Sigil or IbD or ?

[asdjones]

I am a newbie to ePublishing, not to writing however. I want to break my current books into a mobile device readability.
I started off using Sigil and did a few chapters then realized that Adobe IbD did the same thing (I think)...and I have an Adobe CC account and access to InDesign easily. Should I just work with IbD and stop converting my .doc file book into Sigil? Can I take what I have already created in Sigil (about 8 chapters) and pour it into IbD?
All tips appreciated.

[exaltedwombat]

What format are your books written in?

[Tex2002ans]

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)...

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).

Originally Posted by asdjones

Should I just work with IbD and stop converting my .doc file book into Sigil?

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.

Originally Posted by asdjones

Can I take what I have already created in Sigil (about 8 chapters) and pour it into IbD?

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.

[exaltedwombat]

If writers would only complete their text in Word, using consistent paragraph and header styles, then hand it over to InDesign for book design, run it through Calibre for eBook :-)

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by exaltedwombat

If writers would only complete their text in Word, using consistent paragraph and header styles, then hand it over to InDesign for book design, run it through Calibre for eBook :-)

Oh, resident Exalted One:

Oui, but that never--ever--happens. We do both here; print and digital, and I seriously do not remember, in ANY book, for at least the last year, a book that went through here (for epub, mobi, or print, or all) that didn't have revision cycles. They do, and, at my shop, on average, 3. Many have 5. (yes, we've had some with over 10, and we've had some books completely remade--from scratch--more than 3x). The only way to conform that type of revising, if someone is giving a Word file to the InDesigner AND to the ebook-maker, is for the author to go through their Word file and update it to match the edits that they make in their first review copy (whether ePUB or PDF).

Ask me how many do that? (NONE).

So...while it sounds good on paper (ha!), trust me, zee bookmaking, she no work dat way. We are routinely asked for "final Word files" from clients, and we make them by reverse-engineering the Word file from the ePUB. JUST to incorporate the revision cycles.

Speaking of Exalted Expats, I see that our Resident Curmudgeon has taken up residing with us again?

Hitch