Epub - fit to page

[Amelia26582338bfi3]

I'm exporting my book as an epub reflowable. How do I get the title and copyright page to take up a full page and fit to size according to whatever device people view the book on? I tried creating the title and copyright page as an image to get around this problem - don't know if this was a good idea? I've attached screenshots from InDesign to show what I'm trying to achieve, and then how they end up looking. Help would be appreciated. Thanks!

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

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.

[Amelia26582338bfi3]

I'll have a proper look tomorrow at all the various suggestions and thank you so much! Really appreciated. Back to the football now, as well as it being evening in UK.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Note that I don't disagree with Randy's suggestions — even within ID, there are five ways to do any task and I firmly believe in "the right to do it your own rotten way."

But you might want to start by cleaning up the structure of your book, for all the right reasons that will make things like later edits and editions easier, and then work from a 'perfect' InDesign file to EPUB rather than, well, just continuing the hack and slash method for it, too.

But that would be my rotten way. 🙂

[Amelia26582338bfi3]

Thank you. I tried to do it today by organising the book into a book panel, but now can't for the life of me see how to open it as a single book within InDesign and feel more lost than ever.  Perhaps I should go back to the original book and keep it as one document. Honestly a day of going down rabbit holes that seem to help, but then lead to another problem. If I could work out how to go from book panel to articles panel then I'd be on my way, but maybe that isn't possible?

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

I think you've fallen for a variation of the "all these features are here, so I must have to use them" trap. 🙂  Fair warning: the most complex project imaginable is likely to use only 1/4 of InDesign's features; you don't have to use every widget and option on every effort.

In this case, I'd back up until you have one INDD document with all your content in it in one article/text flow. No Book. Only one article in the Articles panel, which you can then ignore. Content flowed into pages without any breaks and minimal page formatting. (All page layout and formatting such as headers is lost in a reflowable export anyway.)

Unwind all the extra layers and you'll find moving forward is much easier.

For the record, things like multiple articles and even more so multiple INDD files and a Book 'wrapper' are for complex projects where the contents need to be managed separately, usually because they are from multiple authors. If it's a one-author book and you don't need a lot of development granularity or isolation, avoid breaking content up into unnecessary chunks like articles or files.

Separate files (for chapters, etc.) are best for individual authors or when the amount of content is massive; like most tools, ID will choke a bit on really large documents loaded with images and the like, so breaking it up makes sense. And if you have multiple people contributing, separate files keep them from stepping on each other's efforts.

Separate articles — think of a magazine, which might have a dozen or more separate pieces of content that need to be flowed and positioned and mixed around on the pages. Articles allow each to be managed independently instead of every edit pushing all the content around.

In relatively simple works, you don't need either. I have 400-page books in a single INDD file, for example, and another that is 31 Book chapters. Each project has its own demands... and I think simple will work best for yours.

[Amelia26582338bfi3]

So helpful - thank you!

[Amelia26582338bfi3]

What's the best way to control the size of different images for a reflowable epub? ie some small, some bigger, one whole page? Thanks!

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

This is a complex subject. For the most part, you have only indirect control over image size, as each reader will manage the images and their position on the dynamic pages the way it sees fit. You can sort-of control the size with some options, and sort-of leave scaling to the reader with others, but absolute control is all but out of reach. 🙂

The size at which images are placed in the doc is only a loose beginning, and may either be a basis for a fixed ratio of scaling in the reader, or ignored entirely as the reader interprets the size on the fly. The ratio of image width to margin width is often the "anchor" value for automatic scaling. 

You can set one global format for images in the EPUB export menu, and that often is good enough for all, or at least most images if the layout and images are not demanding. Try all the options there to see if your images are placed and sized well. You will probably find one that suits all, or most of them.

If it's "most" or if you can't get any good majority of the images scaled the way you want with the global setting, you can set each one individually. Choose whatever global settings work "best with the most," and then for each image that's not scaled the way you want, right click on it, select Object Export Options, and under that, the EPUB/HTML tab:

Now you can control that image's scaling, position, export resolution, everything with fine granularity.

I really should branch off and do another general post to encapsulate this info rather than bury it in an existing thread, but here's the gist of what each scaling option does, with an image placed at 4.5 inches in width:

The image is the placement size. The rest of the rectangles represent the scaling using the following options:

... and that's the basics. 🙂 Next question?

[Randy Hagan]

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

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Weellll, I'd disagree. But only if the document set up for print is hopeless in terms of organization.

Most docs are set up linearly, with that one text flow. It tends to be the more advanced users who split things up into articles, multiple text flows, separate INDD docs with a Book file, etc.

So the basic cleanup of the doc, good for other reasons, would translate fairly directly to a doc that could export to both PDF and EPUB. A small amount of CSS code might be needed to optimize the latter, but if it's a simple book (== novel or other flowing text), maybe not even that.

It's my opinion that too many seeking to export to EPUB get lost in the old model of "build a book" from myriad components, like a Lego Millennium Falcon. It does not have to be that way, and with ID as the workbench, should not. If you set up a clean ID file, you can get a clean EPUB with very little effort. (If you have a messy document, you can either clean it up or spend a ton of time "fixing" the EPUB. Choose wisely.)

[Randy Hagan]

You certainly can disagree. And respectfully, I'd never stop you.

But by my experience, adding edits/insering graphics/putting elements into an InDesign document on the fly/through the review process is the bane of my existence. After time working in assembling catalogs/directories and a number of already printed books, I'd suggest that building that Lego Millenium Falcon, even blindfolded, would be simple by contrast. And certainly if you crack the book with a dedicated ePub editor like Calibre, and have a solid knowledge of HTML/CSS sturcture, most any problem can be fixed.

Nonetheless, I stand by my suggestions. It's easier than troubleshooting what's gone wrong with the print version of InDesign document(s). And since the layout of the dedicated InDesign ePub doc can be greatly simplified and doesn't require much of the detail work constructed/de-constructed from the print book — like "Where did all these page numbers in the middle of the text come from?" — I'll stick with what I offered and suggest to the Original Poster that they should feel comfortable with which solution works best for their use case and skill set.

Randy

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

If the current ID doc is a mess, I agree. But if that doc has to be cleaned up anyway... no need to make the rest of the project any more complex than it has to be.

I never use EPUB tools. Wrong — or at least badly outdated — approach, like melting down your engine because the valves need to be adjusted. 🙂

[Amelia26582338bfi3]

Hi, thanks for this suggestion. So I've just got to the stage of putting the parts of the book into panels (and I've still got some adjusting to do on individual pages), but so far so good. I thought I'd have a look at how it looks when exported and this is the result - see screenshot. Do the random page numbers matter?? How do I get rid of that? I may have more questions when I get to the next stage, so hope it's okay if I ask again, but just wanted to check things one step at a time! Thank you Millie 

[Randy Hagan]

The only way to know would be to create the ePub, and proof through the pages to make sure your digital book is threaded/flowing correctly. It should, but you absolutely need to do a final proofing after generating the ePub to be sure. Just as you would the final materials for producing the print version of the book.

Randy

[Amelia26582338bfi3]

I'm a bit confused - the screenshot I sent was from kindle previewer. So the non sequential numbers are showing to the left, but not the right.

Also, I don't really understand book panels. Now I've divided the ebook into panels, how do I open them all at once within InDesign, as opposed to each being a seperate document? Or how do I add them to the articles panel? When I try to add them to a single articles panel, it starts a new articles tab for each seperate file within the book panel. Help! 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Okay, several things.

First, Kindle and EPUB are not the same thing. EPUB is an excellent export format to get to Kindle, but KDP completely changes the structure to its own wonky "we do it this way, this week" model that may or may not especially match the EPUB as viewed in a plain viewer. You have to develop separately for each in most cases, although with a simple layout, a good EPUB will import into Kindle with no objectionable changes.

I'm not sure what 'book panels' are;

I don't see any random page numbers;

And if you're doing this in reflowable format, your ID pages are just content containers and will have no real effect on the exported EPUB/Kindle. Reflowable e-books are just one long page, much like a very long informational web page, and "pages" are a soft and flexible aspect of the reader and its settings.

By and large, you should not be using the Articles panel at all. The content needs to be one "article" when exported and while you can make that happen with multiple document pieces, it's best to keep simple works all in one article, in one INDD file, and in one text flow. There's no need to use all the complicated organizational layers either for e-book export or, in most cases, for any relatively simple one-author book.