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Template Chooser in iBooks Author

From InDesign to iBooks Author

The tangled toolchain

Can software ever be perfect? Of course not. There will always be the desire for improvement and bug fixing.

Software tools that are most often never perfect are those that need to link up with each other across the vendor divide. We should not complain though. We should make the best of it, and do our best.

Apple have been generous in the latest version of iBooks Author by providing 2 ways that we can get out content from Adobe InDesign into the free 'multi-touch' authoring environment. But, neither of these 2 methods are perfect and we need to develop our skills of patience and perseverance in order to achieve our goals.

I am looking at the following toolchains:

  • InDesign > ePub > iBooks Author Template
  • InDesign > IDML > iBooks Author template > Chapter

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Posted on 05 Mar 2015 around 4pm • Tagged with: Design | eBooks | How to | Publishing | Permanent link to this article

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Page Breaking in the eBook

One of the most significant issues in a re-flowable eBook is to determine how the pages break.

Do you want the chapters to start on a new page? And sub-headings? And would it be a good idea to devote a whole page to a chapter heading?

When using InDesign, getting your pages to break at the right place in the reflowable eBook is a little bit confusing, so maybe this will help. 

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Posted on 08 Mar 2013 around 10am • Tagged with: eBooks | How to | Permanent link to this article

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Using Dreamweaver to Edit ePUB eBooks

If you need to tweak the styles of your ebook created with the iPad in mind then you can (with a bit of magic) set up Dreamweaver as a useful wysiwy(almost)g tool.

Dreamweaver, is, of course a web development and design tool. It will normally handle (x)HTML without any change. It will also allow you to edit other code and even XML. It will not edit the contents of a ZIP file (this is what a normal ePub package is) unless it is unpacked.

So read on to find out what the steps would be.

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Posted on 08 Sep 2011 around 12pm • Tagged with: eBooks | How to | Permanent link to this article

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InDesign to ePUB Problems: Some symptoms and their remedies

Getting InDesign (CS5) to produce a decent ePUB format ebook is so problematic, that I sometimes wonder why we are bothering to use it at all! We could after all, use tools to build the components of the ePUB package by hand coding. Dreamweaver is a possibility and Sigil may also be a way to go.

However, one strategy may be to use InDesign as a starting point and then accept that we need to edit the resultant XHTML and CSS. This is the method that I am using, and I am promoting this method with my students.

After a few frustrating sessions recently, I thought I would note down a list of problems that can be solved. This may not be a comprehensive list...

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Posted on 07 Apr 2011 around 8am • Tagged with: eBooks | How to | Permanent link to this article

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Using PIE to deliver CSS3

CSS3 provides some neat effects, like rounded corners and shadows, but InternetExplorer (before version 9) just ignores these CSS rules.

Is there a way to get Internet Explorer to conform?

Hopefully you are seeing the rounded corners and shadows, even if you are using Internet Explorer, because Jason Johnston has provided a solution and you can find out all about it on his web site: css3pie

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Posted on 04 Feb 2011 around 11am • Tagged with: How to | Ideas | Web Technology | Permanent link to this article

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Adventures with the now Famous HTML5

Episode 1: Video on a Web Page with HTML5

I was hoping to be able to report that adding video to a web page with the new <video> tag brought to us by HTML5, would make life a lot easier. Not yet, it ain't!

I have spent a good deal of time trying to resolve a number of issues.

To a certain extent some of the problems, are my own, since I have legacy material in Quicktime .mov format, and I was reluctant to go back and convert. However, a splendid batch process has resolved this for me...

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Posted on 09 Dec 2010 around 11am • Tagged with: ExpressionEngine | How to | Web Technology | also: HTML5,video Permanent link to this article