Episode 11: Creating an eBook with InDesign (Part 2)

#1

November 17, 2009

Ravindra

Its very good video; I like the the way he demonstrated the Table of Contents creation using cross references. I have a problem in my InDesign book where it is not showing TOC style I created. What could be the problem? Can you please help me in this regard. Thanks in advance.

#2

November 17, 2009

Gabriel Powell

If the TOC Style you created doesn't appear in the TOC Style menu when you export the EPUB file, you need to do one of the following:

- Locate the document in the book file that contains the TOC Style and specify it as the style source by clicking in the column to the left of the document name. Then export the EPUB file and your TOC Style will be available.

- After creating the TOC Style, synchronize the book file so that the TOC Style is copied to all the other documents in the book. Then it doesn't matter which document is specified as the style source.

#3

December 02, 2009

Colleen Cunningham

Another informative episode. Thank you for providing an excellent eBook creation resource! A question - what do you think is the best font/size to set the text to in InDesign before exporting to ePub? My research indicated Georgia (because of easy legibility and the availability of italic) but I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

#4

January 08, 2010

Gabriel Powell

If you don't want to alter your book layout, I suggest that you continue using the original fonts and don't embed the fonts when you export the EPUB file. Even if you embed the fonts, many eBook readers ignore them and use their own default font instead. If you want to embed the fonts in the EPUB file, I recommend using Georgia. Not only because its easy to read on screen, but also because it's one of the fonts that is typically available in many eBook readers. As for the size of the font, that doesn't matter so much, because every eBook reader allows you to change the text size. So just choose a size that is large enough to be comfortably read on screen.

#5

January 14, 2010

Jillo

Great video, but I am having some problems. I'm using CS3. How did you get some of your entries in TOC ID file to indent? I crated a page, and indented some of entries using a tab, but the tabs did not carry over. Also, Digital Editions created two TOCs on the left panel. Thanks!

#6

January 15, 2010

Gabriel Powell

@Jillo If you want to create an indent in an EPUB file, apply a left indent to the paragraph instead of inserting a tab. Make sure that the left indent is defined in the paragraph style, otherwise the text won't be indented in the EPUB file.

As for the two TOCs being created in the left panel in Digital Editions, I think that happened because you didn't select Suppress Automatic Entries For Documents in the Contents section of the Digital Editions Export Options dialog box. Make sure it is selected. If you still can't get it to work, click the Ask a Question button at the top of this page to send me an email along with your InDesign file. I can then look into the problem for you.

I hope this helps! Good luck.

#7

January 21, 2010

MagdalenaK

Very nice and informative videos! I am struggling with getting what I want in the template.css. When I export from Indesign CS4, I don't want a color specified for my paragraph styles. How is this done? I know I can manually remove the line from template.css of course, but I would like to be able to create a nice, clean export from Indesign. For every paragraph style, there is a line in template.css color: rgb(0,0,0); Readers who want to invert color on their reading devices (dark background, light font) won't see the text if it is defined as rgb(0,0,0). If I choose Character Colour = none in the paragraph style, I can't see the text in my Indesign-file which is not very practical! I really hope there is a nice and simple solution to this.

#8

January 21, 2010

Gabriel Powell

@MagdalenaK Thanks for bringing my attention to this issue! Unfortunately, there is no way to prevent InDesign from generating the color attribute in the CSS file when you have a color applied to the text. So you either have to edit the CSS file to remove the color attribute, or you have to apply the [None] color swatch to all your text before exporting the EPUB file.

I think it's easier to edit the CSS file, especially if you are using an XML editor that has a Find/Replace feature. Otherwise, you can update all your styles to use the character color of [None] just before you export the EPUB file.