fixed-layout EPUB question

[Majestic_precision6C13]

Hi everyone,
I am teaching a college course with a prescribed curriculum that is based in InDesign.

The final project is to create a digital publication from a print magazine that has a few requirements, most of which are straight forward. However, I am having difficulty with one of the requirements, which is that the fixed-layout EPUB they are designing for a tablet of their choosing be able to switch from the vertical layout to the horizontal layout when the tablet is turned from portrait to landscape.

I tried using liquid layouts and alternate layouts to create the horizontal pages from the vertical pages, and that works pretty well, but when I export it to a fixed-layout eBook file and test it in Apple Books and Adobe Digital Editions, the vertical pages look correct, but the horizontal layouts do not present properly. They cut off at the right side of the vertical page and are pinned to the top with significant whitespace below the design work. In other words, it is showing a vertical page with top left corner of the horizontal design visible. This same set up works for Publish Online, though that doesn't seem to support scrolling text boxes.

If it helps knowing the version I am using, It is the most current cloud version of InDesign v. 18.5. I believe that my students are using the same version or something close to that since they just recently downloaded the cloud version of the app.  Also, I have it on my Mac and PC, and that problem is the same in both versions. 

When I search online for settings or alternative methods for creating InDesign files that rotate to a different orientation when the device is turned, I keep seeing the response that EPUBs don't support alternate layouts.

Is there another way to create a fixed-layout EPUB that supports vertical and horizontal layout orientations in a single file? If so, can you direct me to a resource where I can learn about it?

Alternatively, is there an export setting that I am missing that would allow the device rotation option in an eBook format using the alternate and liquid layouts that I am currently using?

I appreciate any help that I can find for this problem.
Best,
Ari Sutton

[BobLevine]

That cannot be done. Fixed layout epub is just that...fixed layout!

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

That's it. Fixed means fixed. The only way to have an EPUB adapt to a screen shape or orientation (barring some special reader, noncompliant with standard implementation) is to make it reflowable.

[BobLevine]

BTW, let me add something else that may or may not make you feel better. This was a feature, back in the day, for Digital Publishing Suite. It created an awful user experience and I always preached against it.

Think about it; you're reading something and you tilt the device just a little too far and everything jumps on you. If you want something truly responsive, create a website.

[Majestic_precision6C13]

Hi Bob, 

Thanks for your replies. As I mentioned to David Blatner, I am asking because I want to be sure of what I am saying when I ask my college to change that requirement. I appreciate your point, and that is why I asked here because I know this community has some experts that can help me resolve the issue. 

Best,
Ari 

[BobLevine]

Well then, let me throw a little more cold water on this. Most EPUB readers are garbage for Fixed Layout and that most definitely include Adobe Digital Editions. For Mac / iOS / iPad, use the native Books app. For Windows Thorium Reader would be my pick.

I was quite excited about this format a while back but my enthusiasm has been tempered by lack of reader support and no real standards for it.

[Majestic_precision6C13]

I agree, Bob. It has some potential, but it is not well supported. I find that the best that I can tell that Apple Books seems to be about the best, but far from perfect. Haven't tried Thorium Reader, but will check it out for my students working in a Windows environment. Additionally, there should be some kind of a prerequisite that the students have HTML and CSS (especially CSS) training before taking the course because of font issues that cause multiple problems. Fortunately, most — but not all — of my current students are graphic design with a focus iin web, so that helps.

This is my second term teaching the course. I don't have a lot of control over the content, but I can make suggestions and hopefully the school will make some adjustments to the curriculum. 

Thanks for all of your time and help with this. 

Best,
Ari 

[BobLevine]

I am a big believer in knowing what goes on under the hood, but the HTML/CSS for these things is not something I'd advise messing around with. For reflowable? Absolutely...HTML/CSS is a vital part of that format.

The font issues in Fixed Layout have very little to do with the HTML/CSS and everything to do with the format itself.

Good luck with this. We're here to help if you need us.

[Majestic_precision6C13]

Thank you. 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

@Majestic_precision6C13, I'm going to go further than Bob on this and say that, for the context of  a single class on EPUB, you shouldn't be teaching FXL at all. It's obsolete, it is problematical, it is all but unfixable after export, and it's... simply the wrong direction for digital publishing to go. The idea of preserving a print layout in EPUB seems sensible, and many newcomers select it as the "obvious" and "simple" alternative when it is anything but.

The consensus among most experienced publication designers is that text-based books should be reflowable, so as to take maximum advantage of each reader and platform, from small phones to vast graphics monitors. Fixed-page export is completely taken care of, when needed, by PDF, and there is no need to use a broken, complicated variation of EPUB to achieve it.

I'd suggest emphasizing three things to your students, here, while being aware that if you've been handed an inflexible syllabus, you will have to at least nod in the direction of FXL and follow the other guidelines. That it asks you to teach a feature that basically does not exist tells me it was written by someone less than fully versed in the topic (which of course never happens with syllabi, does it? 😛 )

So consider this as three useful meta-concepts to teach, over and above the rigidity of this list:

• All e-books composed of text or mostly composed for linear reading should be reflowable. That's respecting the medium and the real needs of the users, not the writer or publisher's preconceptions about how "pages need to look like pages."
• FXL should be avoided whenever possible, as a faulty, problematic and obsolete format; if fixed pages are needed, use PDF instead.
• The *one* place where FXL is still useful is for largely or wholly graphical books such as graphic novels, photo collections, and some kinds of informational or how-to books that are largely page-pictures to start with. But not for any kind of flowing or continuous text.

Hope that helps — you, your students and in whatever arguments you need to make to keep from teaching (wasting time teaching) useless and misleading material. 🙂

[Majestic_precision6C13]

Hi James,
I appreciate your input. As you said, I don't have any flexibility in the curriculum. Instead, I offer my own experiences and background to assist them through the course. I am new, but I have already had some things changed, so in time I can, perhaps, come up with suggestions for a better solution in general for the course. That is why I am here. 

Best,
Ari 

[Barry29868033nanv]

Reflowable doesn't handle tabbed text, also a lot of fonts can't handle fractions or chemical equations. I have tried  everything to get a reflowable one to work, even with diagrams that are required and set, anchored to stay in the correct place. Fixed layout does all of these with correct font. However, they aren't coming out "searchable" there are a lot of hyperlinking to a glossary of terms after each chapter, maybe that's my downfall.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Well, the real stumbling block, for me, is that print just won't allow embedded video. Someone should do something. 😄

I'll concede that there is some triangle in the Venn diagram where FXL is the right solution, but the corner of it that can be assigned to all-text books (as opposed to "picture page" books like graphic novels or children's books) is vanishingly small.

The limitations and problems of FXL, to me, greatly outweigh the problems of getting complex material into a reflowable format. In the end, yes, you have a print-replica layout, but at the cost of hugely complex and bloated code, the deadweight of embedded fonts, and all kinds of accessibility and use problems. If you want "digital pages" — use PDF. If you want an e-book — some complex books will take more than a routine export process. But for text books, FXL is a poor solution often missapplied in the first place.

[Barry29868033nanv]

Thanks for your advice.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

I know you're looking for a different answer — the answer or solution to the problems you're encountering with your current approach. But I'm not just saying you're doing it wrong or I don't like FXL or there's a better way... although, yes, there are elements of all those in my advice.

FXL is a difficult format to work with in the way making any changes to printed pages is a difficult approach to getting a different result. You don't make changes to printed output, or (these days) to PDFs... you fix the problem at the source level and re-print or re-export. Repeat until done.

EPUB in general retains the primitive, lego-like, build-a-bear approach that was useful/necessary for many years, until the generation tools matured. And to some extent, you can take an EPUB, open it up, bang around under the hood and modify this and that component file to "fix" problems you couldn't address in generation. But that approach is almost wholly obsolete — the way to get a perfect EPUB is the same as getting a perfect stack of pages or perfect PDF... fix the source, tweak the export process, and 'reprint.'

Because of the extreme complexity of FXL text content — and here I suggest you use a ZIP archiver to extract the XHTML file from a decent reflowable doc and a sample FXL doc, to see what I mean — it is largely beyond designer ability to do much with an exported FXL document. You can edit the web-page-like content of reflowable, but FXL looks more like a dump of a printer stream. Most tools to work with it assume you're using pictures for pages, with a little support code.

Okay, that's the longer form of what I already said. So to conclude: you may well be able to beat an FXL export of your book into something that's almost but you want. But you're likely to laboriously "fix" problems iteration by iteration, sometimes having to repeat the work on every new export attempt... and you may well find you still have issues left you can't find a way to fix. All because FXL is an outdated, difficult format meant to be an "easy" approach like PDF, but for use on a platform that doesn't really support page and content rigor.

So take the 'advice' as you like, but what it boils down to is this: there are almost always better solutions than FXL, and the tantalizing "E-Z-ness" of fixed pages can often be a trap rather than a shortcut. If PDF won't serve your distribution needs, then the effort needed to export to a reflowable format is probably time better spent, in the long run, than laboriously propping up a rickety fixed-page format. And all that is before you start dealing with the problems of a whole universe of different readers.

[Barry29868033nanv]

Thanks again. There are several detailed maps from 1899 thru to 1913 and detailed geological surveys, so I think that the best way is the interactive PDF. To get the detail to remain in the maps for devices is a burden in file size, and the whole project is knocking on the door of 1000 page A4, one geological survey alone is 250+ pages. Very much appreciate your efforts to help me. Not much help when you live in Outback Queensland. Thanks.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Well, this mighty thing called the internet makes us neighbors (never mind my pals on Australian Geographic!)

FXLis suited — just barely — to pages composed mostly of a single picture. It's no better at file size management, and if you have many pages of these large, detailed maps, the image content will be of similar size and bulk pretty much no matter what. PDF at least has the advantage of truly easy production, fairly easy management at the export stage, and so forth. The big drawback of PDF is that it's a difficult format to control and sell commercially; those who want to sell books with reasonable ease and piracy controls are pretty much forced to EPUB whether they like it or not. If you're in any way free of that commercial constraint, PDF is the right solution no matter what problems you have to work through. And reflowable EPUB may not be a good solution if those image-pages are the same in any format.

There's another user here who has spent time over the last year trying to find an optimal publication format for books that are largely music scores, balancing file size and annoying technical issues with Apple's implementation of EPUB against imaging that adequately preserves the details of the sheet music. So you're not the first to try and solve these contrary problems. 🙂