Best strategy for children interactive & multimedia ebook?

[paulgodard]

Hi

I am quite new to the world of eBook. Living in South Africa, eBook on mobile device is not so much popular here yet. Anyway, I am really interested to convert an interactive multimedia children book to one or more eBook format. This project serves as a fundraising for the Kids of Nature initiative (more info on the Kids of Nature website).

So we have just published the paper version of the book "Enya & James In The Land Of Magic" for the South African market... 5000 copies!

The book is done in In Design CS3 and it is a square format (210 mm). So producing the PDF eBook is very easy. However it seems that the square format is not so much ideal.

Today I have been experimenting creating epub from In Design. I have concluded that the unique file should be split in many files, changed to a standard portrait format and that all the photographs must be anchor in the story of the document. Although this is some work, the major problem I encounter is that ID CS3 does not do a good job at creating the epub file for the book, although the PDF is fine. If I convert the PDF via Epub2Go, then the ePub works fine in Adobe Digital Editions as well as on my iPhone (the only device I have to test), but many formatting (css) and inline images are gone or altered.

Looking at the xhtml and other files of the ePub format, I was even thinking of using php and mysql (I am also a web developer) to generate the different pages, sections and chapters of the book, with automatic hyperlinking, cross-referencing, TOC...

So before going further I want to ask the expert...

1/ What is the best approach in my case, knowing that the book is mainly for children although adults will read it too, that there are many photographs including some inline, that there are a lot of internal and external hyperlinks.

2/ Can I start with a clean PDF to generate all the ebook formats?

3/ In my case, is it better to use a software (Mac OSX only) to create the epub and other formats, or to create the xhtml files directly?

4/ I heard about Blio by Baker & Taylor but can not find any info or demo of their reader. Any suggestion?

I would really appreciate all the help and advise that you can give, especially that this ebook is for a great cause : reconnecting our children with nature!

Thank you in advance, Paul

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by paulgodard

1/ What is the best approach in my case, knowing that the book is mainly for children although adults will read it too, that there are many photographs including some inline, that there are a lot of internal and external hyperlinks.

2/ Can I start with a clean PDF to generate all the ebook formats?

3/ In my case, is it better to use a software (Mac OSX only) to create the epub and other formats, or to create the xhtml files directly?

4/ I heard about Blio by Baker & Taylor but can not find any info or demo of their reader. Any suggestion?

I would first try exporting as ePub from the InDesign files, and then cleaning it up in Sigil. Don't bother changing the aspect ratio in InDesign.

I've heard of Blio, but I have no idea how efficient their conversion will be. In general, automatic conversion from PDF isn't brilliant.

[paulgodard]

Hi

Well, I have done it! I have created a script in php which grabs all the parts of the book in a mysql db and creates automatically the series of files for the ebook in epub format. For me it is worth to do that as I have a series of stories in db that I can publish easily that way. I also like the idea of automating the creation of the book and the control over the layout. Anyway this is working for me. If anyone is interested, I am willing to share the script.

The first chapter of the book can be seen and downloaded on the Kids of Nature website. Please send me your comments and test the file on different reader (I only have an iPhone).

I have also posted some request for advise on the upload forum.

Here I would like to discuss 2 technical issues :

1/ Image size. The way I have done it does not seem to work nicely for inline images, or when there are several images on the same line. See epub file or below. Please advise.

2/ TOC. It is too long because of the many emails in the book for which of them I have created a separated xhtml file, so they always start at the top of the page. If I drop the email in the navpoint TOC, the flow of the book is going from chapter to chapter only. How can I hide the email TOC but keep the flow through them?


CSS
p.image-cover { margin-bottom:0em; margin-top:0em; margin-right:0em; margin-left:0em; text-align: center; }
p.image-center { margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; margin-right:0em; margin-left:0em; text-align: center; }
span.image-right { float:right; margin-top: 0.2em; margin-bottom: 0.2em; margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em; }
span.image-left0 { float:left; margin-top: 0.2em; margin-bottom: 0.2em; margin-left:-1em; margin-right:1em; }
span.image-right0 { float:right; margin-top: 0.2em; margin-bottom: 0.2em; margin-left:1em; margin-right:-1em; }
span.image-left { float:left; margin-top: 0.2em; margin-bottom: 0.2em; margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em; }
span.image-right img, span.image-left img { width: 100%; max-width: 100%; }
span.size40 { width:1em; max-width: 40%; }
.image2 { width:20em; max-width: 45%; }
.image3 { width:15em; max-width:30%; }
.image4 { width:10em; max-width:22%; }

Code samples for images
<p class="image-center"><img class="image4" alt="PG_116209" src="../images/PG_116209.jpg" /> <img class="image4" alt="PG_116201" src="../images/PG_116201.jpg" /> <img class="image4" alt="PG_116482" src="../images/PG_116482.jpg" /> <img class="image4" alt="PG_116215" src="../images/PG_116215.jpg" /></p>

<p class="email-text"><span class="image-right"><img class="image1" alt="Illustration_GlobeBecomingPluto1.gif" src="../images/Illustration_GlobeBecomingPluto1.gif" /></span>James thinks it's his camera that took us there, but I say it's my magic globe.</p>


Paul