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KayDav · 08-07-2020, 07:02 AM

My current project is an artist's sourcebook, so it has a lot of images and relatively much less text to it. (Example)

I've been doing the drawing in a vector design program called Xara Designer Pro, which is pretty good at doing layout for print and exporting to PDF. However, the greater the number of pages (160 so far!) the more resources it takes up to do the drawing, so I have resorted to splitting the book into individual two-page spreads while I work with it. Eventually I want to make it as accessible as possible by offering PDF and ebook formats (probably EPUB and MOBI at least). With the images being the primary focus, I want the DPI to be quite high so that users can zoom in to an image if they want to.

At the moment I'm at a point where I'm considering how best to do this. I've experimented with conversions from PDF to EPUB but find that the markup gets messy and the layout ends up, well, not as intended. I'm testing my output on a Kindle 3, Kindle-for-Android, and other e-reader software on Android. Considering getting a secondhand Kobo device from eBay to test what it looks like there.

Building an EPUB from scratch I can get along well enough using Sigil if I export all my images from Xara (it can do PNG, JPG, SVG etc), but I'm also weighing up whether a comic format (CBR?) or LaTeX might suit it better. The example book I linked above uses a text-and-plates layout, which I could do in Sigil. I came across praise for Scrivener on this forum and am tempted to buy it if it will suit my needs.

Am I on the right track in terms of what software I'm using? Is there anything else that would give me good results?

08-07-2020, 07:02 AM	#1
KayDav Member Posts: 16 Karma: 12 Join Date: Jul 2020 Device: Kindle Keyboard, Kobo Touch, Boox Note Air 2	An artist's sourcebook My current project is an artist's sourcebook, so it has a lot of images and relatively much less text to it. (Example) I've been doing the drawing in a vector design program called Xara Designer Pro, which is pretty good at doing layout for print and exporting to PDF. However, the greater the number of pages (160 so far!) the more resources it takes up to do the drawing, so I have resorted to splitting the book into individual two-page spreads while I work with it. Eventually I want to make it as accessible as possible by offering PDF and ebook formats (probably EPUB and MOBI at least). With the images being the primary focus, I want the DPI to be quite high so that users can zoom in to an image if they want to. At the moment I'm at a point where I'm considering how best to do this. I've experimented with conversions from PDF to EPUB but find that the markup gets messy and the layout ends up, well, not as intended. I'm testing my output on a Kindle 3, Kindle-for-Android, and other e-reader software on Android. Considering getting a secondhand Kobo device from eBay to test what it looks like there. Building an EPUB from scratch I can get along well enough using Sigil if I export all my images from Xara (it can do PNG, JPG, SVG etc), but I'm also weighing up whether a comic format (CBR?) or LaTeX might suit it better. The example book I linked above uses a text-and-plates layout, which I could do in Sigil. I came across praise for Scrivener on this forum and am tempted to buy it if it will suit my needs. Am I on the right track in terms of what software I'm using? Is there anything else that would give me good results?