*** From the Archives ***
This article is from June 16, 2014, and is no longer current.
PePcon Sneak Peek Reveals InDesign’s New Fixed-Layout EPUB Features
At PePcon: The Print + ePublishing Conference today in Chicago, Adobe Group Product Manager Kitchener gave an exciting and exclusive sneak peek at some of what’s coming soon to InDesign. The highlight of Chris’s demo was the news of “the next stop on InDesign’s EPUB journey,” specifically that a new version of InDesign will export documents to fixed-layout EPUB format without any special handling or effort.
Adobe’s Chris Kitchener revealing new fixed-layout EPUB capabilities in InDesign
So in the near future, moving a richly-designed layout from InDesign into Apple’s iBooks can be as simple as choosing File > Export and selecting a new option for EPUB (Fixed Layout) in the Export dialog box. No fussing with the Articles panel or other specialized prep work is required. The text remains live text in the EPUB, so it is selectable, accessible, and searchable. And fixed-layout EPUBs exported from InDesign can include audio, video, and placed HTML features.
A fixed-layout EPUB exported from InDesign
Layout in InDesign
Fixed-layout EPUB in iBooks exported from InDesign
Of course, there will be much more to learn about the new release of InDesign, but this is huge—and will certainly be most welcome news for many users.
For even more news about about what’s coming in the next version of InDesign be sure to catch Adobe’s Creative Cloud live event on June 18th at 1 PM Eastern. And stay tuned here at InDesignSecrets!
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This is amazing. It really was as simple as File > Export, click OK. And it opens in (on the Mac, at least) iBooks, looking like a PDF, like the original doc. Wow.
Let’s hope it works with Book Files!
This is great. Will these fixed-layout epubs work in Adobe Digital Editions with a DRM?
For the details, you’ll have to wait for the Creative Cloud event on Wednesday, I’m afraid. Still under NDA.
Great news. Looking forward to Wednesday. Thanks for the extra excitement!
Mathieu, I don’t think any fixed-layout ePUB is working with ADE. SO I will not expect the one coming from this future version of InDesign will change that.
I was asking too much I guess.
Works great! But the codes behind it is messy. Unless I’m doing something wrong otherwise it’s a great added feature!
Got 2 tests done with good results. Now building another to throw everything in from conditional text to nested styles. Anxious to see what will and won’t work.