Some of the most difficult concepts to get across are the different publishing routes now possible from Adobe InDesign for digital publishing. In a recent blog posting, David Blatner provided a quick overview of the differences between EPUB, DPS, and PDF. But a blog posting can only skim the surface of the issues involved.
What you need to really understand to subject is much longer overview, but such information is incredibly spread out and rarely covered in one place. But now there’s one book which provides an up-to-date summary of what InDesign CC 2014 is capable of creating, and what the advantages and disadvantages are for each path. Just arrived in November 2014 is Sandee Cohen and Diane Burns’ Digital Publishing with Adobe InDesign CC: Moving Beyond Print to Digital, published by Adobe Press. This is an update to a version for InDesign CS6 first published in 2012. [Note: I helped with a chapter in the first version of the book.]
The book starts with the three primary kind of tools and methods used in constructing a digital document. First, interactivity in all its forms, including hyperlinks, cross-references, tables of contents, bookmarks, object states, audio and video, buttons and forms. Then what can be created with the Animations and Timing panels. Finally, the various ways layouts can be constructed—focusing on alternate layouts, liquid layouts, and content and linking tools.
The hardest things for newcomers to understand is which of these tools work in which workflows. Which of the button actions in the Buttons and Forms panel can be used for PDF, which for EPUB, which for DPS? Why can’t I use the features I created with the Folio Builder and previewed in the Content Viewer when I’m creating a PDF file? What’s the difference between the SWF Preview panel and the EPUB Interactivity Preview panel? This book covers all this and more in great depth.
The book has been thoroughly updated to include what has changed in the past two or three years with these chapters:
- Reflowable ePubs and HTML Export
- Fixed Layout ePubs (completely new)
- Tablet Apps
- Interactive PDFs
It’s the only book I know of that covers this in a comprehensive way with countless examples and full-color illustrations for each type of interactivity and output mode. If you’re just exploring this area, or if you want a beginning to intermediate level understanding of a digital publishing workflow, this is the book for you!
Editor’s note: The links on this page to Amazon include our affiliate code, which helps support InDesignSecrets.com.
This article was last modified on July 25, 2019
This article was first published on December 16, 2014
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