For those curious about what the book will cover, I offer you the (current and tentative) Table of Contents, which is pretty close to final. However, since I tend to tweak things right up til the end, I can't guarantee that I won't add a few more things, especially to the "Advanced Formatting" chapter. It's also possible that page restraints will relegate the "Adapting plain text for ePub" section to my blog, though I had a great time putting GREP through its paces.
The print edition will be published and distributed by Peachpit Press, and is already available for pre-order on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
There will also be an ePub edition, which will take full advantage of the very techniques discussed in the book itself, which will be available from all the aforementioned websites, as well as my own.
You can follow me on Twitter for all the latest news about my book, and about ePub production (#eprdctn) in general!
Table of Contents for ePub: Straight to the Point
Introduction
Print vs. ebook vs. website
Static vs. Dynamic
Appearance
How it’s read
The order of things
Formats, durability, and batteries
Searchability
Highlighting and sharing passages
Copy protection
Buying new books
What is an ePub document?
Navigating a sea of ereaders
Anatomy of an iPad page
Getting your eBook content
Using public domain content
Dealing with plain text
What about rights?
Using Word to write ePub
Styling your Word document
Setting up styles in Word
Applying styles
Saving Word files as HTML
Preparing HTML files for ePub
Using a text editor
Declaring the file to be XHTML, not HTML
Moving style data to its own file
Declaring the language used
Adding quotation marks around attributes
Using InDesign to create ePub
Creating an InDesign document
Creating a template for your InDesign files
Creating your styles
Loading existing styles
Cleaning up and saving the template
Organizing the InDesign files with an InDesign Book
Adapting plain text for ePub
Removing extra returns
Removing extra spaces
Converting plain text formatting to styles
Converting double dashes to em dashes
Applying styles to the book
Applying the main Body style
Applying headers, quotes, and other special styles
Replacing local formatting with styles
Drop Caps and Nested Styles
Adding images
Placing an image
Creating text wrap within the flow
Adding links
Creating a style for links
Hyperlinks
Cross-references
Creating a table of contents menu
Preparing your book in order to create the table of contents menu
Creating a Table of Contents Style
Adding Metadata to your ebook
Exporting ePub from InDesign
Exporting ePub from InDesign CS4
Exporting ePub from InDesign CS5
Inside an ePub file
Unzipping an ePub
The files that make up an ePub
The mimetype file
The META-INF folder
The OEPBS folder
XHTML and CSS files
The toc.ncx file for the table of contents
Writing the content.opf file
Creating the cover
Zipping and testing
Organizing files before rezipping
Rezipping after edits
Getting the new ePub file to the iPad
Further editing, rezipping, and testing
Validating your ePub file
Advanced ePub Formatting
Cleaning up InDesign ePub files
How InDesign writes XHTML
How InDesign writes CSS
Making sure ereaders use your CSS
Fonts in your ebook
The Palatino Bug
Specifying fonts by name
Specifying fonts by style
Specifying alternate fonts
Ornaments, dingbats, and symbols
Using non-English fonts
Embedding fonts
Drop caps and small caps
Having CSS mark the first letter and line
Tagging the first letter and first line explicitly
Controlling spacing
Controlling indents
Dealing with short lines
Borders and backgrounds
Creating a sidebar
Hyphenation
Adding soft hyphens
Using left-aligned text
Working with images
Size
Wrapping text around images
Wrapping text around sidebars
Creating links
Creating tables
Video in your ebook
Creating your video
Adding code for the video
Liz, I've already ordered this book, but wouldn't it make sense to talk about how to construct a source file directly in XHTML? Instead of using Word or InDesign as the primary program and then spending a lot of time fixing the file -- which seems very roundabout -- why not use Dreamweaver?
ReplyDeleteI'm still exploring the best options for workflow, but right now it's looking like this: If starting from InDesign, export to RTF. If starting with Word, stick to Word. Open either file in the Mac's TextEdit and export to XHTML 1.1 with no CSS. Yes, strip out all styles.
Then open that in Dreamweaver and apply styles based on minimal, custom CSS. Finally, import the XHTML file into ecub (which Apple itself recommends) or Jutoh (the more full-featured version of ecub) for epub packaging. It can even generate a Kindle file at the same time.
One thing that keeps me from writing directly in Dreamweaver is lack of smart quotes support. But it might be worth it even so. Anyway, the point is that XHTML 1.1 is the language of epub, and the more directly you can work with that, the less hassle and the more controllable the process.
Hi Aaron. Thanks for your comments, and thanks for ordering my book. I hope you find it useful.
ReplyDeleteThere are two principal reasons why I chose to focus on InDesign as a principal means of creating an ebook. First and foremost, most books have a print edition as well as an electronic edition. InDesign lets you do both.
Second, constructing an ePub in XHTML directly, by hand, is a drag. I'm a hand-coder by preference, and I'm telling you, it's just not that fun. I vote for letting InDesign do the busy work—especially, if a print edition already exists or needs to exist.
Notwithstanding those two points, I'm intrigued about the use of Dreamweaver as an ePub tool and have heard people use it for working on ePubs (over a text editor) simply because it's part of the package. I'll definitely be doing some work in this area in the future.
One more thought. My book *does* contain all the info you need to write your XHTML and CSS, and particularly the toc.ncx and content.opf files by hand, precisely because I like to do that sort of thing.
ReplyDeleteHi Liz,
ReplyDeleteI work in digital publishing and of course I'm very interested in your book! I don't see any Canadian sites listed and I'd like to buy the epub version of the book. Will your book be available in Canada?
Thanks,
Emma
emma_cunningham@harlequin.ca
Yes, it will be available in Canada. As soon as I know where, I'll post it. And yes, there will be an ePub version... I'll post that too once I have a link. Thanks for your interest!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Liz. I don't intend to try to hand code all the epub files, but I figure the primary XHTML file can't be any more complex than coding a Web page -- and I've been using "literary" styles on my Web site for about a decade -- smart quotes, indented paragraphs and all. Once I get the primary file, ecub will generate the others. So, I'm glad you're including that info.
ReplyDeleteMy take on the InDesign issue is that print publishers are NOT going to be the majority of epub publishers. Instead, you're going to see an influx of self publishers who have never published in print at all. To buy and learn InDesign, with its arcane print technology, high cost, and steep learning curve, will be way beyond what would be sensible for these people to invest.
At the same time, InDesign CS5 doesn't even seem to do a very good job of generating epub files, at least from my initial tests. Italics, for instance, are lost unless you're embedding fonts, because InDesign creates them with separate fonts instead of stylings. And my test conversions didn't even pass epubcheck.
By the way, my start in HTML was with your book on HTML 4. We've all evolved a long way since then, but that book is still on my shelf!
Aaron... we've taken an approach like yours; we build the content in WordPress (or any decent Web CMS, really), then build the ePub out of the XHTML. We also transform the XHTML into IDML (XML file format for InDesign since CS4), so we're able to go to InDesign as an output format, rather than as a content-development format -- for text-heavy books, this makes more sense, as far as I can see.
ReplyDeleteFor an example, see http://tkbr.ccsp.sfu.ca/bookofmpub
Book is available for preorder in Canada from amazon.ca.
ReplyDeleteLindsey
Aaron,
ReplyDeleteInDesign CS5 will export italic and bold without embedded fonts but one must apply these effects using a character style. This generates, e.g., class="italic" (in a span element). Whether this is clean code or will be rendered consistently by all reading systems is another question.
I think you are wrong about how quickly established publishers, who have hitherto been publishing in print, will become a minority of epub publishers. They have enormous backlists that they are now gearing up to convert for digital publication and distribution. But, you are certainly right that self-publishers who are not going to publish in print have no need to buy and learn InDesign. And, in the long run, publishers of all sizes and types will need to adopt a system like that described by John.
Lindsey, there's a difference between producing a majority of books and forming a majority of publishers. There are many, many times more self publishers and micro publishers than mid-size or large commercial publishers -- and the largest commercial publishers aren't likely to be waiting for Liz's book anyway.
ReplyDeleteI doubt very much that anywhere near the majority of Liz's audience is going to be InDesign users. Word will probably be the biggest, and InDesign will have to split the rest with OpenOffice, TeX, Apple Pages, Dreamweaver, and many more. The biggest need, though, is for hands-on info, because there's a high level of frustration with the poor formatting that comes with automated conversion.
Maybe my view is slanted, though, because I'm a small publisher (and DIY Web designer) myself.
Many, many thanks for not writing a book on "how to construct a source file directly in XHTML." Most of us aren't masochists. Your focus on Word and inDesign is where the interests of the great majority of writers and publishers lie. Our desire lies in making the content we create look good. I'm looking forward to getting your book, particularly the ID parts.
ReplyDeleteOnce this project is out of the way, you might want to take a look at a highly popular writer's tool called Scrivener.
http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.html
Right now, it's Mac-only, but a Windows version is under consideration. It matters, because the 2.0 version, due out in the fall, will include direct export to ePub. If the developer can pull that off, it could mean that there will be one application that could take writers from a rudimentary outline to an almost publishable ebook.
@Inkling Thanks for the tip. I think Scrivener looks really interesting (I keep telling myself I'll write fiction one day), and I didn't know they were going to include Export to EPUB. Awesome.
ReplyDeleteThere's also Storyist. Do you know it? It looks interesting too.
And yes, constructing all those files purely in XHTML is too much, even for a hand-coder like me.
I am looking forward to buying your book. I just bought your book on (X)HTML on the Kindle app (I read it on my Kindle, too) and I am really enjoying it.
ReplyDeleteOne question: Will you be going into detail in this book about what kind of CSS iPad supports? I just tried making a "list-style-image: url('flower.png');" and it didn't work. It would really be a big time saver if you had a list as to what iBooks supports.
I thought you might want to know before I bought your book as e-book I was deciding between yours and CSS - The Missing Manual. I downloaded samples of both, and it was an easy choice. Yours was clearly well prepared for an e-book, while CSS The Missing Manual was obviously batch converted and looked horrible.
Hello,
ReplyDeleteI have been looking for a book on creating epubs so I plan to buy it. I am primarily a hobbyist so all the attention apparently paid in the book to InDesign is also a disappointment to me.
One application that I think will be my preferred word processor is Atlantis since the html that it exports is "cleaner" than Word, plus the fact I can save in the epub format and then later open it in Sigil if I want to modify it further--or alternatively unzip and open the html files in Dreamweaver.
@purcelljf You'd find Chapters 3 and 4 useful. They deal with the nuts and bolts of EPUB and how to write XHTML and CSS to get the most out of it.
ReplyDeleteHi Liz, I am reading the book, it is great. But I miss some info about rezipping the epub the correct way for a non Mac user. Is there any detailed advice about that that you can suggest me? I use Winrar but I am not sure about the right way and order to add the files.
ReplyDeleteHi Alex: The way I describe in the book is for all platforms, from the command-line. Are you having problems with it?
ReplyDeleteHi
ReplyDeleteFist of all, I'm sorry my English is not to good, bat it is not may native language. I'm Portuguese.
I bought your book and read it all. It has been most helpful for me to start learning how to publish eBooks.
I'm converting Adobe Indesign files to digital editions. Everything is working well except for one situation. I've made a TOC that referenced to all chapters in one Indesign file. The problem is that I've made a manual content page in the beginning of the book but it does not work. All links I've created seem to link to the content page(?).
So I've tried to make this in another way: Fist I've created the cross references links and footnotes and then published the epub file. All was working well. After that I've created the TOC and I was back to square one. I have a working TOC but no other links.
Do you have any idea what I am doing wrong?
Is this a CS5 bug?
I've followed all the steps on your book, but it is just not working...
Thanks in advance.
Best Regards
Miguel Veloso