Losing Formatting When Exporting Epub from Indesign

[defaultdaliktl5rhw3]

I'm trying to export a book as an Epub from Indesign and have hit a snag. I usually have no trouble, but this book has some formatting I've never used before - namely shading and border. As you can see, in Indesign, the shading and border have no gaps between paragraphs. Also, the shading and border are offset from the text a bit.

However, once exported, all that changes. On top of that, the top line is spread out further than the other lines in the Epub - also different than the Indesign layout.

I can get the spaces between paragraphs to go away by changing the paragraph style. But then the paragraphs are jammed closer together, which is not as easy to read. However, even when I do that, I can't get the border and shading to spread out away from the text.

Any clue how to fix this?

Thanks in advance!

[Mike Witherell]

EPUB2 or EPUB3?

[defaultdaliktl5rhw3]

It does the same thing either way. I usually do 3, but tried 2 hoping that would remedy it. Thanks for asking! And it's reflowable.

[defaultdaliktl5rhw3]

Mike (or others) - any thoughts on this?

[Derek Cross · Accepted solution]

As far as I recall, the InDesign Paragraph Shading features does not implement in Reflowable ePub, try a staight background tint fill.

[defaultdaliktl5rhw3]

Oh wow! Bummer, but so thankful to know that. You've saved me a ton of time!

All the best,

Daniel

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

You can do quite a bit, both fixing and overriding export defaults, using CSS at the EPUB level. Restoring background fills, tweaking borders, rotating text — all trivial if you have CSS knowledge to apply to the EPUB's file components.