF file, choose File > Export.
  6. Now select the JPEG from the Format menu, assign a name to the file and then click to the Save
  7. After then select the Export option
  8. Now open the original InDesign document that is showing issue while printing.
  9. Choose File > Place, and select the JPEG file that you have saved in step 5 and click Open.
  10. Tap to the page where you have to place the JPEG

Solution 2: Use Ink Manager 

Check the number of spot colors you are been using, open your Swatches palette. Swatches’ names having a square with a gray circle in it are spot colors.

Change all colors to process colors via Ink Manager, for this do the following steps:

  1. Open the swatch update and then select the Ink Manager from the menu.
  2. Select All Spots to process in the lower-left corner of the dialog box and tap to OK option.
  3. In the output page of the Print dialog, you can see colors like Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black inks like colors in the Inks section.

Note: Well this particular issue usually occurs when you print a PostScript printer. But if you have the option of a non-PostScript printer, then you can use it to print composites of your file.

Solution 3: Change print options

 Also, do changes in the setting of the Print dialog box to resolve the Adobe Print Engine fails error in InDesign:

  • If the print section contains only one odd page, then deselect Even Pages Only.
  • But if the print pages contain only even pages then deselect Odd Pages Only.

Now check if the Printing Error: The Adobe Print Engine has failed is solved.

Solution 4: Replace Colors

If the printing document contains imported tagged text, check that if the tagged text file contains an out of range color. As out of range color appears in the Swatches palette with an appended value like, “+5” which indicates the closest value of range value.

In order to replace an out of range color with an in-range color, follow these steps:

  • Define new color swatch in InDesign and then use the Find/Change feature just to replace the tagged text file color with the new one.
  • In the tagged text file redefine the color value and then re-import the file into InDesign. Well to define the color value using the color table tag (<Color Table>). For more information about tagged Text-color definitions, see the Tagged Text PDF file on the InDesign CD-ROM.

Solution 5: Check for Font Damage

Determine if the problem is with the damaged font; try all fonts used in the document to a standard font. If still, the InDesign Adobe Print Engine fails error then it means the problem is not with the font-related. If the problem again occurs then it means the original font could be damaged or outdated. So try re-installing the font or obtain an updated version from the font manufacturer.

Solution 6: Remove OPI 2.0 comments

You need to remove OPI 2.0 comments from the PDF file, place the PDF file in InDesign, and then print the document. For removing this OPI 2.0 comments, follow the following steps:

  • In Adobe Acrobat, manually remove the OPI 2.0 comments and then re-create the PDF file.
  • In Acrobat, using the Enfocus Pitstop you can remove the OPI 2.0 comments.
  • Use OPI 1.3 comments.
  • In Acrobat Distiller, select Settings option> edit Adobe PDF Settings, click the Advanced tab, deselect Preserve OPI Comments, and then distill the PDF file.
  • Embed proxies in the PDF using a proxy OPI workflow.
  • In InDesign, select the PDF and apply Transparency You can also visit “Specifying transparency” in InDesign Help for instructions.

Solution 7: Re-create the Adobe font list files

  1. Close all the Adobe applications.
  2. Now select the Start > Search > For Files or Folders.
  3. Now search for the font list files.
  • If you are a Windows XP and Windows Vista users then type “Adobefnt*.lst” (including the quotation marks) in the All or part of the file name box and then click to the Search.
  • Windows 2000 user, type “Adobefnt*.lst” (including the quotation marks) in the Named box, and then click to Find Now option.
  1. Select the listed files and choose File > Delete.

If in case you delete a font list file for another adobe application, the file is re-created the next time the Adobe application is started.

  1. Restart InDesign. The font list files are re-created during startup.

Solution 8: Re-create the gradient

If you are printing an EPS file exported from an InDesign document with a gradient, make sure that spot colors in the gradient are from the same color space and then re-export the EPS. Make sure that the gradient doesn’t contain one RGB spot color and one LAB spot color.

Solution 9: Save the source file in any other format

Open the source file in the application that created it and then save it to format other than PDF. It is estimated the Adobe print engine has failed error in InDesign is fixed.

Solution 10: Export the document to InDesign Interchange

  1. In InDesign CS, choose File > Export, select InDesign Interchange from the Save As Type menu.
  2. Click to the Save option.

Solution 11: Re-create the InDesign preferences file

  1. Close and quit InDesign.
  2. Assign a new name or just rename the InDesign SavedData file and the InDesign default file (for example, to InDesign SavedData.old, InDesign Defaults.old) in the following location:
  • Windows XP: C:/Documents and Settings/[user name]/Application Data/Adobe/InDesign/[Version]
  • Windows 7/Vista: C:/Users/[user name]/AppData/Roaming/Adobe/InDesign/[Version]
  • Mac OS: /Users/[user name]/Library/Preferences/Adobe InDesign/[Version]
  1. Now open InDesign and creates the preference files.
  2. If the problem is still their then you can restore the original preferences by deleting the new files and renaming the old preference files back to their original names.

It is estimated now the Adobe Print Engine fails error in InDesign is fixed but if not then follow the next solution

Solution 12: Use the Convert To PDF tool

  • Open up your document in Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, or Microsoft Word.
  • Tap to the option “Convert To Adobe PDF “in the toolbar.
  • Assign a name and save the PDF file.

After converting check if the InDesign Adobe print engine error is resolved or not, or else head to the next solution.

Solution 13: Create a PostScript file and convert it to PDF

In order to create a PostScript file in the source application, see the documentation included with the application. Perform the following steps, to convert a PostScript file to a PDF file, do the following:

  1. Open Acrobat Distiller.
  2. Select Setting from the Default Setting menu.
  3. Choose File > Open.
  4. Choose the PostScript file and select the Open option. The PDF file will appear in the exact same location as the PostScript file.

Solution 14: Export the file to PDF

You can also try importing the file to PDF and then print from Adobe Acrobat 5 or later or Adobe Acrobat Reader 5.0 or later. Hope this works for you to resolve Adobe Print error.

Solution 15: Replace the PDF file with an EPS image.

Make use of the image editing application like Adobe Photoshop to save the PDF file as an EPS image. After then, put the EPS image into the InDesign document.

Conclusion:

So, this is all about the adobe print engine has failed error. I tried my best to list down the entire possible solutions to fix adobe print engine error.

Try all these aforementioned manual solutions as this will surely fix up this InDesign printing issue.

Hope the article works for you to get rid of the InDesign error Adobe Print Engine fails.

Good Luck..!