Ever wondered about the EPUB option in your InDesign Export dialog box? Or maybe you’ve been frustrated with the results and are ready to learn more. Erica Jennings will explain how you can take your print document to digital, step by step. Some of the techniques you will learn are: • How to format your InDesign document for EPUB (and convert existing documents) • How to set up paragraph and character styles • How to place images • How to create an interactive Table of Contents • How to export to EPUB • How to edit the EPUB after export • And where to find additional resources and help

2. What is an eBook?
• It is NOT a book.
• There are no pages. It is an infinite scroll. It is a
Geocities website from 1996 that goes on forever and
ever.
• Speaking of 1996, you’ll be limited to very basic HTML.
• You have very little control over how it looks. Let it go.
• Above all, an eBook is accessible, searchable,
interactive, and customizable.

3. Setting Up Your Document
• No page numbers or running heads/footers
• No master page items
• No columns
• You can embed fonts, however, consider that the reader
can always override them
• Font size can also be changed by the reader. It does
stay proportional, for instance if your header is 3 times
bigger than your body copy, it will reflect this when
enlarged or reduced.

4. Setting Up Your Document
• Images are limited in placement; color images will
render in grayscale on black and white ereaders
• Tables will export, however, they do not always
render well on smaller screens
• Hyperlinks, cross references and footnotes all
export
• Embedded audio and video is possible, however,
not all ereaders support this functionality

5. Setting Up Styles
• Single document or book? Separate docs will create
a page break.
• No spreads, doc size of 600px by 800px
• Create a template, or sample chapter, that defines
all of your styles
• Head, subhead, body, image, bold, italic,
hyperlink
• Map your styles to HTML equivalents.

6. Setting Up Styles

7. Setting Up Styles

8. Placing Images
• Make your first page the cover; use an image
600px by 800px (works for both Nook and iPad)
• Place images, callout text, etc. as inline objects,
and include a separate paragraph style for each
type of inline object
• Text wraps are possible but may not render the
way you expect across all devices

9. Hyperlinks
• Possibly the most valuable aspect of an eBook
• Be sure to link not only URLs, but also your
Table of Contents links, index items, footnotes,
and cross references
• Creating links to outside URLs: Highlight your
text and go to Hyperlinks->New Hyperlink

10. Hyperlinks

11. Hyperlinks
• Creating links to destinations within your book: Highlight your text at
the destination and go to Hyperlinks->New Hyperlink Destination.

12. Hyperlinks
• Now highlight your text that will link to the text anchor and go to
Hyperlinks->New Hyperlink.

13. Table of Contents
• Go to Layout->Table of Contents Styles

14. Table of Contents
• Including an inline table of contents is recommended
(Kindle/mobi requires it)
• After you define your ToC style, go to Layout->Table of
Contents, select your TOC style, and click your loaded
cursor into a text frame to create an inline Table of
Contents
• Setting up a ToC style will create a contents dropdown
from within the ereader; having an inline ToC means it is
also present within the text of the book

15. Table of Contents
The ereader
ToC (generated
on export from
your ToC style)
The inline ToC,
created by you
as a page of
the book

16. Add Your Metadata
• Go to File->File Info and enter your
Document Title, Author, Description,
Keywords and Copyright Info
• Time to export! Go to File->Export
and choose EPUB from the dropdown
menu

17. Export to EPUB

18. Export to EPUB
iBooks does not recognize percentages
in the img tag. You will need to adjust
the width for the div that contains the
image in the CSS file.
div.image {width: whatever%}
img
{width: 100%}

19. Export to EPUB

20. Editing the HTML and CSS
• InDesign does most of the work, but you will likely
need to make some HTML and CSS tweaks,
especially when it comes time to export the EPUB to
MOBI.
• Opening your EPUB:
• BBEdit (Mac only)
• oXygen (starting from $488)
• Rename your .epub extension to .zip and extract
the file. Edit files with Notepad++ (PC)

21. Editing the HTML and CSS

22. Resources
•
•
•
•
Twitter: #eprdctn
Elizabeth Castro
• Blog: www.pigsgourdsandwikis.com
• Books: EPUB: Straight to the Point and From InDesign CS5.5 to EPUB
and Kindle
Indesign CS5.5 to EPUB, Kindle and iPad on Lynda.com (Anne Marie
Concepcion)
eBook Architects
• Website: ebookarchitects.com/learn-about-ebooks
• Podcast: www.ebookninjas.com
• Book: Kindle Formatting: The Complete Guide to Formatting Books for
the Amazon Kindle