Make chapters start on new page in reflowable ePub

[Ami5E7C]

I've laid out a book in InDesign (CC v 16.4) on a Mac (Montery v 12.1). The entire book is in one document but each chapter is a separate story. When I export to reflowable ePub, I can't get the chapters to start on a new page.  They all flow from the chapter before with just the space I've assigned in the "chapter #" paragraph style I created. How do I get the chapter to start on a new page?

[Ami5E7C · Accepted solution]

I finally found the solution. I opened the Paragraph Style Options for my "chapter #" style. 

In "Keep Options" I chose Start Paragraph "On Next Page." 

Voila! That did the trick.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

That's pretty much how it's done in all documents, print, PDF etc.

With EPUB, though, it depends on the reader. Not all of them will break to a new screen-page on a page-break directive, because of the HTML basis for the document. It works on through to Kindle and in some small-screen readers, but if you open your doc on a full-screen reader like a browser plug-in, you won't see page breaks.

[Kelli Jae Baeli · Accepted solution]

This works for me:

After selecting for the chapter (or any other heading you want on the next page), Fill in the export options to make it do that. See screenshot:

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Yes, document splitting is another step in the process. (I'm not sure why this thread stopped where it did... your late addition is a useful addition.)

You can specify document splits with one style in the export menu, as you've illustrated, or you can assign a split characteristic to any number of styles, then tell the export to use all of them. The easiest way to manage this, and all other style export issues, is with the "Edit All Export Tags" menu, which drops from the hamburger icon of the Paragraph Styles pane.

(Technically, what this does is split the contents into multiple XHTML files within the EPUB, so that readers are showing a "new document" after each split. That changes the display rules and allows many to use a virtual "new page" at that point.)

However, we're back to readers... and not all of them handle it the same way. Some respect the split-document structure and will start on new pages; others won't. Kindle completely ignores split files and it's best to avoid the method when exporting for KDP.

[Elaine5EA2]

I'm interested in your insights on the limitations of this method. I have chapter headings and my paragraph style is set to start these on a new page. I have set this to split document in export. However when I do this the export shows 60 repeats of chapter 1 then the remaining 59 chapters split as expected. I started with auto numbered chapter headings which didn't export at all so I hard wired these. I thought this might have been the cause, but a brand new style tested does the same thing. The only way I can get one of each chapter is to remove splitting altogether and just let the chapters run on. Do you have any suggestions on how to fix this please?

[Elaine5EA2]

Before I waste anyone's time, I want to report that I may have found the answer to my own question.  I think the problem is not Indesign, but the ereader I am using.  On a hunch I've now sent this to my Kindle and the reported problem has not manifested. 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Thanks for following up to your followup. 🙂

Yes, the reader is critical and right now, Calibre is the vanilla standard... if it works in Calibre, then any fault anywhere else is almost certainly that reader's fault. Thorium is in theory better but has a longstanding font-size bug that confuses some docs, and if you're headed to Kindle, Kindle Previewer is an absolute proof for that market. (Kindle often does require formatting and tweaks that do not look good on vanilla EPUB, though, so it's only a sorta-kinda test for issues there.)

There are two methods for forcing a new page start: splitting files (such as at chapter heads) is usually reliable; the oddball result you got is certainly a reader bug, as it seems. The other technique will not work on flowing-page readers, at least not well, but it simulates a page break on all "paginating" readers, which seem to be most of them.

To use it, put no space above the head you wish to split, and then assign a very large space-below value to the paragraph above. That is:

• Regular paragraph
• Regular paragraph
• Regular paragraph with 999 points bottom space
• Chapter Head
• Regular paragraph.

Since bottom space "disappears" in most readers, the excess of that 999 points will not wrap around to the next page; the heading will just start at the top of the next virtual page. (On a fl;owing reader, if of course imposes that space, which could be adjusted to be reasonable but can't be skipped; it's an either-or design choice.)

I use this technique throughout my books, in that headings have no space above on export, but the previous paragraphs have some reasonable amount of bottom space: 60px over a major head, 40px over a secondary head, 20px over a minor head, etc. It's tricky to manage but I outline some working methods (colored text or highlighting) to allow it to be consistently applied in InDesign. The result is you never have empty space at the tops of pages unless you want it there (to push Chapter Heads down, for example).

But splitting the file works as advertised, 100% of the time on some majority of compliant readers.

[Elaine5EA2]

Thank you very much for your added value response.  Since posting I've downloaded Calibre and thing are looking much better. 

Your support is much appreciated.

[XtinaHowell]

I was having the same problem and tried the suggestions that others posted here but was still having problems for some chapters and not for others. I finally figured out that the chapters that ended with the last paragraph with a paragraph break before the page break did not break into a new chapter, and the ones where there was no paragraph break worked as intended!

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

I thnk you may be looking in the wrong place for the actual reason this was a fix.

If a paragraph is —

• Given a page-break setting in its style;
• Tagged as a document split style;
• and Document Split is set (using "follow paragraph settings")

— it should appear at the top of its own virtual page in [pretty much] any paginating reader. Little else affects this behavior. I'd suggest that in deleting what seemed to be an extra paragraph perhaps shifted style settings or had some other secondary affect, but what precedes a 'split' paragraph has little to do with the action.

[XtinaHowell]

Hi James, Thanks for your reply. Are you saying that I need a special style for the last paragraph of a chapter?

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

No, sort of the opposite. With only a few minor caveats, the last paragraph before a page start/break/split is of no consquence. The only settings that matter are those above, to set and force the page break beginning with the desired paragraph (usually a chapter head).

I suspect the "fix" was a matter of sorting out some jumbled style tags that were interfering, but nothing that leads to a useful, repeatable practice.

[XtinaHowell]

Okay... Perhaps, but I didn't change the styles and didn't change anything other than deleting the paragraph break between the last paragraph and the page break and that fixed my issue. Any chapters that had this extra paragraph break had the issue where the chapter would not properly break to the next page. 

I wonder if this is an issue with the latest InDesign update. I didn't have this issue last time I did an epub. I noticed a recently released self-published book I purchased recently had this same issue. 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

I'd have to see your file — preferably one before the fix — to be sure, but just based on experience with ID and EPUB, it's not likely that the paragraph, by itself, had anything to do with the break issue. More likely there was a "phantom" or tacked-on style between it and the chapter start that confused the export and the EPUB reader. One of those cases where you do something, and it makes a problem go away... but not necessarily for an obvious or linear reason.

Everything about proper page breaks/chapter starts in EPUB — except for one minor alternate formatting method — is in the paragraph that defines and starts the break. I can't think of anything (barring that one caveat) about preceding content that would make a difference in a page break, other than a collision of bad formatting.

ETA: And, yes, it could be due to an ID change; the EPUB export is evolving at a steady pace in recent releases, mostly to add/adapt to accessibility. It could be processing your source files differently as a result. But I'd say this is a case of exposing a formatting problem rather than being a bug or a problem in its own right.

ETA2: I didn't address it, but it sounds as if this paragraph you deleted was empty. The EPUB export deletes all empty paragraphs of any style, and depending on how the process goes, it could have transferred the style from that paragraph to the succeeding one. By deleting it, there was no style to transfer... hence the "fix."