Exporting epub with InDesign: I lose blank lines!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by phillipgessert

Thing that always gets me on InDesign cleanups is how often they use spans instead of em for italics. Really easy to forget that and accidentally wipe em out when cleaning up all the other cruft.

It's not easy to lose italic spans. I look at the CSS and if I see a class that specifies italic be it span.xxx or just .xxx, I;ll check and if it is a span, I'll change that to an <i> and be OK with it. I've never botched a span that was an italic, bold, or bold italic.

I've never seen anything difficult to fix up in an InDesign made ePub. That doesn't mean it isn't possible, but unlikely.

[Turtle91]

I think what they are getting at is that some of the automated clean-up routines automatically remove spans (especially if they are empty spans with no class: <span>Something here</span>) and other tags. Of course people who are as experienced as you are wouldn't make those noob mistakes...

[najgori]

Probably 90% of my epub jobs was converting indesign files.
These indesign plugins helped a lot.
PerfectPrepText: A smart way to style local formatting

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

I think what they are getting at is that some of the automated clean-up routines automatically remove spans (especially if they are empty spans with no class: <span>Something here</span>) and other tags. Of course people who are as experienced as you are wouldn't make those noob mistakes...

What cleanup routines would remove non-empty spans?

[phillipgessert]

Sometimes I put em through pandoc to wipe out all the goofy classes, and that also clears out the italic spans. Then I realize my error and start over, changing the italic spans first in Sigil. Not a difficult thing, just something I notice I often forget.

[Dan_Smith]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

How does that get you an ePub?

It gets you a MOBI file which I then take into calibre and convert to whatever I need. It's just that 'exporting for Kindle' rather than 'export>epub' keeps the line spaces and other formatting better in my experience.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by phillipgessert

Sometimes I put em through pandoc to wipe out all the goofy classes, and that also clears out the italic spans. Then I realize my error and start over, changing the italic spans first in Sigil. Not a difficult thing, just something I notice I often forget.

Originally Posted by Dan_Smith

It gets you a MOBI file which I then take into calibre and convert to whatever I need. It's just that 'exporting for Kindle' rather than 'export>epub' keeps the line spaces and other formatting better in my experience.

Might be a better idea to export to ePub and use Calibre's editor and Sigil to edit the ePub.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Dan_Smith

It gets you a MOBI file which I then take into calibre and convert to whatever I need. It's just that 'exporting for Kindle' rather than 'export>epub' keeps the line spaces and other formatting better in my experience.

What are you using, then, for your "lines"?

Hitch

[phillipgessert]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Might be a better idea to export to ePub and use Calibre's editor and Sigil to edit the ePub.

I do, the pandoc step just makes that easier for me.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by phillipgessert

I do, the pandoc step just makes that easier for me.

How is it easier since it loses some of your code? It's actually easier to learn CSS/HTML and edit the ePub that you get when you export from Indesign as ePub. Because once you know CSS/HTML, you can do a lot more then just let some program do the conversion and you not know how to check the code. I've seen too many automated setups create eBooks with really proo code that could maybe cause problems with some Readers/programs. The rule is to keep the code as simple as you can and to do that, you NEED to go into the code to make sure it's as simple as it can be. The sinpler it is, the less chance of a problem and the greater chance it will work in more situations.

[phillipgessert]

I think our wires are getting crossed. When I have an InDesign cleanup task the first thing I do is raze it to the ground in order to rebuild it with semantic html and then style it with css. There is no avoidance of code happening here, just occasionally overzealous removal of InDesign cruft first.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by phillipgessert

I think our wires are getting crossed. When I have an InDesign cleanup task the first thing I do is raze it to the ground in order to rebuild it with semantic html and then style it with css. There is no avoidance of code happening here, just occasionally overzealous removal of InDesign cruft first.

Exactly. Overzealous removal of code you actually want. That's why I say, take the ePub from InDesign and hand edit it from there. Then you don't get code removed that you want. And you are in control of how it gets edited.

[phillipgessert]

I do. I just run it through pandoc first. I think you’re kinda shadow boxing here, so I am going to clarify just one more time. I want to get rid of the code I don’t want. Sometimes I forget to first isolate the code I do. Context: author comes to me with an InDesign file from a designer that can’t be bothered to make the ebook. InDesign file is a mess, with lots of arbitrarily named paragraph and character styles, applied inconsistently and with lots of in-text overrides that mean nothing. Clean up the InDesign file within reason and export an ePub. Every paragraph has a class. Most mean nothing. Random spans everywhere. Most* mean nothing. I don’t like working with markup like that, and I’m sure you don’t either. Easiest way I know of to get a clean slate from that is to first run it through pandoc. InDesign > ePub > pandoc > epub > the actual work. We are actually in agreement.

*Save 3: bold, italic, and bolded italic; which I kick myself for having to redo by forgetting to isolate those first.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by phillipgessert

I do. I just run it through pandoc first. I think you’re kinda shadow boxing here, so I am going to clarify just one more time. I want to get rid of the code I don’t want. Sometimes I forget to first isolate the code I do. Context: author comes to me with an InDesign file from a designer that can’t be bothered to make the ebook. InDesign file is a mess, with lots of arbitrarily named paragraph and character styles, applied inconsistently and with lots of in-text overrides that mean nothing. Clean up the InDesign file within reason and export an ePub. Every paragraph has a class. Most mean nothing. Random spans everywhere. Most* mean nothing. I don’t like working with markup like that, and I’m sure you don’t either. Easiest way I know of to get a clean slate from that is to first run it through pandoc. InDesign > ePub > pandoc > epub > the actual work. We are actually in agreement.

*Save 3: bold, italic, and bolded italic; which I kick myself for having to redo by forgetting to isolate those first.

Solution to the problem...

Take the ePub direct from InDesign and using Calibre's Editor or Sigil, replace the spans for bold, italic, and bold italic and then run through Pandoc. That should do it.

[phillipgessert]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Solution to the problem...

Take the ePub direct from InDesign and using Calibre's Editor or Sigil, replace the spans for bold, italic, and bold italic and then run through Pandoc. That should do it.

That’s what I meant by isolate them first. That’s exactly what I do. I think this is a situation where we talked about it so long that the context of my original comment got lost. The actual solution is to tie a ribbon around my finger, and my initial comment was made in case others need a ribbon too. It’s not actually that big a deal.