Adobe InDesign

[donnieparker]

I actually don't know the answer to this. Ebook team is a separate department. I would imagine there's some hand-tweaking involved, though, since ebooks can't replicate everything perfectly from print editions.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Do you ever hand edit the eBook to make the formatting look good?

[nabsltd]

Originally Posted by donnieparker

I would imagine there's some hand-tweaking involved, though, since ebooks can't replicate everything perfectly from print editions.

This is not true at all. It's trivially easy to build an EPUB with 100% compliance to the standard and make the end result look as close to a printed book as possible. The only real differences are that you can exactly control page breaks in a physical book, know the exact size of the page, and have guaranteed space for headers/footers that can display info useless to an eBook (name of the book, etc.). If the reader has a screen size that exactly matches the printed book page size, it's almost like reading a PDF of the original physical book.

So, modern CSS will allow the design of the book to very closely match the printed book. The problems are:

1. Most readers don't support 100% of CSS.
2. When a user changes the base reading font or font size, it can radically change the look.
3. On a book for sale, embedded fonts to make the look correct can cost a lot of money.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by donnieparker

I actually don't know the answer to this. Ebook team is a separate department. I would imagine there's some hand-tweaking involved, though, since ebooks can't replicate everything perfectly from print editions.

The problem as I see it is trying to replicate the pBook format for the eBook. It's usually fails. Overall, the formatting for commercial eBooks is not good.

eBooks are different from pBooks and should be treated as such and the formatting should be what works for eBooks. A lot of what's done is done poorly and sometimes just plain wrong.

Sure you can create the eBook from an InDesign export. But that ePub then needs to have someone hand tweak the code so it's good. I've cleaned up plenty of inDesign disasters so they then look good and is easy to read.

One of the first mistakes done with InDesign is allow the same fonts used for the pBook to be embedded in the eBook. Most of those fonts do not look good on an eInk screen. Another is to set the line height to be the same as the pBook. Then there are the font sizes of different sizes where they should be the same. Offset text should be the same size as the main body text. Having a CSS with hundreds of unused classes is another mistake. Having the same L/R margins as the pBook is yet another botch job. Paragraph spaces are a good way to take the reader out of the story. I know they don't work for me.

Really, if you want to give the reader the best experience, you have to not make the eBook look like the pBook. Most programs these days have settings for line-height, the font, L/R margin. If you includes these things, some programs will not allow the user to set them as wanted. So it can be an uncomfortable reading experience.

[fronflower]

You raise a good point. InDesign is widely used in publishing and it's odd it's not discussed more here. Word is also quite popular.

Whether to learn InDesign depends on your goals. It has a steep learning curve but is very powerful for layout and design. If that's critical for you, it may be worth learning. But if you're already comfortable with your current workflow, switching tools just for the sake of it may not make sense. Consider what will best serve your publishing needs.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by fronflower

You raise a good point. InDesign is widely used in publishing and it's odd it's not discussed more here. Word is also quite popular.

Whether to learn InDesign depends on your goals. It has a steep learning curve but is very powerful for layout and design. If that's critical for you, it may be worth learning. But if you're already comfortable with your current workflow, switching tools just for the sake of it may not make sense. Consider what will best serve your publishing needs.

I understand why InDesign is used for eBooks. Once the pBook is made, it's just a matter of saving as ePub for the eBook. But the eBook should really go through hand editing from there to fix the formatting.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I understand why InDesign is used for eBooks. Once the pBook is made, it's just a matter of saving as ePub for the eBook. But the eBook should really go through hand editing from there to fix the formatting.

Actually makes no sense. And in most cases stupid using Indesign for paper. The ebook should be done and proofed first!
Then a copy of the now perfect content source (not the epub) made and styled / formatted for paper using any desired tool.

InDesign was created as a DTP tool for paper and kludged for ebooks. It dates back to 1999! It was developed to replace Aldus Pagemaker bought in 1994. That had started in 1985 on the Mac.

Even by 2000, over 20 years ago, the InDesign program was a dinosaur and it's been kept alive due to Publishing company inertia, templates in use and kinds of publishing less suited to MS Word / LO Writer, such as magazines.

It's now rental only. Anyone would be mad to consider taking it up and most of those using it should abandon it for MS Word or LO Writer, but have a decent training course. Not one of the stupid ones that tours features, but one orientated to workflow.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Actually makes no sense. And in most cases stupid using Indesign for paper. The ebook should be done and proofed first!
Then a copy of the now perfect content source (not the epub) made and styled / formatted for paper using any desired tool.

InDesign was created as a DTP tool for paper and kludged for ebooks. It dates back to 1999! It was developed to replace Aldus Pagemaker bought in 1994. That had started in 1985 on the Mac.

Even by 2000, over 20 years ago, the InDesign program was a dinosaur and it's been kept alive due to Publishing company inertia, templates in use and kinds of publishing less suited to MS Word / LO Writer, such as magazines.

It's now rental only. Anyone would be mad to consider taking it up and most of those using it should abandon it for MS Word or LO Writer, but have a decent training course. Not one of the stupid ones that tours features, but one orientated to workflow.

I don't see why a PDF could not be created and used as the source for the pBooks. Then the same word processing document can be used as the source for the eBook.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I don't see why a PDF could not be created and used as the source for the pBooks. Then the same word processing document can be used as the source for the eBook.

You can make a PDF fitst, but the paper version needs many things that should not be in the word processor for making an ebook. It's easier to add complexity than remove it. The actual PDF of course is an end point, not a source for anything other than paper.
It's also saving environment to proof / annotate on eink instead of paper.
So it makes far more sense to do ebook first. We have been doing it that way round for 10 years. I was doing DTP for paper since 1986. Stopped using DTP packages for paper in about 2006. Also the temptation is high to edit the content in the DTP (which is what InDesign is) instead of going back to the MS Word file (later sometimes Open Office, much later Libre Office). But now for many paper projects DTP isn't needed. One click export of PDF. For a while I used a PDF "printer", a program/driver on Windows that could generate a PDF file. The one advantage was being able to "print" page ranges from multiple documents from multiple programs and then when complete, "make PDF file". Tracking and revision was a nightmare.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

You can make a PDF fitst, but the paper version needs many things that should not be in the word processor for making an ebook. It's easier to add complexity than remove it. The actual PDF of course is an end point, not a source for anything other than paper.
It's also saving environment to proof / annotate on eink instead of paper.
So it makes far more sense to do ebook first. We have been doing it that way round for 10 years. I was doing DTP for paper since 1986. Stopped using DTP packages for paper in about 2006. Also the temptation is high to edit the content in the DTP (which is what InDesign is) instead of going back to the MS Word file (later sometimes Open Office, much later Libre Office). But now for many paper projects DTP isn't needed. One click export of PDF. For a while I used a PDF "printer", a program/driver on Windows that could generate a PDF file. The one advantage was being able to "print" page ranges from multiple documents from multiple programs and then when complete, "make PDF file". Tracking and revision was a nightmare.

I'm saying to do the PDF as the final version to go to print. And then take the word processing document to make the eBook.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I'm saying to do the PDF as the final version to go to print. And then take the word processing document to make the eBook.

I know you are saying that, but 10 years has shown it makes more sense to do & proof ebook first, even if you only want paper.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

I know you are saying that, but 10 years has shown it makes more sense to do & proof ebook first, even if you only want paper.

Again all wrong.

I'm saying to make the pBook first. Then make the eBook and then hand edit it to fix the code and formatting.

[Ruben]

I've been producing pbooks with Indesign for close to ten years now. Although the idea of making the ebook first does sound pretty smart, it's not always practically possible.

In our publishing workflow, editors, authors and proof readers will have several rounds of edits. For many of them, they work best when they have something approximating a final (pbook) layout in front of them. This means I have to make the pbook first, then export the epub from InDesign later, and manually touch up the CSS.

It seems a lot of people prefer to use MS Word to generate epub files, but that's just not realistic in a lot of modern print publishing workflows.