Epub Multiple Images

[m5heath]

I have now produced several epub books with Indesign/Sigil successfully (thanks in no small measure to Community help), mainly just text but I have managed to combine them with a cover image. I have also managed to add some images into the text, combined with a caption by grouping it with the image - and anchoring the image to the accompanying text. So far so good. But now I have a project where there are about 100 pages of text, followed by a series of about 14 images of varying sizes - including captions - followed by another 100 pages of text.

With this series of images I can anchor the the first one to the text immediately above. But what do I do with the remaining images? If I don't anchor them they all revert to the end of the book but there is no text to anchor them to. Can I anchor them to each other in some sort off daisy chain? Or do I add a hidden element and anchor to that? At the moment I am baffled and would value some advice.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

You can anchor them one AFTER another - either in the same paragraph or - I think would be much better - into separate paragraphs. 

But are you Anchoring or InLining? 

Anchoring means that the graphic is floating freely on the page / spread and has an anchor point in the text. 

InLining means that graphic is treated as a glyph / character in the text. 

In both cases - you can have multiple objects as a group - as you've done - group of caption + image.

[m5heath]

Thanks for responding so promptly Robert. I thought I was joking when I suggested 'daisy-chaining' the images but I tried it and it worked! Well sort of. All the anchored images do now appear where required in the epub but the captions are all over the place despite being individually grouped with their images. I'm actually anchoring each image to the caption of the one before - is that right? And how to I get the image and caption to be as one? You introduce to me the concept of InLining which sounds a good idea but I've never heard of it before. How do I achieve that?

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@m5heath

Do not anchor one INTO another - but Anchor / InLine them in the main text - one AFTER another.

Some text.[enter] 

[graphic][enter]

[graphic][enter] 

..... 

More text. 

[Willi Adelberger]

You have to anchor every image in the text. You can make groups and anchor the group.

You can anchor them inline. The host paragraph must have autoleading, no fixed leading. Any image not anchored will end up at the end of the book.

[m5heath]

Hi Willi, OK so I want to group my images. I shift-click each one (remember that each image is actually a group containing a caption) and that works inside a spread - but as soon as I shift- click on another spread I lose the selection on the one before. How do I get around that?

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@m5heath

Select your group - image + caption - copy or cut it - Ctrl+C or Ctrl+X - then place cursor in the text, where you want it be and then place - Ctrl+V. 

[m5heath]

No, the images are correctly positioned but the caption is on the next page. Maybe the images are just too big?

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

You basically can't. The reflowable format makes it somewhere between difficult and... well, very very difficult to assure that all users will see any two or more elements on the same virtual page.

[m5heath]

Hi James. That's disappointing. I was hoping that the epub would see the caption/image as one indivisible item once it was grouped. Perhape I ought to prepare the image in Photoshop with the caption included?

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@m5heath

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/keep-with-next-in-ebook-not-working/m-p/11232812... 

[James Gifford—NitroPress · Accepted solution]

It's all about the reflowable part. There are no pages in that format; there is only the screen by screen height, or virtual page. While that's usually about 1.5:1 or so in most readers, and variable in desktop readers, there's no assurance and no guarantee how any one reader will choose to display any given series of elements.

Yes, you can force a page break; yes, you can anchor 1-n elements to that break point; yup, within reason, most readers will display the same group of elements on a common page size. But just as many factors will mean the second or third item is broken to a page of its own, and unless each of your page groups is very short — more or less square or a bit less than square, relative to height — the reader's rules will break content (or, if you've tried hard enough, just plain break the content) when it thinks there's not enough room.

The very basic process, of page break + anchored item + second anchored item, should work some most of the time as long as you keep the total height under about 1.25:1 or so... but if any of that is text, and the user sets the font or spacing high... break.

You can make the content one element, by making it all one image, but that means an over-tall image will either be scaled smaller and thus might have readability or resolution problems, or... might even break the image itself across pages, depending on how the reader is configured. As with most other issues in EPUB, you don't have any way to control what reader a user might use, so you can only optimize for one of the basic ones and leave any variations to user choices.

It's best to 'respect the medium' and make the content appealing, useful and readable even if it comes one "element" at a time.

[m5heath]

OK, that makes sense. I can work with that providing I respect the limitations. Many many thanks!!