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Fabian Klingner
Fabian Klingner
Participating Frequently
October 2, 2020
Question

Making Buttons & TOC links work in EPUB (for Thorium Reader)

  • October 2, 2020
  • 4 replies
  • 1091 views

Hi Community 🙂

I am creating a very interactive fixed layout epub (incl. Buttons, videos, pop-up menu, links to destination pages) which works perfect in ibooks on apple. But as most know, finding a good epub reader for other systems is difficult. I now found the Thorium Reader to work really well on Windows.

The only thing that doesn't work are my Buttons that are supposed to take the reader to a hyperlink destination within the document. Does anyone know what I could be doing wrong? Interestingly the links in the Table of Contents, which I have created with the TOC feature in Indesign, work well and take the reader everywhere. But I also want the Buttons to work, just like they do in ibooks. Any ideas on what the differences between the links in the TOC and in my buttons could be?

So far I only figured out that the TOC works through Bookmarks rather than Hyperlink destinations, but I haven't figured out how I can make buttons go to bookmarks.

Thank you,
Fabian 

This topic has been closed for replies.

4 replies

rayek.elfin
rayek.elfin
Legend
October 5, 2020

InDesign creates links to other pages via Javascript and the window.location() function. This is not necessary at all, and a simple anchor <a href=""></a> would work just fine. 

Thorium does not support window.location(). Which sort-of makes sense, because it is meant for URLs in a browser/web server environment, and epubs really have no actual URLs. 

There is no good reason to rely on javascript for internal page links in an epub: the anchor is all we need. It is needlessy overcomplicating things.

 

If you open the epub file and replace the gotodestination js calls with an anchor tag (embed the button code in the a tag) it will work in either reader.

Fabian Klingner
Fabian KlingnerAuthor
Participating Frequently
October 8, 2020

Hi Rayek,

thanks for your response. It sounds quite promising. However, I have only worked with epubs in Indesign so far, so I was wondering how (which program) and where I can replace the gotodestination js calls with an anchor tag? Do I have to use javascript or can I do that inside indesign? 

Thanks for your help 🙂

hammer0909
Community Expert
hammer0909Community Expert
Community Expert
October 2, 2020

You could also be dealing with a limitation of the Thorium reader. This is our plight with the FXL format. iBooks is amazing, everything else is just lackluster.

    BobLevine
    Community Expert
    BobLevineCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 2, 2020
    It really is unfortunate and in the case of Adobe Digital Edition is a downright disgrace.

    You'd think Adobe could come up with a reader app that can handle files exported from InDesign.
      Fabian Klingner
      Fabian KlingnerAuthor
      Participating Frequently
      October 3, 2020

      Exactly my (and probably everyone else's) thoughts. I saw that they have been making updates lately to ADE esepcially with a focus on improving epub (epub3) readibility. Let's hope they pick up the pace and one day will be able to read their own formats..

        hammer0909
        Community Expert
        hammer0909Community Expert
        Community Expert
        October 2, 2020

        Have you tried using the "Go to Page" action in InDesign for the button instead of go to destination? I think destination is specific to the PDF format which could explain why it's not working. Although you're saying that it IS working in iBooks correct?

          Fabian Klingner
          Fabian KlingnerAuthor
          Participating Frequently
          October 3, 2020

          Hey Chad, thanks for the suggestion. I had already tried that and unfortunately it didn't work. I think it has to be a limitation of the Thorium reader that buttons that are supposed to take the reader to a certain page, simply don't work. It works so well in ibooks. Wondering if ADE or Thorium will ever be able to compare to that.
          Anyway, thanks for the help 🙂

            Fabian Klingner
            Fabian KlingnerAuthor
            Participating Frequently
            October 2, 2020

            Quick addition to my post: I know that I can select the bookmarks used in the TOC thorugh the buttons panel, but it doesn't change anything about the button's functionality when opening the epub in Thorium reader

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