Chapter 3 • ePub Hands-On

Main Body

eBook Activity

In this lab we will be building both reflowable and fixed-layout ePubs for a photography book.

What you will need:

The “Six Caveats” are a set of “secrets to success” for creating reflowable ePub in Adobe InDesign.

Keep it simple—Remember that the reflowable format is best for text-heavy documents as it allows readers to choose the type style and size for maximum legibility; this format is not good for full-page photos or two-page spreads.
No more than 1 photo and caption per page
All photos must be inline (past into text with Text tool)—Photos that are not inline will be placed at the end of the ePub.
Style all text with ¶ styles—All text should be styled, preferably with styles “p” (paragraph), “h1” (heading 1), and “caption”
Create automatic Table of Contents (TOC) Style using the h1 style—The program will make an interactive table of contents from the TOC style
Design cover separately and save as JPEG.

Open InDesign and create a new document, 384 × 512px, automatic text frame, no facing pages (Figure 3-1).
Set up ¶ Styles for the document, including paragraph (“p”), heading 1 (“h1”), caption (Figure 3-2). Set Export Tagging for p and caption to p and h1 to h1. Style the text size, space before, bold, and colour as desired.
Copy the text and paste into the Automatic Text Box; the program will create additional pages as needed.
Style the text with the p and h1 styles.
Open the Layout > Table of Contents Styles dialog box, make a new TOC style using a name you will remember, and select the h1 style to be included in the table of contents (Figure 3-3). This TOC Style will be selected on export and used to make an interactive TOC in your ePub.

Draw a full-width picture box, place your first photo in it. Cut the picture box to the Clipboard and paste on a separate line into the text with the Text (I-beam) tool. This will make the photo inline, as required by the ePub-RFL format. The inline photo will show a small anchor icon at the top right.
Select the picture and select Object > Export Options. Under EPUB, set a Custom Width to 100% (Figure 3-4). This will ensure the image is output at 100% of the page width, and not shrunk undesirably by InDesign.
Select one of your photos and design a cover with your book title, author, and any necessary or desirable image credits (e.g., Photo by author). Covers can be designed in separate InDesign documents, in Illustrator or in Photoshop.
Select File > Export and export your ePub to ePub-RFL format. Select your cover JPEG file and TOC Style (Figure 3-5).
Open your ePub in Apple Books and see how it looks. Is vertical spacing adequate for reading? Is the full-width image actually full-width?

Fixed-layout ePub is appropriate for photo-intensive eBooks where the photos are the most important parts and there is not much text, except for brief captions. The FXL format allows you to create dramatic design effects like two-page spreads and photos with the caption or title on top (Figure 3-6).
To export ePub-FXL, select File > Export > ePub-FXL, select your cover and TOC Style. Be sure to select Spread Control to Convert Spread to Landscape Page (Figure 3-7).