ePub “jerky” feel

[Katia Kud]

Hi guys,

working on ePub interactive book. The client wanted it to be very visual: slides with popups, multi state objects and one video. Exported ePut files is 153 MB.

The client sent me their feedback:

When i navigate the pages i notice clicking anything that links to other pages has a very “jerky” feel. It is not smooth – almost like the app shakes. Any way to fix this? 

Thanks for any help!

[BobLevine]

I assume it was you that posted on Facebook, but I answered you there. If you're already testing this on an iPad with the Books app, it may be as good as it gets. How large is that epub?

[Katia Kud]

Yes, it was me. The ePub is 153 MB

[BobLevine]

It's not that large. Do you want to share it with us so someone can take a look?

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

It would be on the large side for a few pages, meaning each page had a lot of data/content.

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[Katia Kud]

the document is 42 pages.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

This would be 90% dependent on the reader (both app and device), with maybe that 10% caused by too many/too large interactive elements.

Reduce the element sizes (mostly by reducing resolution, I would think). Try to reduce the number of such elements per page — one thought would be to selectively reduce animated items to static images; maybe not everything has to wiggle. And possibly break the contents into multiple files within the EPUB; part of the reason for having multiple content files is to allow the reader to load very small segments of the book instead of having to load or manage the whole thing at once.

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[Katia Kud]

Hi James, thank you for your advice, I will try to follow it.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Try the book in more than one reader, as well. The Apple reader is generally solid but 'works Apple's way' — which is not necessarily in a universal manner. Try Thorium and Calibre as well, to see if the problems persist there.

Always good to keep the reader lightly loaded, though, by reducing unnecessary display loads like high-res images, many animated or interactive objects, etc. per page. And in overall file size.

[BobLevine]

Something else to try just for giggles. Upload it to Publish Online and see how it performs there.