Posted on by Terry White

Creating My 1st iBook for the iPad with Adobe InDesign CS5

These are exciting times in the publishing industry! The tools have never been better to get your word out. With the introduction of Adobe Creative Suite 5 and in particular InDesign CS5, my head is spinning thinking about all the possibilities. I can use one industry standard app to publish for Print, for the Web with NEW Interactive features and now more easily than ever to standard eBook Reader formats such as ePUB. There’s also a lot of excitement around the Apple iPad. The beauty here is that I can use my new found publishing power and Apple’s popular device to get my content in front of more eyeballs than ever.

 

The Project

As you may know I co-authored one of the best selling books for the iPhone, “The iPhone Book”. I’ve been very happy with the success of that book and of course as soon as the iPad was introduced, many eyes turned towards me to question if I was going to write a book for this new device. While the project seemed interesting (and still is), I wanted to try something a little different this time around. I wanted the iPad Book to be an iBook on the actual iPad. All of my books are already being laid out in Adobe InDesign. So there’s nothing new there, except there is something new there in terms of capabilities. The enhanced capabilities around the ePUB format and Interactive Document publishing beyond PDF. So I wanted to do two things: I wanted to get a sample out there of what an iPad book on the iPad and I wanted to experience first hand what it was like to create one from scratch using InDesign CS5. So I enlisted the help of my colleague at Adobe, Colin Fleming (eBOOK guru) and Colin gave me the inside scope and even some sample demo documents that he had put together. This was a great jump start and helped me avoid some stumbling blocks. Yesterday, I started my sample “25 iPad Tips” and today I have a FREE iBook that you can download right here.

 

The Making of my 1st iBook (ePUB)

The iBooks App on the iPad reads standard ePUB documents and Adobe InDesign CS5 just so happens to export them out directly. Great! There are some limitations that you have to be mindful in your document itself. These are limitations on the standard more so than of InDesign. For example, InDesign is an amazingly powerful page layout application that pretty much allows you do do anything you want on the page. However, ePUB has limitations on how the content has to flow to make it possible to have this single document on a multitude of different devices. I recorded this video to walk you through some of those things to look out for:

 

 

Downloading and Installing my FREE “25 iPad Tips” Book

The first step is to download my ePUB file here. Once you download the ZIP file, unzip it and you’ll have a short readme.txt file and the actual “25 iPad Tips.epub” document. Open iTunes 9.1 and higher and simply drag the ePUB into the Library area of iTunes on the left side. It should now appear in the Books Area of iTunes and once you plug in your iPad via the USB cable, you can select it as a book to sync in the Books Tab in iTunes. Enjoy!

Don’t have an iPad yet, but still want to check out this book?

You can actually still download it above and use the FREE Adobe Digital Editions Reader to read it on your Mac or PC. Download Digital Editions here.

 

More info

You can learn more about the ePUB format here and here, also checkout this white paper. You can learn more about Adobe InDesign CS5 here.

Also check out Tom Petrillo’s recording on 4 different output methods from InDesign here.

 

The Bottom Line

You’ve never had the tools you have today to get yourself published as easily as you can now! As far as I can see Adobe InDesign is not only the leading Page Layout app for print, but now it’s the leading (and pretty much only) option to go straight to ePUB from the SAME layouts you used for print.

 

UPDATE: Download my template

Many of you have asked for it and therefore I’ve done it. You can download my InDesign template file here. This is exact InDesign CS5 document that I used for my iBook sans the images and majority of the text. You can use it to see how I constructed the document and how the frames are placed and linked. Enjoy!

 

UPDATE 2: InDesign CS5 to iBookstore Whitepaper

Here is a link to a whitepaper outlining the steps to get your ePUB on the iBookstore.

151 Replies to “Creating My 1st iBook for the iPad with Adobe InDesign CS5”

    2. Hi Terry
      What’s the package you’d recommend for ePub that allows you to embed video in the ebook?
      Thanks much
      David

      1. InDesign allows you to embed Flash video in an ePub. If you’re referring to the iPad, there isn’t one! Apple is currently operating outside of the ePub spec with their video support.

  3. This is an amazing way for me to show the hundreds of people I’ve shot in Sicily over the last twenty years their photos and not spend thousands of dollars in printing costs! What fun! Thanks!

    1. Yes, amazing.

      Direct each of them to purchase a $500 (that’s at the low end and unrealistically assumes no purchase of extras like a case or software) device as opposed to, say, posting the photos on any number of web sites that they can pull up from any computer around the world.

  4. Thanks a lot for this although we are still waiting for the iPad here in Europe!
    I’m glad to learn that eBook distribution is possible without the app store.
    Does CS5 bring anything new in terms of ePUB export compared to CS4?

    1. Martin, yes ID CS5 brings one very important feature (among others) in the 3rd panel of the Export dialog that uses your TOC headlines as the page breaks.

    2. I also like that you can make iBooks without having to rely on a publisher. I do some writing on the side and I want to make a side business out of it. It’s nice to know that I can have my readers download it and throw it directly into iTunes.

      I never understood how InDesign works, but if they’ve implemented all the changes in CS5 that they’ve promised, your tutorial just gave me the inspiration to upgrade.

  5. Wow, can’t wait to get InDesign CS5. BTW, I read your iBook with Adobe Digital Editions on my Mac (don’t own an iPad, yet). At the very end, the © symbol rendered as an @ symbol. Is this an Adobe Digital Editions thing, ePub thing, or what? I ask because an ePub I’d like to publish would have lots of math and Greek letters and if there’s a problem rendering these I’m in for a lot of headaches. Thanks for sharing.

  6. Terry, You’re KILLING us here out west! I don’t have my iPad yet, but don’t have CS5 either! I was just wondering whether InDesign CS5 had any new features insofar as exporting to the ePub format, and then you post this video. Next up: including video content… Gimmie… gimmie!

    When your book is viewed in Adobe Digital Editions set to a wide viewing area, the headings and inline graphics are left justified. Is there any way to center them? I was thinking you might have to unzip the ePub document in Springy, then edit the cascading style sheet, then zip it back to its original state.

    1. Barney,
      Yes, if you want to take the time to create a CSS sheet for better styling, you can choose it in the ID ePUB export dialog box. However, like I said things vary from device to device, so I decided to keep it simple. Also since this particular publication was written for the iPad, I did most of my formatting (as little as it was) for that device in this case.

      1. Terry, Could you please beg Colin to produce more videos on ePub creation with InDesign, or perhaps a book or blog? He is (like yourself) a national resource, to be shared by all! Your video was again awesome, by the way. Because you used CS5, it make Colin’s three videos (using CS4) a tad outdated. If begging Colin doesn’t work, perhaps a firearm?

        1. Hey Barney! Out west, eh?!
          Yes, they are putting the twist on me to do updated videos, those are in the works. Terry’s also asked me to create some special files for him to share as well. Look for those soon…

          BTW, you can do a lot about the formatting with a little basic CSS editing. I also use Springy to crack open my epub files if needed.

          1. Colin & Terry, Please be sure to let us know (on this blog) when new instructional material is available, and thank you both for helping us all learn and utilize the incredible power of InDesign to export to this game changing format. I am confident you’ll figure out to embed videos in no time.

      2. Yes, but I tried some simple CSS formatting, like Float Left, to no avail. Seems that a lot of commands do not work, unless I am doing it wrong.

  7. Terry – this is AWESOME! The timing with CS5 and the iPad is perfect for content creators. I am excited to get working on new book projects published to ePUB.

  8. Terry, w/the advantages of INDD CS5 to now have flash & video players, how does that transcend into exporting for ePubs? With INDD CS5 having Flash capabilities & the iPad not supporting them, can we expect 3rd party apps to bridge that gap?

    1. Actually it’s two different things. ID has BOTH ePUB and Interactive Flash output. ePUB is a standard that supports Flash video and ID CS5 can do that. However, if your device (ie the iPad) doesn’t support it, then that content will just not be shown. Just like if you go to a web page that has Flash on it. As far as the Interactive features go that export out to Flash, it’s a way for designers to make Flash content for their sites without having to write code and again it’s up to the device browsing those sites to support Flash or not.

    1. Yes, and no. ID supports QT and Flash Video import. However, I haven’t been successful at getting that video to actually show up and playback on the iPad. Could be pilot error, but I also haven’t seen anyone else do it either.

      1. Now that iBooks now supports video. Will it be possible to add video using indesign cs5 epub export?

  10. Also, Terry, that movie in 720p was incredible! What did you use to film it? I need to learn from you.

  11. Now the big question… Hoe can you submit it to the Bookstore for others to download?

      1. Another outlet is Smashwords — no charge to put your book up there and they also provide a free ISBN if you don’t happen to have one.

  12. Wonderful! Auto creation of the TOC is a HUGE improvement over CS4!

    Now, to solve the problem of adding video that the iPad will play… That’s a biggie and we all know you’re the man to solve the problem. No pressure! 😉

  13. ePub export in InDesign CS5 looks great.
    Now, is there a method via some Adobe product to convert existing .PDF to the ePub format? That would be very useful.

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  16. I use Adobe Digital Editions to borrow library books from my local library. (I’m running on Windows 7, and run iTunes from there.) If I buy an iPad, would I be able to transfer these borrowed books to the iPad to read them there? If so, what steps would I need to do for this to work?

    Also, if I used the iPad to surf the web, and needed to view a pdf, would it open in Safari, or would I have to download the pdf and use some viewer app to see it?

    Thanks, Terry!

    1. Nancy,
      1) if they are standard ePUBs without any DRM protection, then yes you would be able to drag them into iTunes and sync to your iPad.
      2) PDFs open in Safari when you click on a link on the web containing one.

      1. Unfortunately, when you borrow from a library, the format contains DRM protection… that’s how they know when your term is up, I think. Adobe Digital Editions handles this on other devices, like the Nook, I believe, because you transfer to the device from ADE. I say this based on what I’ve read… I haven’t actually tried it on any devices. I wonder if they can do this with the iPad, which I’d much rather buy.

  17. Like almost all of Adobe’s “free” products, the license for Adobe Digital Editions states that it is a violation of the license to have the program installed on two computers at the same time. This makes perfect sense regarding the products Adobe sells, but Adobe’s insistence on including this in things like Flash player and its other “free” products is one reason that I am glad Apple told Adobe that Flash player was unwelcome on iPad. Until Adobe cleans up its attitude regarding “runtime” type products, applications which do not include the Adobe EULA are a better choice.

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  20. I was wondering… what happens to any graphics during export to epub? For example, are the graphics downsampled to 72ppi? I am curious as to what ppi the graphics placed into InDesign should be initially… like for an iPad, what are the max pixel dimensions for any placed graphics? Thanks!

      1. Wow, that was a fast reply… thanks! I didn’t see any mention of resampling, etc. only “quality”. I’ll have to watch your video again to see if I missed something. Thanks Terry!

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  24. I do some reference books, including a dictionary and some bibliographies, and I need to produce ebooks with search capabilities. Any suggestions?

  25. Outstanding video. I’m new to inDesign and just got CS5. I started right away making an ePub and it was a total hash. Display in Books was terrible. Tons of weird issues. I was very frustrated and had actually switched gears to edit the XHTML directly (what a pain). It’s clear from watching your video that most of my problem was “pilot error”. So I’m delighted and will redirect my attention to inDesign again. Thanks 🙂

    Is there a way to declare a TOC entry chapter title that’s different from how it appears in the actual text? For instance, if the actual page has “3” on one line and “Stuff finally happens” on the next line, I’d like to have the TOC read “3. Stuff finally happens”.

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  27. Thanks for leading the way both with knowledge of ins/out of the iPad and with creating ePub documents with InDesign. I understand your iPad Tips book was written in a rush so I hope you don’t mind the copyediting nits:

    Page “Better App Management”:
    * “I use to try” -> “used”
    * “move them time to the 1st page,” -> ???

  28. I unzipped your epub and it contains fonts and uses @font-face in the style sheet. As I don’t have an iPad, am I right in supposing these fonts are not used on the iPad (the fonts are used on my Win 7 machine in Digital Editions)

      1. Sorry Terry, but for me this means the iPad offers only crippled epubs.

  29. Hi Terry

    Great tutorial!

    Just one question… How do you text wrap around an anchored photo?

    I’m working on a publication that has a pic that indents into the text column but when I anchor the pic, it leaves a great big space on the unused area of the column. And I’m trying to line up the text to the top of the pic.

    Can you help me please

    Cheers

      1. Hi Terry.

        Yes the pic is anchored but it’s not as wide as the text column, it’s only half the size. But the flow on of the text starts on a new line under the pic. This gives me white space on the right hand side. What I want to do is fill in this white space with the flow on of the text.

        Am I doing something that may be simple to you wrong, or is there a trick to it?

        Cheers Stan

  30. Sir,

    Thanks for the video on YouTube and the download… you showed how simple a task it is..

    But, I will be translating several publications that have multiple chapters. I want to have each chapter as an individual file. I should then create a new “book” and create each one independently within the book? Not sure how the Table of Contents would work for multiple files…

    Thanks for the help… best to you! Steve

      1. Terry – thanks for the help… I suppose there is no current method for creating a table of contents for a book that uses several documents?

  31. Hi Terry:

    I currently publish a flash based e-magazine. I was wondering if you think is is possible to covert this into an iBook for the iPad? See my website posted in this reply for my example. I deal with many pictures and captions that go along with those pictures. Website explains it all. Thanks for your help and direction. I love what you’re doing.

    Mike.

    1. Something like a magazine that is more graphically rich is probably not going to be a good ePUB experience. I would stick with Flash and PDF. Thanks!

        1. The only 4 options are ePUB (great for books, not great for magazines), PDF (but there is not stand alone PDF viewer built-in), custom Apps (which require development) or via the web in Safari (create a iPad friendly version online).

  32. When i create a new document using the 5.5 and 8.25 custom size that you did in the start of the video I get the following error – “specified margin and column setup does not fit within specified page size”
    will you be able to help me with a solution to this issue?

    Thanks.

    1. I had a similar problem… prior to opening any document, I went to the preferences and established inches as my unit of measure. That solved the problem for me.

    2. After the 5.5 and 8.25 type “in” otherwise Indesign may interpret your entries as picas rather than inches (that InDesign will convert to picas).

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  34. Help! I can not get images or videos to show up in the epub export. You need to have these “in line” with the text but I can not figure out how to make that happen. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
    Thanks

      1. I “placed” them within the text box where I wanted them to appear. Worked for me… although I’m not sure how to center them on the ePub page when it is in iBooks in both portrait and landscape… landscape seems to be no problem, but my images are left margin justified, not centered.

        Hope this helps.

        1. I am positive that I have placed them into the text box but on export the text seems reformatted but the image is missing!! Frustrating…..please offer any and all suggestions. I am willing to try anything!
          Mike

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  37. I’ve been having no luck with the Heading Style forcing a new frame… are there any other areas to check besides the paragraph style that you pointed out in the video?? I know it is something simple that I’m missing, but I can’t see the forest through all the trees right now!

    Thanks for any help to get me in the right direction!

  38. After watching this tutorial I decided to take the plunge and upgrade to CS5. I felt I could finally publish to epub with a minimal disruption to my pdf workflow. After installing and exporting my book I could not get the Table of Contents to show up and the chapters were running together. I finally decided they were related problems. I worked on it throughout the weekend and I finally figured out the problem. I thought it might be style names. No it wasn’t, but in the process of troubleshooting/analyzing my files I realized the style must not be in a style group. I moved the relevant style to the top and so far things are looking up.

    In short the Table of Content entries must not be in Style Groups. They will not be recognized as headers.

  39. Terry – problem! Your video was the trick for making my first ePub, but it doesn’t pass the ePubCheck program: invalid date format. When I looked in the content.opf file that it’s having problems with, it shows an empty date field.

    So I put one of Apple’s ePub’s through it (one already on their bookshelf in the iPad) and it doesn’t pass either.

    Then I put your “25 tips” through it and it doesn’t pass either!

    The problem is that my publishing house won’t take it until it passes – and they don’t know anything about InDesign.

    What gives? Help if you can! Thanks!

    Chuck Vogan

    1. Visit : http://www.teusdejong.nl/
      Follow the link to InDesign utilities and scroll to the bottom, then download the two scripts Teus offers listed as “Correction of links in epubs made with InDesign CS5.”

      This will install two new commands, one for exporting to epub on the File menu, the second on the book panel. These new export commands will fix a problem with links in ePubs exported from CS5 and will ask for a publication date. That second piece of information will help with the ePubCheck.

      HTH;
      Colin

  40. Terry, a couple of questions:

    1) is there a way to embed the meta data into the epub document, so if I send someone my epub doc, and they drag into the itunes library they do not have to manually add the cover art, author, etc.

    2) On the iPad do you notice much difference between High and Maximum image quality?

    3) Can Acrobat export to ePUB as well?

    Thanks

    Pat

    1. Pat,
      1) Once I put the cover in via iTunes, it’s actually embedded in the file. I know this because I did the cover and metadata on one computer and then transferred the ePub to a different computer for syncing to the iPad.
      2). Haven’t really tested this.
      3). NO.

    2. If you go to File>File info in InDesign and add all your metadata in there it will be picked up and exported in the epub file automatically. If you’re using and InDesign book then just add the details into the first InDesign file in the book

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  43. Terry, can you please clearify the txt wrap for epub? I have an anchored text in the middle of my doc that displays a text wrap. Yet when i import to digital edition, it continues to make the picture its on paragraph, forcing the text above and below the image. Help

  44. I seen books on the ipad that did this but yet i struggle in making this happen. Did you make a video on this? To my knowledge i’ve tried everything. Iknow if anyone can do it, it would be you.

  45. Terry-once more for the newbies, what does Flash Catalyst allow ?
    thanks
    greg smith

  46. Terry, Great tutorial, thanks so much. 1 question if you have time. When I publish to epub and view on my computer it looks perfect. But when I upload to my iPad all my line breaks disappear. Apparently I’m the only one having this issue as I’ve searched everywhere on the web. Can you please help?

    Thanks!
    Chris

    1. I was having the same problem when i exported and opened in Adobe Editions and found a possible work around. Try using the “Space Before” and “Space After” features within InDesign.

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  48. Hi Terry,

    Great tutorial!
    Thank you very much.

    I would like to know whether ‘page flip’ sort of page transitions are supported in epub format, exported from InDesign CS5?

  49. Great tutorial, very insightful and helpful. I was wondering if you knew how to get the cover to show up on the page opposite the TOC on the iPad? I followed your tutorial by placing the cover as a single image on the first page, and the cover seems to show up everywhere else it should, just that page previous/opposite the TOC has the yellow-brown stock book image with the file name and not my cover and I would like to change that and place my cover in its place. Any ideas?

    1. Not a reply, but yes Terry I’d love to know how to do this too. I suspect it’s a coding job post publication but I don’t know…Help! 🙂

      1. OK, replying to my own post here but I worked it out.

        First thing, take you epub file and change the file extension to .zip.

        You need 2 files and to add 2 lines of code to the content.opf file. File 1: the cover image…I just used the same jpeg as my cover in InDesign. Call it “titlepage.jpeg” and put it into the images folder in the OEBPS folder. File 2: An html file called “Cover.html” with the code

        Cover

        And put this into the OEBPS folder.

        Then open the “content.opf” file with notepad and add the following lines of code. In the “Manifest” section and after the code that calls the front cover of the document add

        and then further down the code under “Spine toc” straight after add:

        And that should do you.
        Good luck.
        j

          1. Yeah, sorry about that…but I’ve since found that the simplest way is to create a separate Indesign file with just the cover in it called “cover.indd”

            this creates a ‘cover.xml’ file that is automatically recognised as the inside coverpage without having to add code.

  50. Quick question, If im making a indesign document with 5 pages, and the 5th page i do not want displayed when i convert to a ebook. How do I set that doc to start and end on pages 1-4?

  51. We’ve just finished a third-party support text on a music software program running 425 pages. The book is published in InDesign. Itbhas 4color jogs on every page that are inline. Given the book’s size, what are the best approaches for converting it to ePub?

    Thank you in advance.

    Peter Alexander

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    1. The Alice In Wonderland example you provided is an App, not an ePUB. ePUB and InDesign already support exporting SWF animations. However, the real question is does your device support THAT?

  56. Terry, Thanks so much for the tutorial. I am going to get busy converting old stuff to this ePub format. Now, I know how to do it.

    Question…

    After I follow your instructions and open in Adobe Digital Edition Reader software. If I do not size the window accordingly the text jumps way farther than the graphics. Inother words, it does not seem to hold the same page size as InDesign.

    Is this correct or am I doing something wrong?

    Thanks.

      1. Okay, thanks. I’m assuming, however, that it will hold to the ID file size because the settings you offered are the iPad page size?

        Thanks.

  57. Great tutorial – but I’m still having trouble with image presentation. I’m creating a digital chapbook with one image/caption per page (think Edward Gorey) for iPad.

    I’ve got the page breaks to work, using your tip about TOC, but the images themselves are small on iPad. Is there a way to present image at optimum size, depending on 1 page/2 page tilt? Ideally with text centered beneath.

    Thanks.

      1. Liz Castro’s book is an excellent resource—there are many things she has addressed to work out some bugs, and also a lot of details that are to be standard practice in preparing a book for epub that Terry does not address (no offense intended Terry, some ebook publishing tasks need more attention to detail to be rock solid in order to be prepared for epub, and iPad is NOT the only reader these books will be used on. I do appreciate this introduction though.)

        InDesign is a powerful tool to get you to your final destination and I found that there were so many things that I did not know in coming from print media before reading Liz’s book. This crossover is a step into the future that designers did not exactly anticipate. In this economy, graphic designers are finding it difficult to get jobs in print media anymore, so being able to do something new and upcoming is a blessing. It’s a bridge between print and web.

        What I gathered from reading Liz’s book is that you have to plan ahead in style usage and how that is going to translate to CSS, then make the right changes to the CSS file to make is work in more than one type of reader. There are a lot of details that answer many of the questions posed in this blog. I have searched the web for enough info on using InDesign CS5 to be able to do this type of conversion, and I really could not find anything even close to the work that Liz put into her book. I’m REALLY surprised that Adobe does not have anything step-by-step in how to produce a proper epub in their HELP section, although Terry’s article does give us a starting point. If designers can’t get this to work properly, they will not use InDesign and end up either hand coding it or using Microsoft Word (Ew!) to get it going. The HELP for Adobe goes in depth on other things such as preparing a document for a printer. Since CS5 is supposed to be so much better for converting to epub than the earlier versions too, why do they not really promote their product better by getting designers the help they need in how to do this for the majority of epub readers, and to make sure it is compliant? Isn’t the idea here to sell more Adobe products? Why so vague in how to do this?

        Lastly, I came up with several questions I’m trying to get an answer for that Liz did not address in her book, and I don’t see it here either. Terry says he started his book 5.5 inches by 8.5 inches in size. Is this a standard for readers in general? I really don’t care if the reader is iPad or other, I want to know the best way to cover a majority. The second thing is, I’m converting a magazine and want to use a full-page graphic for the start of each article—how do I get the navigational TOC to have each article title to be used for navigation AND take it to the full page graphic which is basically the title text and graphics together in an image? (please don’t tell me to do a pdf instead of an epub, the editors WANT an epub version!)

        Thanks for any help that can be provided.

  58. Hello and thanks for a nice tutorial, I’ve gone through it a couple of times trying to make an ePub for one of our books. The thing that cough me was the ability to have one xhtml-file for every chapter.
    Now the problem: the book that I’m working on doesn’t have any ToC so I’ve added one at the first page, just that when I export to ePub, following you instructions, I don’t get a ToC, and the ePub splits into 10 different xhtml files, 7 of them empty and 3 of them with the content of the book. Any idea what I’m doing wrong?

  59. Hi Terry, Thanks for the tutorial. Awesome! Well… I am trying to create free math books for the ipad but I’m on a foreign land when it comes to InDesign… though I have downloaded the trial version. Will it be possible to make the template of your book available? Thank you for all your good work!

  60. Hi Terry, Tried all day to get the Headers on the top of the page … No Luck! I’ve watched your video probably 50 times … I don’t understand what am I doing wrong. Please help! Thanks.

  61. I got it to work ! YEY… . One problem still remains. When the iPad is vertically the first paragraf get’s on the same page with the Title Page. I’ve seen the same problem with you book. It doesn’t happen with Apple’s iPad Use Guide. Also if you have Apple’s iPad User Guide, on the right page of the TOC, they have inserted a picture. How can we insert a picture there?
    Thanks!

    1. Hi Terry. The download link doesn’t work anymore. Could you repost?

      Thanks!

  63. Terry … have you upgraded iBooks? Now with video ! Hurray ! … One problem: How do I insert a video in m4v in ePub? Can you make a short video about this ? Please! Thanks!

    1. As Paul requested, video is now iPad ePub capable, but so is audio… I’m not sure what coding to use to embed either of the file types into the ePub. I’m not sure if this is an xhtml or html5 code within the ePub.

      Terry, can you throw us a bone?? Many, many, many thanks!!

      1. After doing a little more research, it appears that what Apple is supporting is NOT in the ePUB spec and therefore not a “true ePUB” file in the sense of compliancy. So as it stands today InDesign doesn’t export the format that Apple is allowing. That’s not to say that the ePUB spec won’t evolve to allow this and that InDesign won’t support this in a future update. It simply means that what Apple is doing in the current iBooks App is not the standard and it’s their own thing.

        See more here (especially the comment section):
        http://www.pigsgourdsandwikis.com/2010/05/html5-video-works-on-ibooks-on-ipad.html

        I downloaded her “custom” ePUB and it doesn’t play the video in Adobe’s Digital Editions (an ePUB compliant app). It also doesn’t validate here:
        http://threepress.org/document/epub-validate/

        Even my own ePUB needs a date fix to be valid, but that’s it 🙂

    2. InDesign already has the capability to export an ePUB with Flash Video. Of course this won’t work on the iPad. So I’m looking to see what exactly Apple’s new iBooks update supports and doesn’t support and whether or not it’s possible to publish those media types out through ID’s ePUB export. As soon as I have an answer I will let you all know.

      1. Hi Terry,
        Great tutorial! Just what I needed. I’m a complete newbie on this subject.
        One thing that I’ve been trying to find out: iPad doesn’t support flash, but does it support animated gifs? Can those be added in ID CS5, or later by hand coding? I just need to add a few accents to a book, and it would be nice to have them do simple animated things.
        Thanks for your help!
        Cecilia

  65. Terry, Can you (or Adobe or anyone), take us (mac users) from Indesign – exporting to ePub – to Calibre – to Springy and back to Calibre step by step so it is possible to refine the design for ereaders. Or do you know a resource that can help with this. Indesign is a great place to start; and currently more refinement is possible with these other open source programs. A note: it would be great if ID has all of these features as this is the future. Thanks (hopefully)

  66. Thank you so much for this! It seems like there is actually very few resources, other than websites wanting to create the documents for you. And thanks for the links! Now if I can just get CS5 installed on my computer.
    Thank you so much for your help!

  67. Terry, in Cs4, i’m exporting a book file with the chapters in separated documents in order to do the “chapter break”(the page break before the beginning of a new chapter). But, the epub file appears to me as a blank document, otherwise if I export all the book as just one indd document, it works, but without the page breaks that I need.
    Can you help me with this issue? Or do you have any idea of why is it happening?

  68. How does Terry make the Start Para: In Next Text Frame work? It is a known CS5 bug and I have yet to see anyone (else) who can make it work. What is the secret Terry?

  69. Terry, I use Indesign for print pubs but I question the idea of using it to create an EPub. To my mind, since the required files are XHTML + css it seems perverse to use a program designed for print layout. Surely it would be better to lay out the book in an HTML/css editor such as Dreamweaver? And then, (I haven’t got this far yet) wouldn’t Indesign be able to import the HTML doc and its css as the basis for the print publication?

    Secondly can you explain WHY text wrap around images doesn’t seem to work? It’s like going back to making a fire by rubbing two sticks together. Somewhat pathetic.

  70. Great tutorial. I downloaded your ePub-file and read it.
    Seems your hyperlinks don’t work?
    They only launch Firefox…

  71. hi terry,
    can you give the answer for this?

    How “Wired Magazine” using the rich graphic, animation and video files for thier magazine in Ipad edition, but ur saying epub is not suits for flash and rich media? can you tell me, What software and tool they have?

    Thanks

      1. hi terry,

        Some Basic “Q” in In Design CS5

        1. what is best video format for InDesign?

        2. Interactive and flash animations can be used in ID CS5, If so then what format I have to publish? like HTML5 or epub.

  74. Hi Terry,

    I am a beginner and every time i convert my indesign files to epub format i have problems with bullets. The bullet applied text always increases in font size. Please suggest a solution.

    Thanks

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