eBook Production Screencasts

First things: I am not using the overlays feature of InDesign.

It is not possible to add scrolling text fields in a reflowable ePUB, but with the fixed layout format we can add a text box on a page and include (almost) as much scrolling text as you like.

Here are the instructions to create a vertical scrolling text for the ePUB(Fixed Layout).

We can add a few compleling details to our fixed-layout eBook. Animation and image sequences are useful additions.We know that we can add multimedia (audio and video) to our reflowable eBooks, but in this screencast we add audio that is invoked when we click or touch an object.If we are keen to add video, then we show how to change the poster image from another location within the video.Note: The recipes and some content in this sample eBook work is NOT my own and I am only using for demonstration purposes.

We have already been through making a reflowable eBook; digital native, no intention to make a print version. This meant that we worked in InDesign on single pages, no spreads, and we set the pages up to simulate an iPad view of the finished eBook.If we now want to consider the fixed-layout version, what are our options for this format?

Now we have created seperate IDML files from InDesign we need to import these into an iBooks Author template.We need to understand something about the structure of an iBooks Author file and how this relates to the structure of the content we have in InDesign.This screencast is almost 30 minutes long.... sorry!

iBooks Author provides some ways to get content from InDesign. The best way is to export from InDesign to the IDML format but we need to do this section by section.This first screencast episode shows you how to divide the InDesign file into separated files using a couple of scripts.

When we place audio on the page of a fixed-layout eBook, we cannot expect it to contiunue to play when the page is turned. Simply, each page is a new XHTML document, so audio (or any media) will stop on leaving that page.If we want to get audio to continue to play as we turn the pages, we need to modify the markup inside the ePub package after we have exported from InDesign.

For this episode we look at adding multimedia but give the users some control over the playing of that media rather than just have it play on page load.

In this screencast we look at building the fixed-layout eBook (ePub3) and getting objects to appear on the screen with some animation.We also look at creating a button to make an image appear on the screen.

In this first part of the 3 screencasts we look at the basic issues when creating a Fixed-layout ePub3 from an InDesign book that is already set up for print.What happens to our double page spreads?What shall we do with the half-title page?How can we deliver a fixed landscape view?

Our eBook production workflow involves perfecting for the ePub3 format first by exporting from InDesign and then making minimal adjustments through our own CSS file. Once we have everything ready to go, we can then convert this ePub to the MOBI file for the Amazon Kindle.

We may learn that there are some shortcomings and we may still need to return to the ePub for some adjustments before (once again) using a conversion tool.

Amazon make available the tools for the conversion on the web site here.