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RockyRakoon
RockyRakoon
Known Participant
February 27, 2023
Question

export to fixed layout ePub -- tables are huge

  • February 27, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 481 views

I've had this repeatable issue for several years now.  We use ID to publish books with hundreds of high-quality photographs.  For the Apple Book version, I export to a fixed layout ePub.  When I submit that file to Apple, they always initially give me an error with a list of pages that exceedd 4MB, and none of these page have photos--they are my table of contents page (which uses tab-aligned leading dots/periods to list chapters/sections) and any page with a table.

I then have to dissemble the ePub file and look at these individual pages.  For an error page associated with a table, all I see is the table borders and the file is huge...like 40MB.  The same for my table of contents page which only displays lines where the leading dots/periods are.  So these pages do not have the data, just the dots/periods and table borders.

I load each of these pages into Photoshop and simply resize to 750px wide at 72dpi and save.  I then reassemble the ePub and submit it to Apple and it's fine--put this is a real pain in the patoot!

Is there some formatting trick that I can use for my TOC and tables that can get around this issue to save me some steps?


Rock

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1 reply

James Gifford—NitroPress
James Gifford—NitroPress
Legend
February 27, 2023

There was another user here who had similiar issues with export of music scores to FXL for Apple. Despite the notes remaining as a font (and thus compact), the bar layout grew to some whopping size as a PNG. I don't remember there being a good solution other than surgery on the EPUB to replace the giant graphic files with smaller ones.

 

In general, in FXL, file bulk comes from embedded fonts, and from ID creating graphic elements to map anything on the page that's not type. Look at the graphic files associated with each page — which can be tedious, with generated names and storage in separate folders — and see if that's where your bulk is.

 

The real solution, as I slowly learned and have seen reinforced over time, is not to use FXL and to skip Apple as a publishing venue. But I'm sure that's not helpful. 🙂

 

RockyRakoon
RockyRakoonAuthor
Known Participant
February 27, 2023

Thanks for the response, James.  I will soldier on...

We sell fewer Apple Book versions than Kindle, but with the royalty rate being twice as much and with the ability to send free copies to reviewers, it's still worth pursuing...but I wish I could find a way around the issue.


Rock

James Gifford—NitroPress
James Gifford—NitroPress
Legend
February 27, 2023

Understood on the venue. It would be nice if PDF were sophisticated enough to support solid DRM for ebook sales, but that remains FXL's one advantage.

 

Do look into exactly what elements are creating the huge graphics files. If they really are just tables and ordinary page layout, you may be able to dispense with whatever element (table lines?) is causing them to be generated. Or, as the prior user did with some success, swap in a few standard and much smaller files.

 

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