Adobe InDesign

[mt.msla]

Hello,

I was just wondering why Adobe InDesign discussion is missing from the E-Book Software forums.

Isn't that software a heavy-hitter in the publishing world?

Come to think of it, I'm kind of wondering why there isn't a Word forum also.

Just curious.

Should I try to learn InDesign, or should I stick with what I'm comfortable with? (Sigil)

[Nate the great]

InDesign is overkill for most ebooks.

Also, you'd be surprised by how many people in publishing use free tools like Sigil and Calibre. In fact, Calibre is so commonly used that Amazon adopted a policy discouraging its use. (if you're not careful, Calibre can make badly coded ebooks.)

[Quoth]

In Design is a tool to produce periodicals, text-books etc and is kludged for ebooks. Waste of money for ebooks and it can only be rented.

Word or Writer (final Save As in docx on Writer, edit only odt) exporting to Sigil or Calibre is actually better for novels as ebooks, then edit a copy for export to PDF for paper.

Sigil likely is better for complex ebooks than Calibre, but for a novel Calibre will take a docx and perfectly automatically map styles to CSS, automatically does TOC. all links/bookmarks/headings etc and then the only edit at all is of any images where width or height is a % of screen.

Even MS word has zero advantage over LO Writer + Calibre for novels. or LO Writer's PDF export for POD paper.

In Design is rented corporate Desktop publishing and for other than newpapers, magazines and specialist textbooks MS Word or LO Writer are now better than any DTP. It's a dinosaur.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

InIn fact, Calibre is so commonly used that Amazon adopted a policy discouraging its use. (if you're not careful, Calibre can make badly coded ebooks.)

Really? I don't think Amazon care. They told us years ago to switch to epub instead of docx and since then we use LO Writer, extra Save As in docx, Calibre docx to epub and get no problems from epubcheck, Amazon KDP, Google Playstore Playbooks or Smashwords/D2D.
We also test any new styles on epub apps (4.3″ to 10″ android), Kindle mobi/azw3/KFX (incl a download of published version) on eink (3 models), Sony eink, and Kobo eink. We check that non-publisher mode and mobi is still useable on Kindles. All the published ebooks are uploaded epubs converted from docx by Calibre for years now.

I have done an ebook with Sigil, but for novels and no editing in Sigil you need to create a map of styles to CSS for the MS Word import, and I have not done that.

Proofing is done on epub (a novel might get read/proofed 10 to 40 times), so until final version there is ZERO editing done of the epub, just docx to epub conversion in Calibre, copy back annotations and paste in a text editor.

[theducks]

Wouldn't Page_Edit be a better tool than Sigil for WRITING?
Sigil is a great Editor for touch up, but worrying about all the proper code while writing ... makes a good case for a WYSIWIG editor.

Speaking of bloated code: Vellum

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

Also, you'd be surprised by how many people in publishing use free tools like Sigil and Calibre.

More than once, I've purchased an eBook from Kobo and found a Calibre bookmark file inside. Someone didn't know of the 'keep a copy of the annotations/bookmarks in the eBook file' setting, I think.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by theducks

Wouldn't Page_Edit be a better tool than Sigil for WRITING?
Sigil is a great Editor for touch up, but worrying about all the proper code while writing ... makes a good case for a WYSIWIG editor.

As one of Sigil's maintainers, I'm always surprised when I hear of people using it as an authorial tool. To each their own, I guess. But neither of us really do any Sigil development with writing in mind. There are much better tools for that.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by theducks

Wouldn't Page_Edit be a better tool than Sigil for WRITING?
Sigil is a great Editor for touch up, but worrying about all the proper code while writing ... makes a good case for a WYSIWIG editor.

Speaking of bloated code: Vellum

Yes, Sigil is an ebook editor. Not a tool for someone to write a novel with. I did start with plain text editors, but really makes sense to have outlining and styles, so I changed to mostly MS Word (it does do outlining since forever, but window is off by default) and then LO Writer, though I'd used the ancestors: Star Office, Sun, Open Office.

Vellum is crazy.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Really? I don't think Amazon care.

This was like ten years ago, when a lot of people were sloppier with their source files. The average quality has risen since then, and I think Calibre's ebook making software has also gone through a couple generations of improvement.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

This was like ten years ago, when a lot of people were sloppier with their source files. The average quality has risen since then, and I think Calibre's ebook making software has also gone through a couple generations of improvement.

I believe that the issue was that Amazon used to accept MOBI format from publishers and some of them used calibre to generate those files. Calibre's MOBI files have various internal differences from the MOBI files created by Amazon's tool, kindlegen, and that likely resulted in some subtle problems with those books.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by jhowell

I believe that the issue was that Amazon used to accept MOBI format from publishers and some of them used calibre to generate those files. Calibre's MOBI files have various internal differences from the MOBI files created by Amazon's tool, kindlegen, and that likely resulted in some subtle problems with those books.

Possibly true.
How many years ago did Amazon depreciate mobi uploads?

In ancient days* I used mobipocket's mobi creator which could import MS Word doc (not docx) and HTML. Amazon kept the website for some years after they bought Mobipocket (2005) who was once one of the largest sellers of ebooks for Palm OS, Symbian and Windows CE. Even was still there after Kindle launch in 2007. It was crazy that the Kindle was launched with essentially 10 years out of date language support and using mobi. Suggests that Amazon initially concentrated on the HW, maybe even based on eInk reference design for the panel. Perhaps the Paperwhite 2 was the first decent Kindle.

[* Even earlier I used DTP to turn Gutenberg text into an HTML thing with prior, next, TOC and paginated for 800 x 600 portrait on a PMP HTML browser as you couldn't add an app to the Archos 605. It used a 160G Byte HDD intended for video, so we also had fun figuring the best way to re-encode DVD for it and the 320x240 GP2X game console]

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

This was like ten years ago, when a lot of people were sloppier with their source files. The average quality has risen since then, and I think Calibre's ebook making software has also gone through a couple generations of improvement.

Ten years ago I would have made mobi using Mobipocket creator for local use and uploaded MS doc (not docx). Maybe. My first real ereader was a Paperwhite 1. My son had a K3, which only got azw3 years later when he bought a PW4 and gave me the K3, which I updated. It only did mobi when I got it.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by theducks

Wouldn't Page_Edit be a better tool than Sigil for WRITING?
Sigil is a great Editor for touch up, but worrying about all the proper code while writing ... makes a good case for a WYSIWIG editor.

Speaking of bloated code: Vellum

PageEdit is not designed as tool for WRITING and the code it produces is not pretty. Much better than BookView but that's setting an extremely low bar. My personal preference for writing is LO Writer or Word, export as docx and then import into Sigil.

Even Vellum which I see disparaged very often in these forums is intended to be a converter which is fed your original document. It does allow minimal editing and the preview is not bad for supporting views but it is not intended for creating a document.

[Quoth]

Yes. Any DTP program, InDesign, Vellum, Sigil, PageEdit, Calibre (and Editor) are publish/formatting/conversion/tweaking tools. Not tools to author content from scratch.

And ultimately any of the specialist Word Processors aimed at authors/novelists have dubious advantages over learning how to use Word or LO Writer, filing system, backups, versioning and maybe a spreadsheet.
I also used to use Notepad++ for tabbed multiple text files on Windows and then WINE for a while, but I use KATE now which is essentially the same thing, with a session of tabs/documents for each project. I used to use simple Jota on android for notes, but mostly now export docx or txt from Kobo Sage Advanced Notebook.

A DTP program, InDesign, Vellum, Sigil, PageEdit, Calibre (and Editor) etc are production tools, not writer / writing tools. Regard the odt or docx as the master document and content changes to it. Only formatting on the downstream tools.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by Quoth

It was crazy that the Kindle was launched with essentially 10 years out of date language support and using mobi. Suggests that Amazon initially concentrated on the HW, maybe even based on eInk reference design for the panel. Perhaps the Paperwhite 2 was the first decent Kindle.

There wasn't any better option at the time. Remember, Epub didn't exist in 2005, while Mobipocket had a well established code base and several really nice tools.