  We prove the absolute convergence, functional equations and meromorphic
continuation of local intertwining periods on parabolically induced
representations of finite length for certain symmetric spaces over local fields
of characteristic zero, including Galois pairs as well as pairs of Prasad and
Takloo-Bighash type. Furthermore, for a general symmetric space we prove a
sufficient condition for distinction of an induced representation in terms of
distinction of its inducing data. Both results generalize previous results of
the first two named authors. In particular, for both we remove a boundedness
assumption on the inducing data and for the second we further remove any
assumption on the symmetric space. Moreover, when the inducing representation
is uniformly bounded, we extend the field of cofficients from p-adic to any
local field of characteristic zero. In fact this extension holds for all finite
length representations under a natural generic irreducibility assumption for
parabolic induction. In the case of p-adic symmetric spaces, combined with the
necessary conditions for distinction that follow from the geometric lemma, this
provides a necessary and sufficient condition for distinction of
representations induced from cuspidal.
