Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryn
First of all, thanks for your extensive reply.
|
No problem. (I'm slightly famous around here for that.
)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryn
As the rest of this project consists of indesign files, and I generally don't export those to epub page-by-page, I was considering working from the PDFs that indesign outputs. Converting them to word docs with acrobat, and then exporting those to epub using oowriter seems the way to go to easily get the page numbers. It remains a hassle to clean all the cruft out, though.
|
Export to EPUB directly from InDesign, then clean up the HTML from there. This will carry over all the original markup (Headings, Italics, Smallcaps, etc.).
Remember, a book isn't just pure text, the underlying formatting is just as important.
PDF is one of the worst input formats there is, and you'll lose much of the original markup + introduce errors and other junk while converting to any other formats.
It's almost always better to always go from:
Source -> EPUB (Directly)
than to do:
Source -> PDF -> Word -> EPUB
where each step in the chain may introduce more issues.
* * *
If InDesign File Is Using Styles
Great. You're going to have an easier job.
In InDesign, there's such a thing as Style Mapping:
If InDesign File Is NOT Using Styles
Prepare for pain...
(This is the more likely scenario, since 99%+ of people who use InDesign/Word/LibreOffice don't know or use Styles when designing documents.)
You'll have to manually clean up all the code, and every single book is going to generate wildly different cruft. And boy, oh boy, does InDesign love to generate iBooks-friendly bloat in their CSS.
Side Note: On Styles...
I've also written about Why/How Styles are so important, most recently:
I think this is #1 the most important step there can be. Clean input helps EVERY single step down the line.
If people designed their documents with Styles+Accessibility in mind first, it would make everyone's life much easier.
(While steps between programs are different, the Styles concept is similar across all.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryn
As I never use indesign for anything except making epub exports, I would welcome some input as to how to go about this in indesign. It's not my favorite program, although my limited experiences with quark have managed to knock the adobe product off the utmost bottom rank.
|
And I also try to get everything out of InDesign ASAP.
~100% of the InDesign work I get is... directly formatted... so it's a mess. I've only met one designer who actually used InDesign with proper Styles.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryn
Second, I'm not at all interested in having parity between book page numbers and e-book page numbers - RPNs as you call them.
|
But I'm scratching my head over here...
If not using RPNs, then what's the clickable links you're trying to accomplish in the Index?
Are you trying to do a:
Code:
Cats, [1], [2], [3]
Dogs, [1], [2], [3]
(Sigil Index style?)
* * *
But RPNs do serve
some purpose, especially for Accessibility reasons (blind readers) + citations, book clubs, etc.
And for Linked Indexes, page #s seem to make a lot more sense.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryn
I have tried implementing such things from time to time, but have found reader implementation spotty, and can see little added value for either reader or publisher.
|
On Usability of these "many-to-one"-type links...
In your favorite search engine, type:
Code:
many-to-one Hitch site:mobileread.com
That'll lead you to many threads over the years where Hitch discusses them. This issue is severe in Glossaries, Indexes, and even sometimes Footnotes.