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Baxter416
Known Participant
August 28, 2024
Answered

How to Maintain Single-Line Formatting? - Captions Breaking into Two Lines on EPUB Export

  • August 28, 2024
  • 1 reply
  • 1155 views

Hello, 

 

I have a pictures section in a book I am working on. Each picture has a short caption in its own text box with a 'caption' paragraph style applied which has the text centered.  When I open the exported epub in a Kindle or Kindle viewer, the caption is broken into two lines even though there should be plenty of room to keep it a single line.

 

I've attached three pics: InDesign shows how it looks before export;  Kindle shows how the line breaks early; and Apple shows the epub in Apple Books - oddly enough it looks OK there.

 

Any idea how to have the captions stick to one line until absolutely necessary? 

 

Thanks!

 

<Title renamed by MOD>

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer James Gifford—NitroPress

Okay, sounds as if you're doing everything pretty much right, although my (preferred) (recommended) method is to just place the caption paragraph after the anchored image, without using a text box to complicate things. That alone might let the formatting pass through to Kindle without being reprocessed too much.

 

Neither EPUB nor Kindle much like empty paragraphs, and it's hit or miss as to how they handle an empty paragraph with an object anchor in it. Since all your objects are showing up in more or less the right place and mostly as intended, that's probably not an issue, but be forewarned.

 

Try just putting the caption as a following paragraph; if that doesn't work, adjustments to the ID formatting (especially side spacing) might help, and if not, you may need to add a CSS file with a line for that format to force it to use 100% width.

1 reply

Abhishek Rao
Community Manager
Abhishek RaoCommunity Manager
Community Manager
August 28, 2024

Hi @Baxter416,

 

Thanks for reaching out, and I'm sorry you're having trouble with the captions in your ePub export.

To help find the best solution, could you please share the version of InDesign you're using and the operating system details?  

In the meantime, you might want to check out this community post: Pictures and captions problems in Epub export - Adobe Community - 10319545,

which discusses similar issues with captions in ePub exports. 

 

Let us know how it goes. 

 

Thank you, 
Abhishek Rao

B
Baxter416Author
Known Participant
August 28, 2024

Hello, 

 I am using InDesign 19.4 on Sonoma 14.6.1.

 

Just to add to this - I have attached a pic of how I lay out my pic pages.

 

I use a text box with a return.  Then I insert the pic in the text box with a text wrap above and below - the pic is anchored to the upper return. There is a second return below the image (the text wrap forces it to stay there), then I have a floating text box that I anchor to that.   I set it to force a page break before each image, which forces pics to start at the top of the page, then set a .375" space before the caption for spacing.  In general this works very well for me.

 

This isn't a huge issue - but I would like to understand it so I can resolve it.

 

 

 

 

James Gifford—NitroPress
James Gifford—NitroPressCorrect answer
Legend
August 28, 2024

Okay, sounds as if you're doing everything pretty much right, although my (preferred) (recommended) method is to just place the caption paragraph after the anchored image, without using a text box to complicate things. That alone might let the formatting pass through to Kindle without being reprocessed too much.

 

Neither EPUB nor Kindle much like empty paragraphs, and it's hit or miss as to how they handle an empty paragraph with an object anchor in it. Since all your objects are showing up in more or less the right place and mostly as intended, that's probably not an issue, but be forewarned.

 

Try just putting the caption as a following paragraph; if that doesn't work, adjustments to the ID formatting (especially side spacing) might help, and if not, you may need to add a CSS file with a line for that format to force it to use 100% width.

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