Quote:
Originally Posted by Toxaris
Be aware that the ePUB's created by Indesign can be a nightmare to maintain. InDesign is created and tuned for typography of printed work. Electronic books are a different beast all together. I really don't like ePUB's from Indesign and it can take me quite a while to clean them up. It is almost impossible to create good ebooks with a WYSIWYG program... You almost always need to dive into the code to ensure it works across multiple devices and the way you would like.
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Tox, mon sweetie:
THAT is only true when the creator only pays attention to the print layout, and doesn't use the INDD tools correctly. You of all people know what the Word clean-up process is like--same thing, GIGO, right? I mean, if you get someone who blithely types along, in Word, using ad hoc styles, the output you get is HORRIFIC. BUT, if you were to have someone like me, who's learned to use Word properly, deploy styles correctly, yadda, the output would be nice and clean.
I concur that getting an INDD-output ePUB, and seeing "char-style-override-66" is enough to give me a stroke, but...
The same (as is true of Word) is true of INDD. Yes, it's geared for print, and you have to pay attention to things like setting absolute positions, on x-y axes. BUT, in terms of needing multiple outputs, INCLUDING print, and having a bunch of academics who will also likely be editing away madly, really...I think INDD is their best bet. We use it, y'know, for our POD Combo packages. We wouldn't use it, JUST to make eBooks (that's crazy talk), but if I were in this chap's shoes, and needed print as well as the rest, yes, that's what I'd do. Word/other source material --> to INDD --> to ePUB. Clean up the ePUB (deploy your skilled HTML/CSS folks there), make it validate, and then build your mobi therewith. I think it's the best process, really, given that PDF's (either for print or ePDF) are required.
Hitch