Hi David

I did some research myself into this quite recently for Galdo’s Gift by Tapocketa https://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/galdos-gift/id1309987794?mt=11 and found, as you have, that multiple autoplaying videos are not supported in iBooks on the iPad.

So I don’t think there is a solution, sorry.

Thanks
Ken

Hi David

My company’s software ‘CircularFLO’ https://www.circularflo.com lets you place webcode and widgets onto your InDesign pages and then output to fixed layout EPUB. This includes the addition of 360 panoramas.

Take a look at pages 2 and 3 of this sample https://www.circularflo.com/2015/06/30/new-web-code-sample-ebook-created-using-circularflo/ to see examples of 360 panoramas and slideshows that actually connect with the iPad gyro so you can move the iPad to look around the scene.

One CircularFLO user has even published their EPUB to a Google Cardboard VR headset. It’s pretty cool :)

Please contact me for more info and to try CircularFLO.

Thanks
Ken Jones

Circular Software
http://www.circularsoftware.com

Hi Virginia

If you are able to share the InDesign documents then I would like to try to help you do this. Free of charge.

You can send me the files here https://www.dropbox.com/request/FbReCV9yCcFJJ4SNtzXG
Please ZIP the files and clearly mark which one is the first chapter if it is not obvious!

Thanks
Ken Jones
Circular Software

Hi Greg

Trying to use a version of InDesign that is seven years old to export to EPUB will not go well! All the panels and settings you will find don’t match as they refer to later versions of InDesign.

Adobe put a lot of effort into their EPUB export starting with InDesign CS5.5 and continued to adapt and change things significantly until CC 2014.

You really need to upgrade your version of InDesign if you want to work with EPUB effectively…

Hi Kai, well seeing as you ask… :)

We understand that not all books can be made in the way that InDesign expects (and images can often cause problems as well as fonts) and so CircularFLO has always been able to take input from ANY InDesign document. We now take in ANY PDF as an input too which means publishers can use CircularFLO to convert their backlist much more easily.

CircularFLO CAN work with live text but also can use what we call ’embedded text’ which means retaining the appearance of the font in a retina image but keeping the text in the page, so each page is still fully searchable. More on that here https://www.circularflo.com/instructions/#all_text_is_embedded_and_searchable

This month we are set to release a new version ‘CircularFLO 8’ that has some great new features to do with live text. Any questions on that or anything else just let me know…

Thanks
Ken Jones
Circular Software

Hi Sharon

As you’ve discovered Kindle Previewer will offer to convert your fixed layout EPUB from InDesign to a KF8 but the disappointing news is that the Amazon fixed layout KF8 format does NOT support video and that is why it is being removed. And it’s not just video, in fact any audio, animation, media overlays, interaction, transparency and many other aspects you might expect that are present in the rich EPUB3 format simply are either removed or do not work.

I also expect your ebook won’t look as good as you think it does when viewed on a device… the ‘previewer’ doesn’t really live up to it’s name as it doesn’t show you how the fonts will drop out when the ebook is viewed on a device.

You then mentioned Android and that is another challenge! It is a struggle to find a reliable Android EPUB reader that can play video. There is an Android Amazon app but as I say their fixed layout KF8 can not support video anyway…

Workarounds would be to switch to a reflowable KF8 which can contain video (and audio) or to try their beta of Kindle Text Book Creator but that only provides video to Amazon devices, so not desktop, iOS or Android as you require.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but there are many of us frustrated by the poor format.

Ken Jones
Circular Software
https://circularsoftware.com/

Janis you are mistaken… You can have audio continue across page turn on Apple iBooks (that was the question here) and you don’t need to set up SMIL files to achieve this.