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Sara34663992p0u4
Participant
March 3, 2025
Question

Feature Request - Rasterize All Pages in EPUB Export

  • March 3, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 419 views

My organization needs the ability to rasterize all pages in a document when exporting to a Fixed Layout EPUB. 

 

InDesign currently only supports rasterizing the first page or individual objects. Neither of these are sufficient for our needs. We publish graphic novels with complex, overlapping design elements, and we need the pages to look exactly as they do in regular PNG exports. 

 

Our current workaround is to export PNG's from InDesign, and then use an additional software to assemble the images into an EPUB, which is incredibly time-consuming.

    2 replies

    Robert at ID-Tasker
    Robert at ID-Tasker
    Legend
    March 3, 2025

    @Sara34663992p0u4

     

    You can export PNGs in bulk - then use ImageCatalog script - included for free with InDesign - to import those PNGs back on pages.

     

      S
      Sara34663992p0u4Author
      Participant
      March 4, 2025

      As I mentioned in my post, we already have a workaround solution

      Robert at ID-Tasker
      Robert at ID-Tasker
      Legend
      March 4, 2025
      quote

      As I mentioned in my post, we already have a workaround solution


      By @Sara34663992p0u4

       

      Are you responding to my reply or @James Gifford—NitroPress?

       

      James Gifford—NitroPress
      James Gifford—NitroPress
      Legend
      March 3, 2025

      Don't create FXL EPUBs except for the very narrow niche of "picture page" books. They are a broken offshoot of the format and largely obsolete except for that very narrow need. ETA: superfluous; I belatedly note you're producing graphic novels.

       

      But if you "must," don't use InDesign to create fixed-page EPUB. In a niche that should be avoided anyway, ID's performance and features are poor by any standard. ID is unlikely add/expand/fix any FXL features, ever.

       

      If you have to go from complex ID pages to FXL EPUB, a more or less custom, ad-hoc workflow is your only solution. You might consider a path through PDF. (To be honest, I'd publish anything like you're describing in PDF to start with — that's the modern and correct format for fixed-image pages.)

      S
      Sara34663992p0u4Author
      Participant
      March 4, 2025

      Unfortunately, InDesign's PDF export results in many graphical bugs for the types of books we're exporting. The only reliable way to export pages from InDesign is through JPG's or PNG's. For that reason, fixed layout EPUB's are our only option. 

       

      InDesign already has the capabilities I'm asking for, and I don't see a logical reason why they wouldn't add this feature for the graphic novel industry. 

        James Gifford—NitroPress
        James Gifford—NitroPress
        Legend
        March 4, 2025

        Okay. Well, all this begs many questions, but if you have a handle on your needs and workflow we can leave it at that.

         

        You can put a feature request in the Adobe InDesign: Feature Requests forum, where it will be voted up/endorsed by other users and eventually come to the attention of the developers. I wouldn't pause your production schedule waiting for the change, though. Changes tend to be made slowly, deliberately and in something like order of need and usefulness, and unless there's a huge rush of endorsing votes, this one isn't going to get very high on the list.

         

        (For one thing, I suspect you're underestimating the amount of work and testing required; just because doing a crummy job of rasterizing a first page as a pseudo-cover exists, it doesn't necessarily mean it can be extended to a full-document option.)

         

        As for the 'graphic novel industry,' you're in a very small minority that uses InDesign, at least in my experience and knowledge. GNs are one of the niches that still rely on the EPUB-builder tools of a decade back, because they simply do a better job with FXL EPUB and don't have InDesign's faults and limitations with that export format. If ID is the right composition tool for you, and you can't get compliant PDFs, I'd suggest exporting to PNG as you're doing... but then using these more focused tools — note I don't say "better," but they are specific to the task — to assemble and configure the final result. ID is... just not the right tool for FXL, at all.

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