01-25-2013, 10:07 AM | #1 | |
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A workflow for generating epub files from InDesign
In a thread over at the Sigil forum I offered to post documentation of my workflow, together with supporting files. I'll post it here since it's somewhat offtopic there, and it might be helpful for people using InDesign as part of their workflow. Note that the instructions are written for people who are comfortable with InDesign and epubs in general. They are also intended for efficient conversion in a production setting, if you make one or two epubs a year they're probably not for you. Our publications are generally academic, this means that there are some stylistic elements that usually aren't encountered in straight fiction books. There are other resources available that might fit you better.
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Please keep a few things in mind: * I'll try to answer specific questions about this workflow, but I don't really want to address generic epub/InDesign issues in this thread. Others on the forum are a lot more qualified than I am when it comes to generic questions. * These instructions will almost certainly not be directly useful to anyone but us as they're customised to fit in with the rest of our production flow. There are a lot of people making epubs from indd sources, however, so some of my experiences might be applicable. * The focus is on making "good enough" epubs that works across devices, as quickly and with as little manual intervention as possible. They are not beautiful, but they're functional. I'm capable of hand-crafting better-looking epubs, but the point is to enable me and my colleagues to easily and quickly generate a working epub from InDesign. * This workflow has evolved over several years, through different versions of all software involved, and also through increasing skill level on my part. There are surely stale elements, and things that don't really make sense anymore. * All style names are in Norwegian, but you'll get the gist of it by looking at the InDesign styles and formatting. I won't translate them all, but ask if you're stuck. A google translation of the css with hyphens replaced with spaces might be helpful. * Criticism and suggestions are welcome. I do, however, suggest that we keep away from the common technical points of contention when discussing epubs, as they're adressed numerous places elsewhere in the forums. * The zip includes a few binaries in the bin directory for convenience, these are windows-versions of common Unix utilities. They are freely available on the internet, please download your own versions if you don't trust mine (and frankly, you generally shouldn't trust arbitrary binaries provided on a forum). * The indd and css classes grouped under "fancy" are from an one-off experimental epub with additional stylistic flourishes. It turned out very nice, but required some additional attention, and those classes are not commonly used in our flow. * The included css file is just an example, which is intended to be easily adjusted according to customer wishes. It should however contain somewhat sane defaults. * The workflow includes some steps to generate a mobi file from the finished epub, this is not well-tested as we seldom use it. Suggestions are welcome. A quick summary of the workflow: * You ideally need a ready-made final indd file for a printed version. All styles in this document are replaced with similar styles in the epub template file. Some formatting is applied, such as page breaks, normalisation of images and bylines. The template file also includes a preflight profile. * An epub is generated from InDesign and put into calibre. Metadata are maintained and embedded in calibre with the plugin Modify Epub. * The file is then opened in Sigil, where a few source code replacements are done, the book is splitted into chapters, and TOC is generated. * The cmd script replaces the css with a custom one, removes font obfuscation, and replaces any existing font files in the epub file due to the fact that we've had problem with the subsetted fonts from InDesign. You can drop all fonts you use in the OEBPS\Fonts directory, only ones already present in the epub will be replaced. The reason why we sometimes embed fonts is that a lot of our books contains special characters which can't be assumed to be present in standard fonts in reading software. * All these steps can of course be replaced by your own processes. If you try the script, however, the epub must be opened/saved in Sigil in advance, as the zip commands depend on the directory structure employed by Sigil. * Lastly, validate the epub with Sigil, run it through epubcheck, and test it on all devices/software you have available. We haven't had specific issues, but it's wise to do a "sanity-check" on actual reading devices anyway. Last edited by Man Eating Duck; 01-27-2013 at 07:39 AM. |
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01-25-2013, 11:07 PM | #2 | |
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01-26-2013, 06:32 AM | #3 |
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Most interesting.
Would you please edit my quote in the top message in this thread to correct my mistake where I said "Sigil" but meant "Calibre"? Thank you. |
01-26-2013, 10:55 AM | #4 | |
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@exaltedwombat: Sure, sorry about that.
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01-26-2013, 07:33 PM | #5 | |
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01-27-2013, 07:47 AM | #6 | |
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Last edited by Man Eating Duck; 01-27-2013 at 01:05 PM. |
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