Epub page break not working

[MikeP5403]

Having problems with one page break.

I set the export tag to split the epub on one particular paragraph style.

I set the paragraph style on the heading for the story in question.

In the export screen, I selected split document based on paragraph style export tags.

And it's doing this.

"Writer's cramp" is the beginning text of the section called "On Giving Oneself Conniptions." What am I doing wrong? Every other break works fine.

This is on Adobe InDesign CC on a Mac.

[MikeP5403]

I should note that there used to be a section break at this spot (for numbering purposes in the print book), but I removed it and it's still doing this.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

First — what EPUB reader are you using? They're not all the same and some are distinctly weak on honoring layout rules.

Second — it looks like your text frame is kind of loosely laid on the page. Do you have all your text in a single text flow of linked frames?

Third — if you are using only this single break, try the other option, of setting the document to break on 'story title' in the export menu, rather than following the list of page-break styles.

[MikeP5403]

OK, I found a solution, which was to delete the story that was giving me problems, create it at the end, and then drag and drop it into the right spot. Still not sure what was wrong with the old version but at least I was able to fix it.

[James Gifford—NitroPress · Accepted solution]

EPUB export does not work well with individual ID stories. Most will export, but you will have no control over where they appear within the document (all "secondary" stories drop to the end) and there are often indexing and TOC issues.

Either all content must be in one text flow, or you must carefully manage the "Articles" in the document — and the latter technique is not entirely reliable.

[MikeP5403]

OK, that's good to know. The epub is secondary to the print book, so I'm not going to start out with all eleven stories in a huge chain of linked text files (which sounds like a typesetting nightmare). But this is helpful because in the future I can create a second InDesign file that's much simpler than the print book, and do what you suggested. Thank you!

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

It's entirely possible to create a dual-format ID source file that will export perfectly to both print (via PDF) and EPUB. In your case, it sounds as if you need do little more than, yes, paste all content into one text flow and touch up the formatting. The chapter title page breaks will be trivial to implement.

The other method, which I find tedious and fussy unless there's a good reason to use it, is to assign each "story" into an Article, and use the Articles panel to set the order of export. You might consider that from the start for any next book of this type, but unless you really need to retain separate files or content for each story, using a single text flow bypasses many niggling problems.

And doing it 'dual format' bypasses the problems of keeping two source files in step. 🙂