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CATHERINE23932742a7zz
Participating Frequently
October 24, 2025
Question

Problems with fixed-layout epub in Adobe Digital Editions

  • October 24, 2025
  • 1 reply
  • 598 views

Hi all. I am having a problem with some fixed layout epubs exported from Indesign when they are opened in Adobe Digital Editions. These are displaying fine (in fact v good) in Apple Books and Kindle Previewer but for some reason in ADE, when the reader advances the page, the new page usually (not always, but usually) doesn’t display, and won’t until you click a three of four times on where it should be. 

This is the same with both fixed layouts that contain images (eg facsimiles of historical documents) and fixed layouts generated from text (eg poetry). I tried png as well as jpeg in the “conversion settings” tab in Indesign export dialogue but it doesn’t seem to help. ADE is used in the catalogue booksellers look at, so we have no choice but to make the file work with it.

Happy to edit the epub in sigil if anyone knows what edit is needed! Any advice very very much appreciated. Thanks!

(ps ADE is also ignoring the TOC and not showing the front cover in the library, but these are relatively minor issues!)

1 reply

C
CATHERINE23932742a7zzAuthor
Participating Frequently
October 24, 2025

UPDATE: this is only a problem in Adobe digital editons for MAC - on Windows ADE the file works fine, and the TOC displays too (though it still ignores the cover image)

BobLevine
Community Expert
BobLevineCommunity Expert
Community Expert
October 25, 2025

Adobe Digital Editions is, quite frankly, garbage. It is not up to the task and I'm surprised Adobe continues to make it available. It hasn't been updated in years.

 

If you're on a Mac, use Books or for all platforms, try Thorium Reader.

C
CATHERINE23932742a7zzAuthor
Participating Frequently
October 28, 2025

Those screenshots look like plain text. Why are you using Fixed Layout EPUB for this?


text has a lot fo special effects! Giant text, upside down text, text in boxes, blank pages, whole page images etc. For the final I will fnd ways to make it reflowable but thats a lot of work and the author is still revising so for the ARC i just basically imported than exported her pdf. But I also have books of eg poetry and historical facsimile that need to be fixed so even if I worked through making this one reflowable, I would still have this problem. 

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