Epub - fit to page

If you're asking me for the most effective and efficient way to do this, I'd have to recommend that you scrap the idea of exporting your ePub from the print version and set up a new, dedicated InDesign document for creating your reflowable ePub.

I know that's not heartening news, but it'll honestly make your life much easier in the short and long run.

When exporting to ePub, InDesign's export filter decides what goes where based on FIFO (First In, First Out) for the entire document layout. So the first thing you put in the reflowable ePub is the first thing that gets exported into the ePub. To provide an extreme example to illustrate the point, if the last thing you do is generate your book's Index and its Table of Contents to wrap up your print version — that's the correct workflow for print — exporting the ePub would export the book content, then the Index, then the the ToC at the very end of the ePub. That works for your Index, of course, but it puts the ToC in the worst, most useless place.

So it's worth the effort to 1) outline the exact order of how you want your ePub to be laid out, then 2) follow that outline exactly to lay out the perfect sequence for your ePub. It's buried deep in the help file associated with this link, but the page outlines how that's done and why it's important. Just remember that each text thread, in sequence they're placed, is how your relowable ePub will, well, flow. Each text thread will define a separate unit/chapter/page sequence (you have placed all your graphics in the book as inline graphics, right?) in your final ePub product.

There are two easy ways to do this: One is to 1) Create separate InDesign documents for each discrete unit, then 2) load them in the sequence you want through InDesign's Book panel and Export Book to EPUB... from the panel's flyaway menu. The other is to use InDesign's Structure panel to stack the units the way you'd like them to appear in the final ePub. You can learn more about that through this link, bearing in mind that the same things you'd do to facilitate accessible PDFs work the same way to establish reading order in your ePub. Be sure to follow the links at the end of this help page to read the Structure pane overview and Rearrange structured elements links on the bottom of the help page.

Some folks here will say that they haven't had rearranging structure work for them with InDesign, but I've done it three times and it's worked fine for me each time. I will say, though, if you're starting from new InDesign document(s) like I suggest, exporting from the Book panel is faster and maybe easier.

Hope this helps,

Randy

First of all, there are some things you can only "mostly" do in EPUB. As a liquid format dependent on the reader (much like web pages used to be), you have only loose control of how things will display to each user. That is, you have nothing like the control and precision you can get with print layouts.

To get a title and subtitle to show on the first page, make each one its own style. Position them as you like on that first page — centered, font size, spacing, etc.

Then add a large "below paragraph" spacing to the subtitle, half the page height or more. This will have the effect of forcing a page break — something reflowable EPUB does not quite have, as it doesn't have "pages" at all — and push whatever is next to the second display page.

But as for precisely filling the page, or being exactly in the center, or even being a completely predictable space down from the top... some of this can be done using CSS styling, but you can only approximate it from an ID export, and can't achieve all of it.

Happy to answer more questions as you work this through.