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Kerry26599992ma43
New Participant
November 18, 2022
Answered

Maintaining formatting when exporting to EPUB

  • November 18, 2022
  • 3 replies
  • 6829 views

Hello, I know this has been discussed before but there were terms like CC and HTML used as solutions. I am not a techie. The link that I found and that Adobe Virtual Asistant sent me (which has been and continues to be completely useless) is not of assistance. It talks about metadate and javascript. A video I found said all I had to do was export it as an EPUB (Fixed Layout) which I did. No italics. I know there can be italics in Ebooks cause I've read them. 

 

I am not a techie person so anything that requires programming will be far beyond what I can do. I created a pdf and uploaded the print version, but for the electronic book I am completely lost. 

 

I am 3 hours into a Virtual Assistant chat and am absolutely nowhere. Sorry to gripe, but it takes a lot of effort and talent to be as useless as the 7 (YES SEVEN!!) people I have been transferred to have been.

 

Is there a link or Youtube video which provides a step-by-step review of how to maintain the formatting? 

I don't have access to Adobe except through the library system so I don't know if I will have access to this site when I head home. 

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer James Gifford—NitroPress

Thanks for reaching out and apologies for the delay in responding. Day job got in the way and I didn't get access to the terminal with InDesign until today. 

I think the problem is more complicated than first thought. I switched to EPUB (reflowable) and it preserved the italics (etc.) but not the correct order of the pages. I have uploaded two pages which have a sample of headers/regular text/italics/bold. I used Minion Varialble Concept (16) as it allowed me to do things like bold and italicize. 

I have watched some of the videos recommended on the Linked in service (thanks for the reference) and will watch the rest today. But, what I think I might have to do is use Indesign for the print version, then reformat the Word file and use Vellum or Atticus. I've seen both of them work and creating an EPUB is effortless. Yes, I understand they're different software, but they've cashed in on a market that Abode seems to want to shun. I know I can hire someone, and for this book it might have been an adequate, but not great, ROI, but I want to put out small reference books (100 pages or less) that will be priced between $5 and $10. It's not good ROI to pay $200-$300 to create a book that I am only going to get a couple of dollars royalty on. I thought InDesign would be the solution because Vellum can't handle non-fiction formatting.


Ah. I don't believe variable or adaptable fonts work in EPUB.

 

Switch to a font with four fixed faces (regular, italic, bold, bolditalic). Most EPUB readers will not use any other weights or variants anyway.

 

You really (really) don't need to use a different workflow for EPUB; at most you might need to maintain two variant InDesign documents. But with a little effort a 'dual format' document for both editions (meaning that edits etc. are always in step) is quite possible.

 

Different tools won't get around the variable font issue, which is almost certainly the source of your problems.

 

ETA: Don't embed fonts, either. Let the EPUB reader manage the document's display.

 

3 replies

T
Test Screen Name
Brainiac
November 20, 2022

You really don't want to be calling Adobe for "how do I use this software" type questions, as you've found. They aren't experts on using the software, even though they might try to find something in a help file for you. Here in these forums you find people who actually use the software day in, day out, as a hobby or to make a living. 

 

CC, by the way, is Creative Cloud. This isn't techny stuff, it's just the name of the products you are paying for.You should understand though that Adobe's tools are top-of-the-line professional tools. Expect to need to pay for professional training to use them effectively, you won't just muddle through like you might with (for example) Microsoft Word. 

    Derek Cross
    Derek Cross
    Adobe Expert
    November 21, 2022

    I think that Kerry is out of her depth, that's why I suggested s/he chose PDF for the format (I wasn't suggesting s/he used it as the basis for converting it into an ePub). If s/he wants to create a decent Reflowable ePub I suggest s/he takes the excellent online video tutorial on LinkedIn Learning "InDesign CC to EPUB" by Anne-Marie Concepción (with 30-days free access!).

      James Gifford—NitroPress
      James Gifford—NitroPress
      Brainiac
      November 18, 2022

      In theory, an export to fixed-page EPUB (FXL) should create a nearly print-like version of the document, much like PDF. In practice, trying to get fonts to export correctly and be used in precise mimicry of the layout can be a frustrating experience.

       

      As noted, if what you want is an exact print-like ebook, PDF is a much better choice. It generally replicates pages as if they were printed, with no significant variations from the document pages.

       

      Fixed-page EPUB is an obsolete and problematic format as well. If you want "print" pages, use PDF; if you want an EPUB or ebook, respect the fluidity of the medium and export to reflowable EPUB... and accept that it will have a very different look and feel from a printed page.

       

      PDF is simple to the point of being trivial. EPUB is either easy... or very, very involved.

       

        K
        Kerry26599992ma43Author
        New Participant
        November 21, 2022

        Thanks James and Derek. I tried uploading to Amazon the pdf that I used for the hard copy of the book and it was unreadable. There were pages where lines of text overlapped and repeated and it capitalized letters in the middle of words. I don't know that Amazon allows you to just use the pdf for electronic, but will explore that further -- I might have missed something. I know maintaining italics might seem trivial, but mine is a research reference book and I lose all credibility if I can't correctly format the titles of newspapers and books. The removal bold formatting I don't care about because the spacing identifies them as section titles, and I can adjust the places where the kerning is a mess, it's the italics which is killing me.

         

        I will try it with the reflowable EPUB.

         

        As for not knowing what I am doing, I went from barely knowing how to create a new document to designing, formatting and publishing a printed book. So, I have some knowledge of InDesign and am capable of learning more. There are no problems with the print version of the book I created and it's waiting on Amazon for me to release it. The problem is exporting to a format which maintains the italics in EPUB and which Amazon won't mess about with when I upload it to their ebooks platform.

         

        Thanks to everyone for your help; it is appreciated. I will soldier on, but maybe the solution is trying something other than InDesign.

        rayek.elfin
        rayek.elfin
        Brainiac
        November 24, 2022

        As the others have pointed out the missing italics could be caused by a number of things.

        - Did you create a character style for your italicized words/text and consistently assign that style?

        - Which font (family) did you use to format the text -- and which one for the italics character style?

         

        But to assist you better it would be useful to have access to a working example. Would you be able to share perhaps a 1-page version here? Save a new version, delete all pages except for 1 or 2 pages that demonstrate the problem. Test the epub export if the problem persists. If so, package that InDesign document, double-check that all fonts are included, zip it, and share it here. 

         

        BobLevine
        BobLevine
        Adobe Expert
        November 18, 2022

        Are your fonts all OpenType? What EPUB reader are you using to check the EPUB?

        K
        Kerry26599992ma43Author
        New Participant
        November 18, 2022

        Thank you for getting back to me.

        Not certain what OpenType is. Am new to InDesign and all this electronic stuff. 🙂

        I checked the formatting on the "Adobe Digital Editions" which automatically opened when the export was done. 

        Derek Cross
        Derek Cross
        Adobe Expert
        November 18, 2022

        You might be better off sticking with PDF for this use. They are easy to produce from your InDesign document, they can be read on any device and anyone can open such a document – your readers will have to download an ePub reader for your FXL ePub and they may be reluctant to do so.

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