EPUB Code Clean-Up of InDesign Exports

D.E. Sedroc

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    • June 10, 2016 at 7:14 am #85636
      D.E. Sedroc
      Member

      Hello, I’ve watched several of Anne-Marie’s excellent videos on EPUB production (and code clean-up) using InDesign. I have a question though…how much code clean up are you really doing? After cracking many professionally built EPUBs, the code is very clean. Much more so than anything that’s coming out of InDesign. Our web guru at work thinks that the bloated code is unnecessary. We’ve produced several reflowable titles that do indeed validate, but I’d like make these cleaner.

      Anne-Marie, do you have any samples that you could show how much clean-up you do?

      Thank you,

      D.E.

    • June 11, 2016 at 2:39 am #85649
      Uku A. Kudu
      Member

      This is a good question :)

      Maybe ePub should be done manually with code, not in inDesign?

    • June 11, 2016 at 10:38 am #85651
      D.E. Sedroc
      Member

      Maybe, maybe not. That would not work in the context that I’m working in. Too much time would be required to build these by hand. We are getting books that have already been formatted in ID. It is the industry standard for print publication, no doubt. I’m just seeing a disconnect with what’s purposed and what I’m finding under the hood. My guess, is that pipelines are in place to strip the superfluous code produced by ID. Any comments by the developers on this forum would be greatly appreciated.

      Thanks!

    • June 23, 2016 at 12:55 pm #86030
      Aaron Troia
      Participant

      The best way to strip superfluous code from InDesign export is to use your own custom CSS and not export InDesign CSS. It’s still not perfect, espically on italic and bold type inline tags which InDesign does not export without a class, which drives me crazy. I know that still might not be easy to do in your case, but just thought I would pass it on.

      Aaron

    • June 24, 2016 at 8:52 am #86050
      D.E. Sedroc
      Member

      Thanks Aaron,

      That is one process that I haven’t explored yet. It makes sense, especially if a style is already set and in production mode.

      I haven’t received much feedback (well zero in fact) with other developers out there. Maybe it’s the 800 lb. gorilla in the room that no one wants to talk about. I’m guessing due to all of the articles and seminars that InDesign is used for ePubs. I’d just like to know if all of that superfluous code (i.e. putting class to everything) is generally accepted?

      Some feedback would be nice. Isn’t that what the forums are for?

    • December 6, 2016 at 4:09 pm #89029
      kjacks445
      Member

      Hi D.E.

      I’ve also wondered about the extra code that InD has included since CC. The only explanation I’ve been able to find is a comment from an Adobe staff member, https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1855603

      David Blatner also addresses this in an article from this site from 2010, https://creativepro.com/indesign-object-styles-convert-to-div-classes-in-epub-export.php

      Can’t remember where I read or heard this, but it seems Adobe’s trying hard to help designers not have to open the xhtml files and only edit the css. But until they solve common situations like how to keep photos and captions together in one div and how to convert text anchors and links successfully, we’ll still have to crack them open.

      Karen

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