What am I just not getting about epub?

[astra]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Page turn speed in epub is fine within a flow (a single html file) but becomes slow when trasitioning from one HTML file to the next.

Maybe I am mixing different things, so I apologize beforehand.
Is not this

becomes slow when trasitioning from one HTML file to the next

pose a problem? Because of Sony reader? or DE? limitation of some blocks 300kb and forced a book to be divided?

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by astra

Maybe I am mixing different things, so I apologize beforehand.
Is not this pose a problem? Because of Sony reader? or DE? limitation of some blocks 300kb and forced a book to be divided?

Not really since there are typically only a handful of such divisions, so you don't really notice when reading.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Not really since there are typically only a handful of such divisions, so you don't really notice when reading.

yes, those are typically between chapters anyway and good eBook formatting would generally have a page break between chapters.

Dale

[astra]

Well, guys, I don't know. I have already mentioned it before. I dowloaded The Count of Monte Cristo from feebooks. Opening TOC or changing text size were significantly slower than LRF. I would even get this circle with rotating arrows, so slow was the process. My LRF files of similar size don't have this problem.

[=X=]

Originally Posted by brewt

Also, he has the macros locked down, so I can't modify them directly, and end up needing to re-modify the pages to what I want them to look like. Not that what he has built in is bad, it's just not what I'm working toward.

Locked? This is not by design, I have no desire to hide the source. I was not even aware there was a way to lock the Macros. Is there a way to unlock them?

Right what I have build really was suited for my taste. Often enough all one has to do is change the styles to get ones look feel. What are you trying to change?


=X=

[ProDigit]

one thing I've noticed is that epub seems much larger in filesize than any other format (if Sony's format = about 100kb, epub=about 150 per book).
Why can't it be compressed zip (or even rar) as well?

Also, is it true reading from a compressed format takes the reader longer than reading from uncompressed data like txt or .doc or .html?

[Alfy]

I've been playing with inDesign export to epub option as well, and it's a complete mess. One small question: does the epub format have the ability to produce justified text? Because not only can't I get my own texts to be justified, but the few epub books I've purchased (from Amazone) aren't justified either...

[Alfy]

Sorry, got the answer to my own question from feednooks:
Lack of justified text: While we can display advanced ePub files on the PRS-505, with embedded fonts, CSS, SVG and even XSL-FO, Adobe doesn’t provide any sort of support for justified text yet. Justification and hyphenation are the two main reasons why I’m still using PDF files on my device. Sure, it should be fairly easy to add support for justified text in the future, but it doesn’t make any sense to support something as advanced as XSL-FO first.

Honestly, that's very poor. I don't see myself using epub until justified text is sorted out...

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Alfy

Sorry, got the answer to my own question from feednooks:
Lack of justified text: While we can display advanced ePub files on the PRS-505, with embedded fonts, CSS, SVG and even XSL-FO, Adobe doesn’t provide any sort of support for justified text yet. Justification and hyphenation are the two main reasons why I’m still using PDF files on my device. Sure, it should be fairly easy to add support for justified text in the future, but it doesn’t make any sense to support something as advanced as XSL-FO first.

Honestly, that's very poor. I don't see myself using epub until justified text is sorted out...

This is not an ePUB issue but an Adobe one. ePUB uses CSS and justified text is certainly available in CSS. Of course as a preference item that could be turned on and off by the user justification would have to be a setting in the reading software not the format.

Dale

[brewt]

As of right now, Calibre is a better epub building tool than InDesign. <plug>

Sure, you can try to justify the expense of CS3/4 and invoke apologetics for its shortcomings as all being user error and user misunderstanding of how to do it, but the truth is, that Adobe's first-run implementation of epub creation is non-intuitive, clumsy, and frustrating. Not altogether different from Quark's first run with .lit creation, which never got better.

When the make-a-gazillion-dollars-with-ebooks awareness gets higher up onto Adobe's (or Quark's) radar, things might get better. Until then, us lesser mortals will find better solutions, like.......(shall I say it again?).........

-bjc

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by brewt

As of right now, Calibre is a better epub building tool than InDesign. <plug>

Sure, you can try to justify the expense of CS3/4 and invoke apologetics for its shortcomings as all being user error and user misunderstanding of how to do it, but the truth is, that Adobe's first-run implementation of epub creation is non-intuitive, clumsy, and frustrating. Not altogether different from Quark's first run with .lit creation, which never got better.

When the make-a-gazillion-dollars-with-ebooks awareness gets higher up onto Adobe's (or Quark's) radar, things might get better. Until then, us lesser mortals will find better solutions, like.......(shall I say it again?).........

-bjc

It's fairly easy to create ePub files with Feedbooks too: http://www.feedbooks.com/help/publishing

Take a look at this book for example, that an author submitted yesterday: http://www.feedbooks.com/userbook/1900.epub

[LesleyBrown]

Hi guys, I've found this thread so useful in the past few weeks while trying to put our Indesign CS3 into use for epubs. Everything seems to be fine, but I've gotten snagged on one thing - I've created paragraph and character styles as the good people at adobe say must be done

http://blogs.adobe.com/digitaleditio...sign-epub.html

but I'm loosing character styles after exporting to epub - for instance, italicised words are lost. It seems like it won't recognise a character style layered upon a paragraph style. Am I missing a stage in the process or is there an exporting option I need to tick somewhere?

Thanks for any pointers.

[brewt]

CS3 exports into Epub what was in the base imported document for styles. If you didn't import anything, it strips pretty much any indesign-invoked styling right out.

CS4 does have a coupla options when exporting epubs over CS3 - it's on the main menu instead of a submenu, and there's an additional button now for CSS Styles:
Base for CSS Styles
1) Local Formatting
2) Defined Styles
3) Style Names only

The [ Defined Styles ] is a step in the right direction. Not all style parameters seem to get exported when using defined styles - despite the xhtml file being exported having a <justify> tag, everything seems to be flush left in DE. Haven't figured that one out, yet.

The Epub from CS4 is being reported by Calibre's Epub viewer as having DRM, (and therefore doesn't open) but I can't find where that happens in CS4 yet.

Oh, also, theres a
Format for EPUB Content
1) XHTML
2) DTBook
set of output options now, too. For whatever that does.

It still seems mostly not-quite-intuitive with CS$ (oops, 4), and I've had nowhere near enough time to play with it yet.


Big Quote from the Big House itself:

"InDesign CS4: EPUB export with NIMAS-ready DAISY XML

We squeezed EPUB export into InDesign CS3 before the final IDPF standard was approved, when even the name of the format was still in doubt ( thus the feature name: "Export for Digital Editions"). The just-released InDesign CS4 takes EPUB support to a whole new level, adding embedded font support and TOC generation (which we had made available as a separate update after CS3 shipped), as well as floating anchored images, option to emit CSS for local (non-style-driven) formatting, and improved mapping of TOC structure to XHTML heading levels. But the biggest feature by far is the new option to choose DTBook (aka DAISY XML) content within EPUBs, compatible with the NIMAS standard that has been mandated in the U.S. for providing access to K-12 instructional materials for the visually impaired. Our lead tools developer writes about the new features here, in our digital publishing tech blog. A very important next step on the client SW side is enabling "screen reader" support for DRM-protected eBooks, something we are committed to doing ASAP."

(from http://blogs.adobe.com/billmccoy/200...gn_cs4_ep.html )

(And another maybe-relevant link: http://blogs.adobe.com/digitaleditio..._cs4.html#more )


-bjc

[igorsk]

Originally Posted by brewt

Not all style parameters seem to get exported when using defined styles - despite the xhtml file being exported having a <justify> tag, everything seems to be flush left in DE. Haven't figured that one out, yet.

This is a limitation of the viewer, not format. Hopefully Adobe implements full justification at some point.

[LesleyBrown]

Right Brewt, I'll go back to the Word doc and make sure the paragraph and character styles are properly set up there, thanks for the pointer.
That seems to be the trick. Now I'm just picturing all the book files that have already been formatted in Indesign, going back to Word and trawling through does not inspire me that much!
And now on a completely different topic - can anyone point me in the direction of a thread about creating cover images in epub? I'm off to look through the threads...

Had been wondering what exactly CS4 was offering and whether it is really worth upgrading, so that's all good to know too.