Using Oxygen XML Editor to Edit EPUB Files

October 2009

InDesign CS4 is an excellent tool for creating eBooks in the EPUB format. After laying out a document, choose File > Export for Digital Editions to generate an EPUB version of it. If you set up your document properly, it will be converted into a well-designed eBook. When you need to make changes to your eBook, simply edit the original InDesign document and re-export it. Sometimes, however, there are changes that cannot be made with InDesign. For example, if you want to create an expandable cover image, format a table, add additional metadata, or customize the TOC, you'll need to edit the EPUB file itself.

When I started editing EPUB files, I would manually extract the contents of a file and edit its various components using a simple text editor. After making all the changes, I had to re-archive everything back into an EPUB file. If I wasn't satisfied with a change or if I needed to make more changes, I had to go through the process again. As you can imagine, this method is tedious and time consuming.

I recently discovered that I can significantly speed up the editing process by using Oxygen XML Editor to directly open an EPUB file without having to extract its contents. Oxygen is a cross platform XML editor that provides an amazing set of tools for working with XML content and it makes it easy to work with EPUB files. If you create a lot of eBooks, Oxygen is definitely worth your investment.…

Posted in eBook Publishing

9 Comment(s)