ePub Output Questions

[SER617]

We recently upgraded to FM 12, and I am playing around with the ePub output function. I have two questions:

1. We use track text edits to show our audience recent changes to our publications. When I publish to ePub, it essentially accepts all of our edits (we lose the visibility - i.e. different colors/strikethrough). Any thoughts on how to keep our tracked edits showing in the ePub?

2. We are having issues with anchored frames. One anchored frame contains an image (a jpeg, I believe), and it is not carrying over into the ePub (i.e. it is blank where the anchored frame/image should be). The other anchored frame we have contains a flowchart with hypertext markers linking to various URLs. None of the links are carrying over into the ePub. Thoughts?

Any help is always greatly appreciated!

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

1. Are you even sure ePUB supports this? From what I’ve read, it’s a pretty strict, limited set of parameters.

2. If you generate WebHelp, do the graphics/hyperlinks come through into that output? If they do, then there could be some limitation to what ePUB output is producing – have a look in the RoboHelp forum for HTML5 – that’s where ePUB questions get answered (FM12 uses RH guts to make its various output flavours)

[SER617]

No, I'm not sure whether ePub supports that or not. I'll do some more

research.

And, no, when I generate in WebHelp, neither the image nor the links

come through. In fact, I lose some text and formatting in the flowchart

when I try WebHelp. I'll look at the RH forum for some additional

answers. Thank you!

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

2. Hmm, now I’m wondering if there’s something busted in the FM to WebHelp mechanism – in the traditional FM to RH workflow, only graphics in anchored frames get passed through and can end up in the help output. Do you have access to RH to try an import of the FM content?

[SER617]

No, unfortunately we do not have Robohelp. I changed a setting in the

style mapping and was able to recover the lost formatting in WebHelp,

but still neither the links nor the image are coming through.

[Arnis Gubins]

1. The track text edits are applied as conditional settings, and I don't think that ePub allows conditionals, so FM flattens it. You might want to consider a script that applies a character format to your edit conditionals and adjusts the conditionals to show all in a copy of the document(s) to use specifically for ePub.

2. Did you specify to use Distiller to create the graphics, i.e. in the Publish Settings > Style Mapping > Image > Use Distiller to Generate Image?

[SER617]

1. Great, thank you. I'll look into a script for this!

2. I have tried generating the output with that option checked and unchecked - both to no avail.

[Arnis Gubins]

2. Anything different about the JPG that you're using? From what application was it created (or is it a camera image) and what are it's specifics?

I also don't think that image maps are supported in ePub, especially jumps to URLs or external files (as there's no guarantee that an eReader device can access those). You could try to create simple numbered callouts on a test graphic and then add a list of numbered hyperlinks after the image to see what ePub will support.

You might want to have a look at some of Scot Prentice's (Leximation) presentations on ePubs and their limitations. You can find the links to his papers and presentations at: Leximation: About Scott Prentice

[SER617]

I don't know much about the JPG. The person who created our cover page is no longer here, and the image isn't in the file folder with the rest of the book. It isn't a camera image. Maybe I'll just try getting a new graphic for the page and see if that helps.

Thank you for the link - I will look through his material!