Epubs created in InDesign not searchable & wrong numbers

[NIRC]

2 problems when I create a "fixed format" epub with the latest Indesign for PC:

1. the text is not searchable on my iPad.
2. Proportional old style numbers revert to standard numbers. All small caps work fine, as do all my Chinese and Japanese characters. The numbers, however, do not show up and lines with numbers que squished to make up for the larger size.

  I have over 30 tiles and am at my wit's end how to fix these problems.

[James Gifford—NitroPress · Accepted solution]

EPUB is a format you can only push so far, and fixed-format EPUB pushes even less well because of its inherent reliance on specific fonts. The very short answer is the problems you note may not be resolvable.

Old style numbers are usually alternate font glyphs; it can be difficult to get an EPUB file to map to nonstandard characters at all. This is partly inherent in the format/file process, and compounded by the vast variation in EPUB readers. The Apple reader is nonstandard/proprietary and often needs EPUBs optimized to its quirks for successful books sold via iTunes etc. It can be difficult and the solution is often to scale back some fancy bit... like old-style numbers.

The searchability issue comes up fairly often, mostly with the Apple reader, it seems, and I don't know of any good solutions.

The first thing you should try is a more standard, 'vanilla' EPUB reader. Review your book in Calibre reader, and report back how it presents the varied fonts, supports searches, etc. That will help differentiate between ID problems, EPUB problems and reader problems.

[NIRC]

Actually, ALL fonts are correctly embedded, including Chinese and some proprietary fonts. So that is not the problem. Calibre makes almost as much of a mess of the epubs as Adobe Digital Editions 4.5 does. They are simply unusable when it comes to fixed format. Thorium allows for searches, but its appearance is not as nice as the iPad. In any case, why would I want to use another reader for epubs designed specifically for the iPad's own iBook reader?

   By the way, this problem has been around since 2018 (!) and no one from Adobe has addressed it.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

The bottom line is that, for general EPUBs, if Calibre doesn't do a pretty good job, there's something wrong with the file. It has a glitch or two, and in strictly standardized terms Thorium is superior, but T has a long-standing font size bug that makes some files render very poorly. (All fonts are base-sized, which is awkward for headings and the like.) So Calibre is pretty much the current gold standard. If you want an EPUB to be perfect on Apple, you have to adapt to its proprietary quirks. If you want a perfect Kindle, again, you have to adapt the export to meet its somewhat specialized demands. So if you want to use the Apple™ reader on your Apple™ device, you need to make it an Apple™ EPUB. That simple. It may be the perfect, Jobs-ified tool for your iPad, but it's wonk central for vanilla, even standards-adherent EPUB.

ADE is a nearly worthless piece of gritware. Don't bother with it for anything, EPUB or other format.

The problem is not Adobe's and not even really Apple's; it's that no two readers implement the same rendering rules. Outside of a very small core group that adheres to the EPUB standard and guidelines as much as possible (Calibre, Thorium, and to some extent EPUBreader), every single reader out there has a "better idea" about how to present EPUB... faster, smoother, paginated, animated, EZ conversion to other formats, library functions, now with colors, inverted for dyslexics or with arbitrary "perfection" a la that fruit company. That's the reality; you're welcome to suggest a solution in an arena with no real governing body and completely voluntary/volunteer adherence to the standard.

Or, don't use EPUB. Expecially FXL, which is an obsolete format by almost any standard. If you need perfectly-rendered fixed pages, use PDF. If you want an e-book, use reflowable EPUB, which works much better all around.

And fonts being fully embedded etc. so forth is no guarantee that any reader will use them; many limit display to the base ASCII set, which means things like old style numbers and non-Roman letters and the like will be transposed into their lower equivalents. (I forget where the actual 3.3 standard is on this, but in general, EPUB is not friendly to upper character sets.)

You're welcome to develop a better e-book standard (although PDF is a pretty high hurdle), and there are quite a few people who would welcome one. (Raises hand.) Until then, EPUB is good for what EPUB is good for. And the fault lies with a convoluted, outdated standard which has zero enforcement.

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

+1 What @James Gifford—NitroPress said.

I hope that now that the EPUB standard is under the control of the W3C/WAI it will develop into a real standard and be encouraged to be used by device manufacturers.

But for now, EPUB is the wild west of publishing. There are no laws!

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

@Bevi_Chagnon___PubCom_com — you perhaps have a 'better angels' view than my cynicism, but as I've noted before, EPUB is...

• in the hands of a largely academic committee
• that has the usual welter of largely independent subcommittees and groups
• that are working busily to tuck in the edges and refine the details
• of a standard that is over twelve years old
• while resolutely avoiding any updates or improvements that address the explosive growth of e-books (both use and technology) in that time
• and has absolutely no enforcement of the standard and no oversight of the technology's compliance.

I am surprised that none of the corporate overlords have done what usually happens in these situations, hand down a proprietary, controlled standard that is "good enough" but far from what such a thing could be, displacing all innovation until the next revolution. The closest such thing we have is the closed (nay, walled) ecosystem of Kindle.

Sigh. Would EPUB 4 really, really be that hard to achieve?

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

Wait wait wait, @James Gifford—NitroPress .  You know we're in agreement here.

Some details YNTK...

EPUB developed from DAISY, a standard and technology specifically for those who are blind or have low vision. https://daisy.org/about-us/ In the mid-1990s, it was a brave idea that was birthed about the same time as CSS for HTML and WCAG for accessibility were taking root.

But DAISY  was flawed from the start of ever becoming a format for more than blind people. It was developed for blind people by blind people. I remember early discussions about banning all graphics (supposedly they hold no important information) and fonts (10 pt. Courier is just fine).

"in the hands of a largely academic committee" -- Yes, I agree with that. But it's dominated by a handful of people. I don't see much evidence of new ideas, forward-thinking strategies, or just plain ol' awareness of the larger publishing industry.

There is a small contingent from a large academic textbook publisher, so they know quite a bit about that particular niche, but the remaining publishing industry and its niches are not acknowledged. Advertising, commercial periodicals, government database tomes, pulp fiction, corporate annual reports...the stuff most of us in traditional publishing create every day using InDesign rather than Word ... products that are more visually rich to convey information to a wide audience, including those who are sighted and need a richer visual presentation.

Although a huge supporter (and sometimes sponsor) way back in the day, I've now ditched EPUB. For now. I'm waiting to see what the WC3 will do with the standard. And also waiting for the old guard to retire and move out of the way so that this technology could grow into a useful format for people.

I teach an EPUB from InDesign class about once a year, often at industry conferences. I've pared down the process (and the final expectations) to the bare minimum:

• Follow PDF/UA-1 for accessibility.
• Keep stories threaded in their story frames.
• No manual formatting, only styles styles and styles.
• No page spreads or facing pages: everything is a single page layout.
• No columns: everything is one column on the single page.
• Graphics are anchored inline: no text wraps, collages, groupings, or other designer stuff.
• And forget about your beautiful font library. Stick with ubiquitous basics like Times NR and Arial. The end user and their technology will choose the fonts they want to use. Your choices are useless.

And I recommend a couple of books, including yours, James. I take note of your expert opinions on EPUB here in the forums and thank you for your generous contributions.

Hopefully, we'll someday have better EPUB tools in InDesign (and elsewhere), a better richer EPUB standard, and a real, viable way to communicate with people. For now, Amazon Kindle is the best to aim for.

[James Gifford—NitroPress · Accepted solution]

Maybe we should do one of those genial "Liddy v. Leary" debates some time. 🙂

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

Ha ha!

But I'm not doing the G. Gordon Liddy role: I'll leave that for you, my friend. <grin>

Guess that leaves me with Timothy O'Leary, so I'll have to bring the magic 'shroons.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

As I more resemble the Maharashi, or maybe Jerry Garcia on a good day, I'd make a very poor Liddy. Oh, well.

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

OK, so bring Cherry Garcia ice cream to the debate.

But you know, we're not mortal enemies like Liddy and O'Leary were, so I think the tone of the debate might be a tad more civil.