Ebook conversion guide
Hello. I thought people might be interested in this excellent guide to converting your books to ebook format (from InDesign magazine):
Part 1
Part 2
It's not easy to do, rather tedious, but this talks you through the process clearly. The key is setting up the file neatly and efficiently the first time through in InDesign.
Dan Kohan
Sensical Design
Part 1
Part 2
It's not easy to do, rather tedious, but this talks you through the process clearly. The key is setting up the file neatly and efficiently the first time through in InDesign.
Dan Kohan
Sensical Design
Tags: InDesign, book, ebook, production
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by JustYourType.biz Book Designer on -
Hi Dan,
This is quite a tedious process and it drops Master Page items completely and "rearranges" side bars and other non-running text.
Have you had much success in using this process and if so, for which types of readers?
Thanks very much for posting this.
Sue Balcer
JustYourType.biz Book Design
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Permalink Reply by Dan Kohan on -
Yes, it's certainly not easy. The article has some really useful tips, like anchoring the sidebars into the text so they show up in the right place. And you definitely still need to go into the XML and clean it up. This gets you to epub format, which can then be converted to Kindle, and which the iPad will use.
Have you found any tools that make this easier?
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Permalink Reply by JustYourType.biz Book Designer on
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I have not and will probably continue to do as I do now, creating the low res pdf version that I currently use for my clients.
I would like to branch out into ebooks more, though, so this article will be of great help for when I do.
Right now my focus is on design and typesetting but ebooks are all the rave now so I need to go another round of updating my skills(!)
Personally, I don't like reading books on a screen - I like the book-in-hand myself - and a well-stock bookshelf or two, or three.... but as a professional book designer I have to cater to my clients.
Again, thanks for posting all that great info - it's the most comprehensive I have seen.
Sue
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Permalink Reply by Theresa M. Moore on -
It sounds no more tedious than rendering DOC files for Smashwords consumption, which is extremely low res and archaic in light of the formatting needed for iPad and other full color readers. I'll study these. Thanks.
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