Intro to InDesign CS5 and ePub -part 1

Posted by Kirsten on April 9, 2011 in Adobe, InDesign, Tutorials and Demos

Your First ePub InDesign Document

What is ePub?

Wikipedia defines epub thusly:

EPUB (short for electronic publication; alternatively capitalized as ePub, ePUB, EPub, or epub, with “EPUB” preferred by the vendor) is a free and open e-book standard by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). Files have the extension .epub.

 

EPUB is designed for reflowable content, meaning that the text display can be optimized for the particular display device used by the reader of the EPUB-formatted book. The format is meant to function as a single format that publishers and conversion houses can use in-house, as well as for distribution and sale.

If you’ve never tried making ePub documents with InDesign, and think it will be a lot of work and/or a true pain, I have good news… Terry White is your new best friend.

There is a lot of information out there about making ePub content and it can be overwhelming. I’ve compiled some information from multiple sources and will give you a reasonably in-depth list of what ePubs can and cannot do – BUT first things first.

For this tutorial, I’m going to ask you to download two things, place a few graphics and export your first ePub file. After that please come back next week for the second article where I give you lots of links and general tips to help you if you decide to add ePub creation to your arsenal.

OK, what do I do?

The first download is Adobe Digital Editions, the link is below. This will let you view the content you make. The second is an InDesign CS5 template by Terry White that will let you place in a few images and make an .epub file in minutes. There are more resources from Mr. White and more that I have to show you but I’m going to ask you to just do these things first.

Here are your links for the two downloads you need.

Terry White’s CS5 Template
Adobe Digital Editions Installer

What’s Next?

1. Download and Install Digital Editions
2. Open the template in InDesign and place images into the frames and save the file



3. Now look over the template. The text won’t match the graphics but we don’t need to change out the text as we will make a full file later. The template’s scary in it’s simplicity isn’t it? There is a good reason for that – epub is linearized. Everything flows in one big stream. If you tried to make an ePub document from a typical complex InDesign file you would be very unhappy with the results.

Let’s make this into a book and view it in the reader

1. Export the file to ePub



2. In the export dialog box make sure that “Use First level Entries as Chapter Breaks” is checked in the “contents” section



3. Export (depending on your settings, the file may open right away or you may have to double-click on the ePub file, which will be found wherever you saved the InDesign file.
4. Look over your book



5. Come back to my site for part 2 of Intro to ePubs

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