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Question

Issue Anchoring Full Page Images in Graphic Novel EPUB Export in InDesign

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
October 23, 2024
4 replies
1150 views

Hi everyone!

I'm still learning InDesign and I'm sure I'm missing something here. I'm working on a document that is an image heavy graphic novel, but there are also sections of text. I have smaller objects/icons that I have anchored properly, but I'm having a problem with my full page comic spreads. Since these images take up whole pages and are surrounded by other full page images there is no "text" to anchor it to.

I tried a work around by creating small empty text boxes near the images and they successfully anchored in my InDesign file, but when exported to epub, all the full page images are showing up at the end of the book. The smaller images and icons are staying in place.

How can I anchor images on a page with no text when they take up a whole page and follow other pages that only include images?

I know how to fix the problem in the code but if I can figure it out before exporting it would be a lot less time consuming.

L

Laura Brady

Inspiring

Were I you, I would simply break the text threads around the full page images. This will ensure they come out in the correct order. The provisio with this approach is that it's best to do on final copy. If there are any edits or reflow in the document whatsoever, that will mess you up.

James Gifford—NitroPress

Legend

I don't follow any of this. 🙂

The key elements are that —

Reflowable EPUB must be a single text flow, with any secondary elements anchored to the text where they're desired to appear. I suspect the OP did not anchor the page images, with the result that they all "showed up at the bottom."
OP is trying too hard to create text blocks as anchors, when they're not needed; if they are just anchors for the page images, the process I outlined above will work. If they are some kind of of inter-page content, they can just be properly formatted text, in the main flow, and used to anchor the next page image.
Page images need to be an optimal ratio to show as large as possible on either a specific reader, or on as many readers as possible. This usually means making them slightly shorter than the nominal screen height so that they will fill the frame (less hard display margins) side to side. And this will vary with the reader and with any user settings.\

But generally, a single text flow, with images anchored to each successive paragraph and set to size "None" will give the best results across the board. It may be useful to add glosses such as a page-break to the intermediary/placeholder text, but if the images are to appear maximum size, that will more or less take care of the matter by itself.

The problem is that neither reflowable nor FXL EPUB behaves like a photo-gallery app, filling each screen with successive images without any flow, spacing or sizing problems. It's just not a good format for "picture page" books and is unlikely ever to be.

L

Laura Brady

Inspiring

"Reflowable EPUB must be a single text flow." I don't think that's true at all. A single text thread is not critical to creating a reflowable EPUB. In fact it actively gets in the way of good semantic HTML. How do you apply semantics if you text is one thread from beginning to end, for example? Judicious use of the BreakTextThread script (which ships with InDesign) is the key to well-made ebooks.

This video might help explain what I mean: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbcuvekA-UU

Willi Adelberger

Community Expert

Create a paragraph with a style with a break option to start a new page and auto leading and with html export option to start a new document before the image.
Anchor the graphic in this as inline anchored frame.

M

Madelynn233079735msnAuthor

Participating Frequently

Ooooohhh! I'll try this, too, and see what sticks. Thanks so much for responding.

BobLevine

Community Expert

If this is for a reflowable epub, given your description of it being image heavy that this is NOT a good candidate for this format. For starters, there is no real concept of a page in EPUB.

If this is fixed layout, none of this is necessary but finding a decent EPUB reader is the real challenge.

M

Madelynn233079735msnAuthor

Participating Frequently

Unfortunately, we must maintain a reflowable format for this project to make it as accessible as possible. While I know some ways to make a fixed layout more accessible, the features aren't as customizable for the reader. But yes, exporting it as a fixed layout would make my life a hell of a lot easier.

James Gifford—NitroPress

Legend

BobL is correct. It is fussy and difficult to get full page images in reflowable EPUB, both for format reasons and because EPUB viewers vary so much in screen size, ratio, etc. The only justification for the FXL (fixed-page) model is to make it easier to present "picture page" books, but the format is flawed and few readers present it well. (It should never be used for "text" books at all, as it is not PDF and won't be even when it grows up.)

You have one and only one approach to present large images in a reflowable EPUB that will present reasonably well in most readers (starting with the standard ones Thorium and Calibre — most others have functional variations that may or may not play nicely with the layuout).

Create an anchor paragraph. The characteristics don't matter too much but keep it small and preferably centered.
You have to put some content in the paragraph, as empty paras are deleted by the EPUB conversion in almost all cases. A period, a dash, sometimes even a hard space will work. You can give it a fading color like white or gray, but then it will stand out if the user sets the background to black.
Place your page image below the anchor paragraph and anchor it to the paragraph.
In the object settings for the image, set the size to "None."
Repeat for as many pages as you have.
Your document should have a content area equal to the page image size plus a fraction at the top. Margin width matters more than page width, and each image should be the full margin width.

This may or may not work well, or the way you want, but barring some tweaks it's the only way to get large images in reflowable EPUB. In many cases the images will be larger than the narrowest margins, even. (That is, if you have 1/4 inch margins on each side of a 6-inch screen, you can get a 6+ inch width.

The bottom line is that there isn't any really good digital platform for things like graphic novels that isn't a proprietary one as used by DC. Marvel, etc. PDF is the best technically, but it has no provision for secure/protected book distribution.

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

I'm not ePUB expert - and it looks like you are creating standalone empty TextFrames to anchor your graphics - but I think it should work as intended if your "empty" TextFrame will be part of the Main Story and your full page graphics will be placed as InLine graphics - another kind of anchoring.

Then, they'll be treated as glyphs / characters.