Interactive PDF vs ebook vs ePub?

[Joanne230909308xgi]

What's the difference between the an INDD created "interactive PDF" vs "ebook" vs "ePub?

Which output / direction is best  -- client wants to create a document shared online that uses clickable tabs" that house subpages under each tab.Which output should I create to achieve something that looks and acts most similar to an interactive PowerPoint presentation but uses an INDD url link?

Any insight is appreciated, thank you! 

[Derek Cross]

Have a look at in5, an InDesign plug in (at extra cost): 

https://ajarproductions.com/

Alternativley, InDesign's Publish Online offers interactive features.

(Interactive PDF is limited in its functionality.)

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

I realize this sounds like a simple question, to which there should be some straightforward answer, but the truth is... there may be no good answer at all. There isn't really "an e-book format" that does what so many examples seem to do, easily and without complicated drawbacks.

If there's a single reason the answers are so elusive, it's that every format demands a reader of some kind, software to actually present the book and pages and click-buttons and animations and sounds and all that. And while you can do that combination with, oh, at least a half-dozen solutions offhand, it will mean that each and every reader will have to have a compatible "book," opened in a compatible "reader," on a compatible platform or "computer" to use a broad term. And no, that trifecta (was there a horse race this weekend?) is not easy to achieve.

If all of your demands are otherwise simple (no multimedia, limited need for security and DRM, etc.) then PDF is your answer. It's easy to create in many ways (including from ID), simple to export, relatively small in size and has a standard free reader for most major platforms. The downside is that security is poor (almost anyone can copy it or 'crack' the content) and that in place of that standard, reliable reader (Adobe Acrobat or Acrobat Reader), a vast majority of users will try to use aftermarket versions that do a lousy job with anything but the simplest pages and links. And no, you will never, ever get any but a small, select audience to either understand this or go to the trouble of using Reader, even though they probably have it installed; they "like" the one built into Chrome or their IT department insists on everyone using Foxit, and *boom* go all your carefully constructed interactive features, and it's all your fault, of course.

EPUB is... probably not a good choice for a number of  reasons, mostly in that the reader problem expands by leaps and bounds. Yes, you can create fixed or reflowable EPUB e-books, and you may even be able to implement every fancy "tabbed page" and link and animated bit of content you like... but it is a difficult, fussy format and the gamut of readers is vast, from absolute junk (including Adobe's own) to ones that carefully maintain the standards and requirements, but thus don't support fancy "extension" features that get into the realm you're asking for.

From your brief sketch of needs, the platform I would use would be HTML/CSS — plain old web pages, which have been forgotten as an excellent document platform, with just about all the fancy features and multimedia and interactive abilities that are so often demanded. The problem, of course, is that security is zero, and the content is anything but a 'book' that can be managed and distributed; anything but the very simplest pages need to be presented as dozens to hundreds of supporting files from a single (server) location. But it can do everything you're asking, and more... just not easily or (using most available tools) inexpensively.

There's not really any good fourth solution. 🙂

[Joanne230909308xgi]

Thank you for your elaborate response. Neither HTML or CSS ate in my skillset wheelhouse, so I was hoping to stick to something using ID. I saw a nice version that used an INDD url link (that had the features I mentioned), just not familiar with how to approach creating that in ID. 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Okay. There are two options. One is to use the relatively new extension of InDesign, Publish Online — it is basically a web emulation of InDesign documents, with some fancy bits available. That's probably what you're asking about. The good news is it's 'free' as part of the Adobe suite, and fairly easy to get good results from established ID skills.

The bad news is that it's not perfect, although the problems tend to come in when designers try to push the envelope of interactivity and those fancy bits. An interactive document is bread-and-butter for it. The other bad news is that it's inherently tied to a single hosting solution, so it can't be packed and hosted from, say, the client site or your own. (The other-other bad news is that because it's wholly hosted and controlled by Adobe, it's only available as long as the creator subscription is active, and changes up to complete discontinuation are entirely in Adobe's hands. So your client will only have access to it as an online resource as long as your Adobe subscription is active, to start with, and as an indirect part of it.)

The parallel solution is what was mentioned above, a plugin/service called ID5. It does the same thing, turns ID docs into seamless and very sturdy web-based online documents. The good: it's easy to use and does an excellent job, and the results are permanent. The bad: there is some learning curve involved on top of ID skills, and it's rather pricey, somewhat more than the Adobe subscription itself depending on which package you use.

Both are basically that last option, a "web page" e-doc. One reason I took the long way around on this is that many clients (and not a few designers) don't see "web pages" as "e-books" — they are thinking more of a single file, or equivalent, that can be passed around, controlled, DRM'ed, etc. instead of a server-based online resource... a "web page." Your client is probably going to ask the question and/or push back on exactly that point — they don't want "a web page," they want "an e-book."

And now you have everything for a complete answer. 🙂

[Joanne230909308xgi · Accepted solution]

Thank you VERY much for that overview explanation. ID5 sounds great, and something I will want to look into at a later day. Good to know! I suppose my answer is that I need to delve into the Adobe Publish and go that route for now. Thx so much!  

[BobLevine]

It sounds like the client wants a website.