Bad Headers in InDesign exported EPUB

I've talked about this issue on Twitter, but I've gotten two emails about it this week, and because of installing a new language version of ID bumped up against it myself, so I'm going to write a quick post to make sure that everyone knows:

The first version of InDesign CS 5.5 had a serious bug that exported bad headers to EPUB. Specifically, it inserted an extra space in the DOCTYPE element of each XHTML document:



This error in the DOCTYPE causes all sorts of problems, particularly with special characters, non-breaking spaces (@nbsp;), discretional hyphens (@shy;), etc.

Luckily, Adobe fixed the error right away and has made a free update available for both Macintosh and Windows. If you're using InDesign CS 5.5, I strongly urge you to install the update.

Here's what the proper DOCTYPE should look like:



Now, here's a weird bit of extra info that you'll probably never need. But I did, so you never know. I have both English and Spanish versions of InDesign CS 5.5. I originally installed and then updated the English version. When I installed the Spanish version, it overwrote the English. I updated it as well. Then, when I got sick of navigating in Spanish (and had finished De InDesign CS 5.5 a EPUB y Kindle), I renamed my Spanish ID folder, so as not to lose it, and installed the English version again.

I forgot to update it until yesterday, but when I did, suddenly the English version started coming out in Spanish—Spanish menus, Spanish dialog boxes. It was bizarre. And annoying. I still have no idea how that happened. I was definitely using the English version, and the menus and dialog boxes were definitely in Spanish. Anyways, I really didn't feel like reinstalling the English version again (and wasn't convinced it would help), so I rummaged around the internet (and complained on Twitter) until I found this very helpful post from David Blatner on InDesign Secrets, that explains how to change the interface of your version of ID—even if you don't own the other one. It did the trick and now my English ID is back to English. (I haven't dared open the Spanish ID :)

Thanks to Ester, who reminded me I really needed to write about this.

Hyphenation in NOOK Color

What I really wanted to be writing about today was my new miniguide about, uh, well I'll tell you soon, which is all ready to go, but unfortunately not yet available on my shopping cart site. As soon as it is, I'll announce it here. (It's pretty cool :)

Meanwhile, I've been working a lot with the NOOK Color and noticed that it was mangling my headlines, putting hyphens in even though I don't want them, and even cutting off the end of words sometimes. This despite using the standard CSS hyphen controls that I explained in this article here in February.



The standard CSS for controlling hyphens is not currently supported by NOOK Color, but thankfully, there was a guy from B&N on Mobile Read who offered a solution. Non-standard CSS, but a solution nonetheless. He says you can add:

adobe-text-layout: optimizeSpeed;

in order to force NOOK Color to use an older RMSDK which has a text engine which doesn't do hyphenation.

I added it to the rules for the headers in my book and it worked like a charm:



And it doesn't seem to have a deleterious affect in iBooks (or indeed, any effect at all):