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Old 08-12-2010, 11:29 AM   #1
forlor
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Non-alpha characters not exporting properly to ePub from InDesign

Hello,

Wondering if anyone else has encountered this issue or knows of any workaround or solution.

When exporting an InDesign book file to ePub in InDesign CS4, we are getting a bunch of strange characters in the place of dashes, apostrophes, quotation marks, and other non-alpha characters. An apostrophe for instance, gets converted to ‚Äö√Ñ√¥ (in the HTML) or ,Äô (in the actual ePub). All of the text is correctly styled in InDesign and those styles convert properly to the styles used in the ePub.

Oddly, I've converted literally dozens of books to ePub in this way and this is the first time this issue has come up...

Any ideas??

Thanks,

Joseph
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Old 08-12-2010, 12:01 PM   #2
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It's clearly an encoding problem which shouldn't be happening. Does this happen everywhere, or only in certain styles? Does it still happen if you change the font in the style? Does it still happen if you create a new document with the same styles and copy over a text box containing some text that will be mangled?
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Old 08-12-2010, 12:27 PM   #3
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It occurs across different styles in most chapters of the book. I tried changing the font in the styles in one of the chapters, but the characters are still coming out wrong. I also tried pasting the text for one of the chapters into a fresh InDesign file, but it doesn't seem to make a difference either. There doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to where it occurs. Occasionally, spaces even get mangled.

For some reason, the first chapter of the book doesn't seem to be affected by the problem. Em dashes render properly in this chapter, but nowhere else. I've tried synchronizing the styles for the other chapters with those from the first chapter, but it hasn't resolved to the issue.

The only somewhat suspicious thing that I've come across so far in this book is that some of the styles had kerning rules (metrics) applied to them, which I've removed from the styles.
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Old 08-12-2010, 01:26 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by forlor View Post
I also tried pasting the text for one of the chapters into a fresh InDesign file, but it doesn't seem to make a difference either.
So you still get the problem even in the new file? If you can paste a short fragment of text that has the problem into a new document and upload it here (you'll probably need to zip it to attach to a post) then it would help to track down the issue.
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Old 08-12-2010, 03:00 PM   #5
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Yes, the problem seems to carry over to the new file.

I'm uploading a zipped InDesign file and the ePub exported with style names only that contains some of the problematic text. The issue shows up in the second paragraph after the list of officer duties. Em dashes and apostrophes in this paragraph are mangled in the ePub.
Attached Files
File Type: epub test page.epub (2.7 KB, 274 views)
File Type: zip test page.indd.zip (473.6 KB, 288 views)
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Old 08-12-2010, 03:36 PM   #6
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Well, I'm running CS5, and that file exports to epub without any problems, so it looks as if you have a CS4 bug. Which version of InDesign are you running? The last CS4 update took it to version 6.0.4 and included several bugfixes for the epub output.
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Old 08-12-2010, 03:54 PM   #7
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I tried exporting in CS4 (6.0.5) here and get the same problems. Interestingly enough although I get the character issues the actual characters output are different.

I also copied the text into Word and copy and pasted it back into a new ID document and it exported to ePub just fine.
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Old 08-13-2010, 08:37 AM   #8
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I am running the most recent version of InDesign CS4 (6.0.5).

I've tried copying the text back and forth between Word and InDesign, retyping the characters and removing all of the styles completely, but the issue remains. However, if I delete the initial paragraph (the alphabetical list), and export the second paragraph on its own, the characters do export as they should (Em dashes are Em dashes) which is rather perplexing.

Last edited by forlor; 08-13-2010 at 08:55 AM.
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Old 07-11-2013, 04:53 PM   #9
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I am having the same issue. I completed an entire book with no problems, but on this second one, I'm having all kinds of issues. I am using InDesign CS4 and the characters are wigging out. Spaces after periods are behaving strangely. However, when I separate out one of the files, it's just fine. Go figure. Any advice?
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Old 07-12-2013, 02:02 AM   #10
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What do you mean that spaces after period are behaving strangely? Is it perhaps caused by justification?
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