InDesign Magazine Issue 72: InDesign to Kindle
We’re happy to announce that InDesign Magazine Issue 72 (April, 2015) is now available!
Here’s what the issue includes:
- Kevin Callahan takes you step by step through the process of publishing ebooks to Amazon.
- Erica Gamet inaugurates a new column devoted to the coolest products and services for InDesign users.
- David Blatner interviews Saurabh Mahajan, InDesign’s Product Manager.
- Sandee Cohen takes an in-depth look at character styles.
- Scott Citron warns you about the Top Ten Terrible Type Transgressions.
- Michael Murphy shows you how to restrict GREP searches for better targeted results.
- And as always, the Best of the Blog offers a compendium of the best InDesign tips on the planet.
Remember, you can find every issue of InDesign Magazine here, or by clicking Magazine above.
(And remember, monthly subscribers only get access to the current month’s magazine. Annual subscribers get this month’s issue plus 10 years of back issues!)
Enjoy!
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Merry morning to you
Getting a “404 good buddy” on the Issue 72 links.
Cheers, Gobit
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Working :-) Cheers
Confusing detail in the article: Delete the file “cover.xhtml” and delete the links to it in the Manifest and Spine sections of content.opf, toc.ncx, etc. But Figure 13 leaves the references to the cover file in the Guide section of content.opf and Landmarks section in toc.xhtml. Should the file not be deleted but only some of the links?
Thanks so much for seeing this! I’m sorry I missed it, and I’m sorry for the LONG delay in responding.
Here’s what to do instead:
replace cover.xhtml with a link to the cover image (images/cover.jpg, for example).
Note that if you try to do this in the EPUB and then validate for EPUB use (Apple, e.g.), it’ll fail validation.
When I revalidated the edited ePub before converting to Kindle, I got errors about the file listed in the Guide not declared in the Manifest, so Figure 13 is in conflict with the edits recommended in the article.
In the section about preparing for conversion to KF8, the author says that KF8 prefers anchor tags to be outside of HTML tags. How critical is this? If KF8 just prefers it, why should I care? What’s the downside of leaving it like InDesign exported it?
Moreover, I did a search for the string “<a name=" in all 32 XHTML documents of my ebook and found none! The anchors I'm seeing in the InDesign-generated XHTML are formed like this:
Is whoever wrote the article using an older version of InDesign or something?
Also, is anyone going to answer the question by jageez posted above?
Evidently this website wouldn’t let me enter both an opening an closing tag. So anyway, the opening anchor tags I’m seeing are formed like this:
Edward, look for code beginning with <a id= instead of <a name=. Don't forget to move the closing code as well. The only anchors I moved immediately followed opening HTML codes. I ignored anchor tags that fell in the middle of a paragraph. I didn't have time to test out leaving the codes where ID put them.
Since nobody answered my previous query, I fiddled with things until I no longer got an error from the Kindle Previewer app.
-In the guide section of content.opf there are only two entries:
-In toc.xhtml in the nav section called Landmarks there is only one listing within the ol:
Contents
-I removed the file “cover.xhtml” and any reference listing it.
There was a bad problem with Kindle distorting images vertically in my heavily illustrated book. I adjusted the image sizing in idGeneratedStyles.css to set both the height and width to auto. (I didn’t change idGeneratedStyles.css but added RevisedStyles.css as an extra css file in ID to use for such edits in case I had to re-export the ePub.)
I was unable to get text to wrap around smaller images in the Kindle version so gave up and centered them all. I also had to change my design to eliminate any small caps, which are ignored by Kindle.
This book was a breeze to convert to ePub and sheer torture to go from ePub to Kindle. I learned a lot and now have my Kindle cheatsheet for future projects.
Edward, my codes didn’t make it to my earlier post. I’ll try to explain here.
In content.opf the guide contains two references: one with type “toc” and title “Contents” linking to the contents file, the other with the type “text” and title “Startup Page” linking to the page I chose as the first page of the book.
The listing under Landmarks in toc.xhtml shows an epub:type of “toc” and links to my table of contents file.
Edward, I’m not seeing your sample, so can’t address that.
Swapping position of anchor/html tags is preferred, not required. There’ve been reports of an internal link going to the top of the xhtml document instead of the (possibly far-down) actual ID. This was reported by Joshua Tallent at ebook architects, who has more Kindle experience than anyone I know, so I think it’s worth suggesting. Again, the file won’t fail; it’s a user-experience issue.
OK thanks for the clarification. The anchor tag I’m seeing all through my eBook uses “id” where yours uses “name.” I’m using InDesign CC 2014.
Also, it looks like InDesign CC 2014 generates a file called “CoverImage.xhtml” instead of “cover.xhtml.”
In your article it talks about a “guide” section in the content.opf file. My ePub, generated by InDesign CC 2014, does not contain this “guide” section. Any idea why not? And do I need to add it manually?
Edward, I just tried an export of an InDesign document to both EPUB2 and EPUB3, and both created the Guide section at the end of the content.opf, (the last section, after the spine and before ) so I’m not sure I know what to recommend for the export step.
A couple of things to check: are you spec’ing a cover in the first screen of the Export to EPUB dialog? That populates the Guide cover entry. And, are you choosing a Navigation TOC in the same first screen?
You can add it manually. Here’s a quick reference to show the items needed: https://ebookflightdeck.com/handbook/guide
Note that the InDesign export does not include the “text” guide item, which is where the file will open to when first opened. If you are planning to support EPUB2 devices (mostly Nooks), you’ll need to make sure that’s there.
I’m doing both: spec’ing a cover and choosing a Navigation TOC in the first export screen. Weird.
Thanks for the reply.
In the sample “guide” section in your article you show a reference to “cover.xhtml” for cover, but in the preceding paragraph you’ve told me to delete “cover.xhtml.” Can you elaborate? That seems a bit confusing to me.
You can replace that with the cover.jpg (make sure to use the entire path to the image: images/cover.jpg
K.
Can someone tell me if this is mainly for publishing fixed layout or reflowable and if it offers tips for image and caption placement?
I’ve only converted reflowable epubs to Kindle, haven’t checked lately but they didn’t offer fixed layout in the past. Aside from the code swaps and TOC adjustment, I made no changes to the image/caption placement I used in the epub.
Thanks, Julie. I’m actually looking for advice on reflowable, but I know that Kevin did a course on fixed layout before, and that’s not what I need advice on. I’m confused by new Kindle guidelines regarding image sizing, etc., and since this article was from 2015, I wasn’t sure if it would help me with my questions. Can you point me in the right direction?