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Indesign to ePub

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12:07 pm
August 3, 2010


TeroAK

Finland

New Member

posts 1

Hi,

How long it takes time to make a decent ePub from a big old indesign novel.

I have more than one hundred novels of which I have to do epub files.

Novels have an average of 400 pages and they are allways in a single Indesign file.

Novels have been made a long time ago and I think I have a lot of work with paragraph and character styles…


I would like to hear the experiences of making ePub's.


Thanks in advance!

1:09 pm
August 3, 2010


David Blatner

Admin

posts 823

The hardest part is getting the styles set up properly. Make sure everything has styles applied to it. The easiest/fastest way to do this, in my experience, is by using the Create Character Styles and Create Paragraph Styles feature in the Blatner Tools plug-ins. I made a movie about how it works:

Go here and click on "Create Paragraph and Character Styles Automatically"

http://www.dtptools.com/produc…..teractives

After you style everything, and make a table of contents, the export goes very fast. 

co-host, InDesignSecrets.com

7:43 pm
February 4, 2011


tantrictami

Madison MS

Community Member

posts 5

This is a total newby question but how do you get an epub file into indesign to edit?

9:09 am
February 5, 2011


David Blatner

Admin

posts 823

@tantrictami: Good question, but unfortunately you can't go that way. EPUB is an export-only deal.

co-host, InDesignSecrets.com

12:13 pm
February 5, 2011


tantrictami

Madison MS

Community Member

posts 5

Is there a way to import a public domain work so that it can be edited and commented? 

How about opening a pdf file?

I'd love to say, open the constitution and the bill of rights and show maps of colonial america or pictures of the signors and their home states.  Just make it more interactive.  I know I could make it really cool but I don't want to re-type all that.  Any suggestions?

3:20 pm
February 5, 2011


James Fritz

Moderator

posts 49

If you are looking for public domain works, you might be able to find the plain text versions of the books. Try Project Gutenberg.


If you find a PDF you can always export the text to a word file (with acrobat pro) and place the text inside InDesign. Recosoft sells a plug-in for InDesign that lets you convert a PDF file into an InDesign document. If you plan on converting lots of PDFs, it might be worth looking into.

I don't want to say anything negative, but No!

8:32 pm
February 5, 2011


tantrictami

Madison MS

Community Member

posts 5

That will work, I have the full creative suite,  I'm just learning my way around it.  I'll have to send a suggestion to adobe for future improvements.  I'm sure they are worried about what I think right?  ha ha


Thanks

8:42 pm
February 5, 2011


tantrictami

Madison MS

Community Member

posts 5

One more technical question, calibre will convert books into any of these formats  epub fb2, lit lrf mobi, pdb, pdf, pmlz, rb, rtf, sn8, tcr, txt zip.  Will any of these import to indesign?

8:53 pm
February 5, 2011


James Fritz

Moderator

posts 49

InDesign can import rtf and txt from that list. I would recommend rtf because it will bring formatting and possibly styles along with it.


By the way, I know it is hard to believe but Adobe does really listen to feature requests. If enough people ask for feature X they will seriously consider bringing it into a future version of InDesign. Here is a link to suggest new features. 

I don't want to say anything negative, but No!

9:14 pm
February 5, 2011


tantrictami

Madison MS

Community Member

posts 5

Awesome, thanks so much!  I did make my pitch to adobe, lets cross our fingers.  It may be easier said than done from the development side but that their project not mine.  The next few years are going to be very exciting to see where digital publishing goes, I am sure there are many improvements on the horizon.