<strong>Update (3/Oct/2011): CS5.5 exports links from multiple chapters correctly! </strong>
There was a great discussion about InDesign CS5's links bug this morning on the #eprdctn Tweet chat, hosted by Lindsey Martin (@crych). (Join in by following #eprdctn on TweetChat Wednesday mornings 11am EST.)
Here's the recap:
If you have a multiple document InDesign book with hyperlinks or cross-references that go from earlier chapters to later ones, and export this book to ePub, the links will be malformed, missing the file name portion of the link, and thus will not work.
These failed links generate validation errors from ePubCheck (whose approval is required for acceptance into the iBookstore).
Internal links (within the same document) or links to earlier chapters will continue to work (and are formed correctly, with both file name and fragment identifier).
Links in InDesign books also fail if exported to PDF as Interactive. (Exports to Print PDF work properly as long as Include hyperlinks is checked.)
InDesign CS4 and CS5 do not include the date upon export to ePub, nor have a way to manually enter the date, thus causing validation errors with epubcheck.
This is a major bug and pretty much incapacitates InDesign as a serious ePub generator until it is fixed.
Bug errors have been posted with Adobe, and several InDesign specialists have been notified. Hopefully, Adobe will post a fix soon.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
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Hi Liz,
ReplyDeleteI was so glad when I found that you discovered this too! How can I edit the code to get this working? I'm new to the epub world and thought I was almost done. Any help would be great.
Thanks,
Rick :)
Have you seen the script by Teus de Jong? that's a start, and I've got a number of other tips, all of which I have to write up. Soon, I promise.
ReplyDeleteThanks Liz!
ReplyDeleteI tried the scripts and I'm having the same issue. So maybe what is happening to me is different? I have created an Indesign "book" with 25 individual Indesign docs or "chapters" in it. I have created two tables of contents, one for ereaders that have the side TOC controls (like in Digital Editions) and a regular hyperlinked TOC page for other ereaders and the iPad. It is the later on that doesn't work right. When I test it in Digital editions, the links go no where (they are anchored to the text of the chapter numbers at the beginning of each chapter). On the iPad, I tap the links and it shows the page flip right back to the TOC page?! I checked and rechecked my links and everything looks fine. Does this sound like the same bug you are describing? If so, I used those scripts and have the same issue.
Weird :(
Thanks,
Rick :)
Yes, I believe it is the same issue. It turns out the de Jong script resolves links that go backward and that are in the same document but not those that go forward (really!) So, one solution I'm experimenting with is to consolidate all of my chapters into a single document. But then of course, that creates other problems (no auto chapter numbering, and no xrefs to chapter numbers). (I swear, I will write this all out in a more detailed and less chaotic way... really soon! :)
ReplyDeleteI wish I could say there was a perfect solution right now, but there's not. The solution is for Adobe to come out with an overdue bug fix. FWIW, they do know about the issue.
P.S. Yet another solution is to fix the links by hand, depending on how many you have...
ReplyDeleteThanks Liz!
ReplyDeleteIt's more important for me to get this book in to iBooks asap so I'd love to know what I need to do to fix it by hand. Do I go into the xhtml file? If so what am I looking for?
Thanks so much for your help! I can't wait to buy your book when it comes out!
Rick :)
Ok, so I found the href in the TOC.xhtml file in my book. I see the issue where it is not pointing to the other Indesign docs for the chapters. What is the link supposed to look like? What would I write into the xhtml instead of what's in there?
ReplyDeleteThanks for your help :)
Rick
Sounds like you need my HTML, XHTML, and CSS book :)
ReplyDeleteA link should point to where you want a click to go. If the destination is in an external file, the first part of the href should be the path to that file. You can also append a fragment identifier (#xyz) to jump to a particular place in the destination file.
Wow.... Thanks.
ReplyDeleteI do understand how links work, I'm a web dev. Being new to the ebook world, I just didn't know if there was anything special to the epub file format.
Nope, it's just a glorified XHTML 1.1 file. Links work same as always. (External links often work too, if the ereader can point to a web browser, as can iBooks and ADE, for example.)
ReplyDeletehi liz. we found something yesterday that might help this issue. it has worked for us so far. after generating the epub file through indesign, we run it through sigil where we can add the date and other meta data needed. then we run it through the epub check. we have passed every epub check so far. might be worth a try for some.
ReplyDeleteThanks Signe Nichols. Unfortunately, though you can use Sigil to fix the date, it won't fix the links. I recommend downloading Teus de Jong's script.
ReplyDeleteI have a single InDesign CS5 file in which I am using the TOC to split up the document into separate chapters. Once I starting using the TOC-splitting option, links to chapters stopped working. With this thread I found the script of Teus, which fixes the issue. Thanks for the advice!
ReplyDeleteIn contrast to one of the above statements however, this fixed forward links as well in my publication.
I'm working on a book and strugging a little with not being able to link to pagers further into the book and only link to earlier pages, as mentioned above. I want to create an info page which is linked to from text links below photographs, the only way I can get this working at the moment is to have the info page at the very start of the book.
ReplyDeleteTo make this work does anyone know if it's possible to set up the start page on a book so it is not the first document, and is the cover, which is one document from the start now.
Sorry if this sounds really confusing, I have been trying to get my head round ePubs for a few days and it all seems very convoluted. Will get there in the end though.
Thanks for your time.
Andrew
@Andrew: Is there any way to keep all of your text in a single document? In that case, the links will work in all directions (as they should). Or you can always fix them by hand: how many are there?
ReplyDeleteHi Liz,
ReplyDeleteThanks for you help, I have had a go at building the thing in one document, but I find I have so little control over the epubs layout, I try to set the paragraph styles to make text 'Start Paragraph" 'on next page' but when I view the exported document it disregards this. I'm wanting to create a kind of photo book of my work, and have one or 2 pictures to a page, but I can't seem to work out how to stop it all piling up. At least by having all the seperate documents in a book, I can have one or 2 images to a document and some order to the epub. Have you got any thoughts or know any tutorials which give guidence on this kind of thing?
Many thanks,
Andrew
I recently picked up your new EPub book and currently trying to inform my peers (Gov. publication dept.) of how we can be using InDesign to offer epub digital format, on top of our current .pdf and paper (eek) books. I am surprised that CS5 doesn't do a better job, or that Adobe hasn't updated the export features. It's going to hard to sell to my dept. to offer to digital book publication at this point with the amount of extra labor needed to massage the epub file(s) into some thing presentable to the public. I am trying to understand the InDesign to Epub format process enough to explain to my book editors where in their book layout process (using Indesign CS5) they can save/export to epub, for some one on our web dev. staff to continue adjusting the book, and what steps they would have to consider in re-styling the pub with css.
ReplyDeleteAlso have you or others here had much luck using Calibre, http://calibre-ebook.com/ , I've recently been look into its abilities, due to it currenly being a free, open source app.
<<finds a quiet corner to read "EPUB", maybe take notes and a highlighter to the book.
Hello all. I recently downloaded CS5 because I thought it would give me better tools for the epub I'm working on. The "export as epub" is missing. I've re-installed the software and updated it, but when I click on "export as" it's blank. Has anyone else encountered this? Adobe is closed this weekend and I've just wasted about 8 hours on it.
ReplyDelete@Julie: I have not experienced that. I just asked about it on Twitter... Bob Levine @idguy says "Make sure all menu items are visible"
ReplyDelete@Julie And @tinahender says 'It's just in a slightly different place. CS4 has "Export to Digital Editions." CS5 has "Export for" - "EPUB"'
ReplyDeleteAnd @amarie says "Tell her to look for File > Export For menu (diff. than in previous versions); or may need a re-install, it's a script"
I'll let you follow the rest on Twitter directly (you can search for @lizcastro, since they're ccing me)
Has this bug been resolved in CS5.5? I currently have an InDesign "book" with many chapters and many internal links that, of course do not work. I am planning on fixing them manually, but would rather shell out the $ for CS5.5 if it works.
ReplyDeleteThanks Liz!