in5 Delivers HTML5 from InDesign

Mike Rankin

1

Over the summer I wrote a news story about an interesting Kickstarter project to create a solution for producing HTML5 from InDesign layouts. Here’s the update: the project got funded, the product was developed, and today marks the official launch of in5 by Ajar Productions.

Here’s a partial features list:
   * 5 different Page Format options
   * Text can be rendered as images (to preserve appearance) or as HTML
   * Web-safe fallback fonts are automatically generated
   * Support for embedding local OTF and TTF fonts
   * HTML and CSS output supports columns, paragraph rules, bullet lists, numbered lists, and anchored images
   * Offline application caching
   * Embedding of HTML (such as YouTube, Vimeo, or Google Maps)
   * The ability to create “Thumbnails” small (possibly cropped) images, that link to a larger copy
   * The ability to open URLs in a “Lightbox” so that the viewer never has to leave the page
   * Also supports Lightbox for Thumbnails
   * Supports mapping styles to specific HTML tags
   * Option to render items within group or render groups as images (to ensure display fidelity for complex items, like items with blending modes)
   * Audio support (optional controls) 
   * Ability to set Page Color and Background Color
   * Ability to assign a Viewport Zoom setting for mobile devices 
   * Search Engine Optimization (SEO): title, keywords, description, author — pulls from INDD meta data automatically, and can generate keywords automatically from the document 
   * Swipe Navigation
   * Video embedding (Flash fallback as well as automatic webm and ogg files with the same name for maximum capability)
   * SWF embedding 
   * Support for Alt text using the button name, script label, or Alt text within the Object Export Options
   * Supports link on Object as well as the following button actions: Go to Destination, Go to Next Page, Go to Previous Page, Go to First page
   * Supports Table of Contents linking and linking between pages
   * Support for items that span across spread pages

With in5 is installed, you get a new choice in the File menu to export as HTML5:

And here’s a peek at the Export HTML5 dialog box:

The pricing for in5 is as follows:
1 seat – $149
2 seats – $169
4 seats – $319
6 seats – $479
10 seats – $749

Note: One seat is required for each activated copy of InDesign (i.e. to install on CS5 and CS6, even on one machine, requires two seats).