Quote:
Originally Posted by asdjones
I started off using Sigil and did a few chapters then realized that Adobe IbD did the same thing (I think)...
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InDesign is focused on creating a physical book (and/or PDF). EPUBs are just a secondary side thought that has been attached as an export functionality in the last few versions of InDesign.
I work with a lot of InDesign exported books... and let me tell you.... if the typesetter didn't design the book with "ebook in mind" (using Styles consistently, etc. etc.), the generated code is quite abysmal.
If you DO design in InDesign with an "ebook in mind", you might get serviceable code, but still not clean enough.
Liz Castro does a lot of writing on InDesign, but her information is mostly geared towards making EPUBs for iBooks.
Here is her blog:
http://www.pigsgourdsandwikis.com/
And she has a book that many people recommend "EPUB Straight to the Point" and "From InDesign CS 5.5 to EPUB and Kindle".
(I personally don't like a ton of the information she gives, my standards for clean/maintainable code IS MUCH higher, and a lot of her information might be obsolete).
Quote:
Originally Posted by asdjones
Should I just work with IbD and stop converting my .doc file book into Sigil?
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If the book is originally in DOC(X), and you use Microsoft Word 2007 or higher, I would recommend using Toxaris's wonderful "e-Book Tools" add-in:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=213372
That will walk you through cleaning up your document, and actually getting you VERY CLEAN code.
From the cleaned EPUB, you can either use Sigil, or Calibre's new "Edit Book" functionality to add some finishing touches to it, and clean up the code directly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by asdjones
Can I take what I have already created in Sigil (about 8 chapters) and pour it into IbD?
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I wouldn't recommend touching InDesign with anything, all it will do is add headaches.
MAYBE, if you were already extremely familiar with InDesign and knew what you were doing, and/or you wanted to actually create a PDF/physical book.
But I wouldn't touch InDesign with a ten-foot pole if all I wanted an EPUB/MOBI. It would be much more efficient to go directly from DOC -> XHTML and/or EPUB.