Peter,

Thanks for the tip.  Seems logical.  I tried it.

However, no luck.

I have reinstalled the program.

Other ideas. 

I have CS5.5.

I reinstalled both the original CS5 and the upgrade to CS5.5.

Here is how my computer technical partner explained what happened...

First the computer was restored to an earlier point, prior to having the problems of locking up, using Windows' system restore. That somehow messed up the user profile and that I had to rebuild. Saved the user's files, deleted and then re-created the user. I've moved all the files that I could without causing the problem to re-occur. The user's registry and the user's application data folder unfortunately contained corrupt files that made that user profile unusable so they had to be omitted but they are all saved on the hard drive in case they need to be accessed.

Since I reinstalled cs5.5 I get an error message "1 Problem (1 failure) was found with a background task: Export:"(filename).pdf" (1)

I took a little while to get a precise answer.  I appreciate the thoughtful questions.

No, how do I do that?

I found and tried to install the patch.  It said that the install was not successful.

Peter,

You were correct.  I tried to install the ID server version.

The other version installed perfectly.  That is the good news.

The bad news is that I still get the error  when I attempt to export - "1 Problem (1 failure) was found with a background task: Export:"(filename).pdf" (1)"

Thanks for your ideas. They are important steps to take to eliminate the obvious.  

Any other suggestions for next steps?

Is there a tech service at Adobe I can pay for to dig into this?  I need to solve it quickly.

Thoughts welcome.

Peter,

Thanks for hanging in there with me.  I read through the four pages and found that if I added the files to a book - then printed the book to a pdf it created a  pdf file.

Many, many thanks.

Peter

Uwe,

Thanks for these additional thoughts.  I am a new and fairly low tech user of InDesign.  I am using it primarily to edit documents created by others. 

My main objective is simply to be able to export files for printing -sometimes I need a single page layout and sometime I need a double page spread layout (for brochures).

I would like to be able to use the full export capabilities again. 

Which of the solutions you provided would both:

1) Be easiest to implement?

2) Work well and have little or no side effects?

Finally, would you be so kind as to provide a novice a step by step guide as to how to implement the solution you recommmend?

Thanks for your support.

All the best,

Peter