Split Document (EPUB only) not holding after export

[jessicah0316]

I have Split Document (EPUB only) selected and it's not holding when split document based on paragraph style export tags is selected.

Anythoughts on why?

[Derek Cross]

Not sure what you mean. Is this a Reflowable ePub or a FXL ePub?

[jessicah0316]

Corect this is a reflowable epub

[Derek Cross]

What do you mean "split document"?

[jessicah0316]

Th

[jessicah0316]

Part Review, Part 2 and the Articles should all be at the top of new pages

[Derek Cross]

You can set in your Paragraph Style for Part Review heading to start on a new page.

[jessicah0316]

Where is this drop down menu?

[Derek Cross]

As I mentioned, in the Paragraph Styles.

[jessicah0316]

I looked there and do not see it.

[Derek Cross]

Producing Reflowable ePubs is not intuative. I suggest you take one of the excellent online tutorials byAnne-Marie Concepción on Linkedin Learning – you can get 30-days free access.

[jessicah0316]

Thank you for pointing out where that drop down is located. I have watched many of her video and have created a dozen reflowable EPUBs. This is the first time this have been a problem. I'll give this a and see if it works.

Thanks

[jessicah0316]

Well it was a good thought but there was no change.

I do have a suport request into Adobe.

thanks again

[K39030912ng0f]

Thank you. This helped me a lot; was stuck for a bit.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

As you discovered, using either InDesign or CSS page breaks doesn't work in EPUB.

It sounds as if you are not using Split Document correctly. The options are:

1. Set one or more paragraph styles to split, in the Export Tagging menu of the style, then in the EPUB export, be sure to check Split Document, and select "Based on Style Tags."
2. In EPUB export, check Split Document, and select "Single Paragraph Style" and choose the style on which you want the EPUB to be split (usually something like Chapter Heading).

The first option is preferable since it allows you to use more than one style for splits.

The important part is that you have to do *both*—check Split Doc in export, and either define the split styles or tell ID to use one style for splitting.

If you still aren't seeing new page starts, examine the EPUB — open it with any ZIP archive reader — and see if there are two or more XHTML content files. If there's only one, it's not splitting. There should be one XHTML file per split (obviously).

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[jessicah0316 · Accepted solution]

Thanks everyone. I think the probem was this was a older InDesign file. I saved the as idml, then re saved them as current InDesign files. After that I used my original settings and the document exported the way I would have expected it to.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Yes, I think the EPUB features have changed more, by version and over time, than most others. A good point to watch for (older docs) although I'm mystified as to how the failure occurs. 🙂

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[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Just a general update (mid-2024) on this topic, since it's been bumped.

EPUB and Kindle are frustrating because there seem to be continual, small, undocumented changes in every direction. I only put material in the guide after thorough testing and evaluation, but all too often, within a year or so, the guidelines prove to be wrong. I just reviewed and rewrote a section covering the techniques in this topic. It was... irritating to find so many changes.. However, note well that —

• Page breaks from InDesign work in both Kindle Previewer and standard EPUB readers (Calibre being my benchmark).
• Behavior has changed in Kindle with respect to file splitting.
• I now recommend using both page breaks and file splitting for ALL headings etc. intended to start on a new page, especially those that are designed to have space above on a new page. That is, EPUB exports should be split on at least the chapter or section headings, in parallel with page breaks ( in CSS), so that they properly start on a new page and force space-above settings.
• There is no downside to using file splitting after all head levels you want to start on new pages. It simply splits the content file from one XHTML file to as many as there are splits — which is completely invisible unless you edit the EPUB, which is a wholly outmoded practice.

This supersedes any prior methods or guidelines I or anyone else may have posted. The current guide (v3.1) has complete details as needed.

[rodilld]

Make sure you have "Based on Paragraph Style Export Tags" selected under Split Document.