Adobe InDesign

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

There wasn't any better option at the time. Remember, Epub didn't exist in 2005, while Mobipocket had a well established code base and several really nice tools.

Kindle launch was 2007.
Having only Latin-Roman was so lazy. No Arabic, Asian, Greek, Hebrew, Cyrillic or Right to Left support. Very limited fonts. Yet the underlying Linux had had all that over 10 years earlier.
The version of Open Book before 2007 release of Epub2 was mature in 2002 and started in 1999.
Sony in 2004-2004 was the first eink based ereader, with LRF, but LCD based ereaders, including ones using OpenBook format existed earlier. The Mobi format in contrast was very primitive and while it made sense to include it on the Kindle at 2007 launch, it was a disgrace it took so long for Amazon to do azw3/KF8 (basically epub 2.0). The original azw was mobi with different DRM. The azw3/KF8 based on epub and thus first "international" support wasn't till 2011! Sony released eInk with epub2.0 a year earlier replacing their own proprietary LRF and they could have launched with OEBPS 1.2 in 2004 and added epub2 in 2007, but they are fond of proprietary and DRM too (remember artificial limitations of mini-disc and sony custom memory sticks with maagic Gate DRM?).

The epub format wasn't called epub till version 2.0.
Specs are available long before public release to developers or else they couldn't be evaluated. It was a political decision to minimise software developement and ditch Adobe DRM (which Amazon had used previously for ebooks) to go with primitive & crippled mobi with new Amazon drm as azw (no connection to azw3).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

InDesign is overkill for most ebooks.

Also, you'd be surprised by how many people in publishing use free tools like Sigil and Calibre. In fact, Calibre is so commonly used that Amazon adopted a policy discouraging its use. (if you're not careful, Calibre can make badly coded ebooks.)

Any program for making ePub can make badly coded ePub. It's up to the person editing the ePub to make sure the code is clean and simple.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Yes. Any DTP program, InDesign, Vellum, Sigil, PageEdit, Calibre (and Editor) are publish/formatting/conversion/tweaking tools. Not tools to author content from scratch.

And ultimately any of the specialist Word Processors aimed at authors/novelists have dubious advantages over learning how to use Word or LO Writer, filing system, backups, versioning and maybe a spreadsheet.
I also used to use Notepad++ for tabbed multiple text files on Windows and then WINE for a while, but I use KATE now which is essentially the same thing, with a session of tabs/documents for each project. I used to use simple Jota on android for notes, but mostly now export docx or txt from Kobo Sage Advanced Notebook.

A DTP program, InDesign, Vellum, Sigil, PageEdit, Calibre (and Editor) etc are production tools, not writer / writing tools. Regard the odt or docx as the master document and content changes to it. Only formatting on the downstream tools.

Vellum is one of the worst programs ever. I don't know why some people are stupid enough to use it. You have to be stupid to use Vellum as it's that bad (maybe even worse).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Kindle launch was 2007.
Having only Latin-Roman was so lazy. No Arabic, Asian, Greek, Hebrew, Cyrillic or Right to Left support. Very limited fonts. Yet the underlying Linux had had all that over 10 years earlier.
The version of Open Book before 2007 release of Epub2 was mature in 2002 and started in 1999.
Sony in 2004-2004 was the first eink based ereader, with LRF, but LCD based ereaders, including ones using OpenBook format existed earlier. The Mobi format in contrast was very primitive and while it made sense to include it on the Kindle at 2007 launch, it was a disgrace it took so long for Amazon to do azw3/KF8 (basically epub 2.0). The original azw was mobi with different DRM. The azw3/KF8 based on epub and thus first "international" support wasn't till 2011! Sony released eInk with epub2.0 a year earlier replacing their own proprietary LRF and they could have launched with OEBPS 1.2 in 2004 and added epub2 in 2007, but they are fond of proprietary and DRM too (remember artificial limitations of mini-disc and sony custom memory sticks with maagic Gate DRM?).

The epub format wasn't called epub till version 2.0.
Specs are available long before public release to developers or else they couldn't be evaluated. It was a political decision to minimise software developement and ditch Adobe DRM (which Amazon had used previously for ebooks) to go with primitive & crippled mobi with new Amazon drm as azw (no connection to azw3).

MS Reader format aka LIT was the precursor to ePub.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

MS Reader format aka LIT was the precursor to ePub.

A precursor only in the sense of earlier than epub 2.0

Microsoft Reader is a discontinued Microsoft application for reading e-books, first released in August 2000, that used its own .LIT format. It was available for Windows computers and Pocket PC PDAs. The name was also used later for an unrelated application for reading PDF and XPS files, first released with Windows 8 - this app was discontinued in 2018.

The MS LIT format was based on the compressed HTML and likely similar to old CHM files, but with DRM. It was released a year after OEBPS 1.0 (1999) which was used dedicated ereaders. The LIT was released for Windows CE and Windows 95. It wasn't on NT, Win98, 2000 & ME till 2003 and much later on XP.

LIT files used a server to unlock DRM, which was switched off. EPub optionally uses Adobe Digital Editions. So AZW3 was built so Amazon could use their own DRM (which is purely based on device ID)

OEBPS is the real precusor to epub 2.0
OEBPS public release in 1999 and reached 1.2 in 2004. The next major release saw it renamed to epub 2.0. Nothing to do with MS LIT format.

Open eBook (OEB), or formally, the Open eBook Publication Structure (OEBPS), is a legacy e-book format which has been superseded by the EPUB format. It was "based primarily on technology developed by SoftBook Press".[2] and on XML. OEB was released with a free version belonging to public domain and a full version to be used with or without DRM by the publishing industry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_eBook
Softbook (1998) and others used OEBPS which was renamed to epub at version 2.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoftBook

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

MS Reader format aka LIT was the precursor to ePub.

Hmmm... can I get 450 grams of what you've been smoking?

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Kindle launch was 2007.
Having only Latin-Roman was so lazy. No Arabic, Asian, Greek, Hebrew, Cyrillic or Right to Left support. Very limited fonts. Yet the underlying Linux had had all that over 10 years earlier.
The version of Open Book before 2007 release of Epub2 was mature in 2002 and started in 1999.
Sony in 2004-2004 was the first eink based ereader, with LRF, but LCD based ereaders, including ones using OpenBook format existed earlier. The Mobi format in contrast was very primitive and while it made sense to include it on the Kindle at 2007 launch, it was a disgrace it took so long for Amazon to do azw3/KF8 (basically epub 2.0). The original azw was mobi with different DRM. The azw3/KF8 based on epub and thus first "international" support wasn't till 2011! Sony released eInk with epub2.0 a year earlier replacing their own proprietary LRF and they could have launched with OEBPS 1.2 in 2004 and added epub2 in 2007, but they are fond of proprietary and DRM too (remember artificial limitations of mini-disc and sony custom memory sticks with maagic Gate DRM?).

The epub format wasn't called epub till version 2.0.
Specs are available long before public release to developers or else they couldn't be evaluated. It was a political decision to minimise software developement and ditch Adobe DRM (which Amazon had used previously for ebooks) to go with primitive & crippled mobi with new Amazon drm as azw (no connection to azw3).

*sigh*

Amazon launched an ebook platform which was lightyears ahead of the competition, a platform which solved problems that everyone had previously considered insurmountable, and you are pissed because the file format wasn't perfect on day one.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

*sigh*

Amazon launched an ebook platform which was lightyears ahead of the competition, a platform which solved problems that everyone had previously considered insurmountable, and you are pissed because the file format wasn't perfect on day one.

How was it ahead and what problems did they solve?

I'm not "pissed", but the system was obsolete at launch (by about 10 years for international text), as it only supported Western Latin/Roman text (with some Scandinavian & Greek characters). They leveraged their dominant by then online paper book selling. They'd simply bought the most successful ebook company (Mobipocket) two years before Kindle launch and basically did almost nothing with the reading software.

I totally understand why they did it and ignored both Internationalisation and the superior epub2 and it's predecessor (used since 1988, public release in 1999 and major 1.2 version about 3 years before Amazon bought Mobipocket).
Let's not re-write history. Amazon succeeded at ebooks on the second attempt not because of innovation, or better systems or a better ereader, by by being already very visible and famous as an on-line book seller and their marketing expertise. Not because they did an ebook eco-system well.
Unfortunately buying up other companies can be offset against tax so for decades Amazon paid no tax. They also used other mechanisms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ions_by_Amazon

See also Microsoft from 1980/81 MS-DOS release (which was bought in) and Apple iTunes + iPod, then Apple iPhone plus operator retail subsidies and data bundles.

Companies that rely on innovation often fail. It's the ones expert at marketing with a clever marketing angle or some exclusive deal with someone already big that succeed.

Amazon didn't need to do eBooks well. They were already well known for paper online sales and Mobipocket (and mobi file format) was best known ebook system before Amazon bought it.

[JSWolf]

Sony's eBook format was also rubbish when they launched the PRS-500.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Sony's eBook format was also rubbish when they launched the PRS-500.

Yes, typical Sony, though unlike mobi, their own idea. But they adopted epub. But Sony had an ereader before the 2005 einik (Kindle 2007, but Amazon always also sold for apps before and after Kindle). Sony had ebooks at least since 1991, eight years before public release of OEBPS (which is epub 1.0, but never called that).
Years before solid state storage was viable for ebooks:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Discman Seems to have used mini-CD rather than minidisc (which could be pressed discs or Magneto-Optic and came out in 1992).
They also had a full size CD version a year later.

So Sony have some excuse for LRF on the 2005/2006 PRS-500, but did adopt epub in 2010 and it was available as a "return to Sony" upgrade on 2009 models.
Amazon didn't introduce the azw3 (similar to epub) version till 2011!, though they also much later added it to FW updates for all earlier models except K1, K2, DX and DXG, because original mobi/azw is so abysmal. DRM also would have been a motivation. I read somewhere that though the DXG came out slightly after the K3 aka KK3, that it never got azw3 due to lack of RAM, being basically little more than a screen upgrade of the DX, which is similar to K2, except with a bigger screen.
The earlier Kindles with azw3 can't do KFX, which is likely some HW limit too.

Edit:
The Data Discman is in the Mobileread wiki here
https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Data_Discman

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by Quoth

How was it ahead and what problems did they solve?

I'm not "pissed", but the system was obsolete at launch (by about 10 years for international text), as it only supported Western Latin/Roman text (with some Scandinavian & Greek characters).

You _really_ don't know what you are talking about.

Amazon won the ebook market because they solved two pain points which were limiting ebook adoption: Delivery and Creation. They sent the ebooks you bought to your Kindle, and they also automatically converted your documents and sent them to your Kindle.

That is old hat now, but it was earth shattering at the time. Mobile internet was expensive and clunky, and Wifi only worked _sometimes_. Amazon's promise that the ebooks will arrive without having to bother with technical details was a huuuuuge improvement over the status quo.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Any program for making ePub can make badly coded ePub. It's up to the person editing the ePub to make sure the code is clean and simple.

I had a a few occurrences of "but why would anyone do things that way ?!?" And then seeing it was calibre generated.

But it's been a while, that's less occurrences of having to edit books to fix them now.

[donnieparker]

I work for one of the big three publishers, and while we use InDesign for physical book design, we have a special platform that parses the styles inside the final, fully copyedited INDD that goes to press, and turns it into an ebook later on in the production process.

So InDesign makes what eventually will be the ebook, but we don't use it to make the ACTUAL ebook, if that makes sense (we don't output ePub from the INDD file).

I'd only use InDesign if you want to have fun learning the bookmaking process—otherwise, it's kinda overkill.

Originally Posted by mt.msla

Hello,

I was just wondering why Adobe InDesign discussion is missing from the E-Book Software forums.

Isn't that software a heavy-hitter in the publishing world?

Come to think of it, I'm kind of wondering why there isn't a Word forum also.

Just curious.

Should I try to learn InDesign, or should I stick with what I'm comfortable with? (Sigil)

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by donnieparker

I work for one of the big three publishers, and while we use InDesign for physical book design, we have a special platform that parses the styles inside the final, fully copyedited INDD that goes to press, and turns it into an ebook later on in the production process.

So InDesign makes what eventually will be the ebook, but we don't use it to make the ACTUAL ebook, if that makes sense (we don't output ePub from the INDD file).

I'd only use InDesign if you want to have fun learning the bookmaking process—otherwise, it's kinda overkill.

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

[Quoth]

It's better to start with format & styles for ebook and then edit a copy for paper/PDF when the content is proofed. InDesign is old style DTP for paper and now even for paper/pdf few books need it. Publishers use it out of inertia.

Ebook source should have none of what paper / PDF needs:

• Page registration
• A defined page size (for editing for ebook just pick all pages A5 or similar)
• Multiple page styles, each with own header/footer. Left & right versions. First page of chapter, front matter, title page, contents, rear matter, body left & right etc
• Line height (evil in ebook)
• Hyphenation is WYSIWYG
• Page numbering

Things with poor or zero ebook compatibility, trivial for paper:

• Text flowing round objects
• Drop caps
• Fractional spaces (digits & units)
• Small Caps
• Images inline as if text (fails when font resized)
• Tables
• Multiple columns
• Special aligned content (table or column)
• Content across or aligned on two pages side by side
• Landscape.