Category Archives: ePUB3

New InDesign update arrives with nice feature upgrades

Skilled Workman Posted on by

The new InDesign update arrives with more than just a bunch of fixes. It gives us new controls for shading and borders in consecutive paragraphs. You can now export a document as individual page PDFs. There are several other things which might interest you. You can find them at Adobe’s What’s New page. Dealing with consecutive paragraphs As you probably recall, if you had shading or borders applied to consecutive paragraphs, you were forced to have a style … Continue reading →

Kindle image size rules change again

Skilled Workman Posted on by

Again, Kindle image size rules change. Not a whole lot, but the new outrageous Kindle image sizes become more understandable. I was reading a Kindle formatting guide, from Amazon, the other day which said full-width images needed to be 3000 pixels wide. This is not that bad. However, in Aaron Shepard’s Publishing Blog today, I read the following paragraphs: But not long ago, I received one of those dread quality notices from Amazon, in this case warning me of … Continue reading →

2018 ebook conversion guide using InDesign CC

Skilled Workman Posted on by

I thought a good way to start the new year would be a 2018 ebook conversion guide. Things changed quite a bit in 2017. Plus, CC 2018 added some handy new features. Remember, I have a seemingly unusual attitude. I believe that spending a lot of time hand-coding a book is a waste of time. The good news is that InDesign CC now works well enough to make writing code unnecessary. 2018 ebook conversion guide As you know, … Continue reading →

The ebook future grows complex

Skilled Workman Posted on by

The ebook future grows complex — more confusing as far as I can tell. Right now in my work, ebook design is being largely constrained by the limits of Kindle. I’ve mentioned this several times. Increasingly Apple ebooks are becoming a problem as the Apple marketers constantly change their marketing lingo. At least monthly, Apple bounces one of my ebooks because I am using what they told me to use, i.e. the iBookstore, and now they don’t … Continue reading →

The stupid Kindle argument continues unnecessarily

Skilled Workman Posted on by

I’ve been fighting the stupid Kindle argument more and more lately. Kindle remains stupid, as far as formatting is concerned. Kindle’s immense list of things which cannot be done remains. Worse yet, they continue to strip out a lot of stuff. I’ve come to do a Kindle version with: HTML lists: InDesign does an excellent job of typesetting lists with custom indents and special bullets. They work fine in ePUBs with embedded fonts, but Kindle ruins them. … Continue reading →

InDesign CC 2018 adds borders to shading

Skilled Workman Posted on by

I’ve waited a long time to write this: InDesign CC 2018 adds borders to shading! This is one I’ve been pushing for over the past decade or so. I was excited when they added paragraph shading. I never could understand why the borders weren’t added at the same time. Regardless, the InDesign team added them for this update. Finally, we have a good sidebar solution for ePUBs This has always been a major hassle in ePUB design. Sidebars simply don’t work … Continue reading →

InDesign CC 2017 whimpers in esoterically, under the radar

Skilled Workman Posted on by

Yes, I said that InDesign CC 2017 whimpers in under the radar. Version 12.0 has very little for me. Your usage may vary. But, this is all a normal part of the process as software matures. And, have no doubt, InDesign is matured—the best in the field. To restate things, InDesign can now do almost anything you need. It’s been that way for me since CC 2014. The result is that the engineering team adds features which apply to smaller … Continue reading →

Briskly: new font release for Fall 2016

Skilled Workman Posted on by

I’ve put this off for years, but it just seemed time. Briskly: new font release is a font made from one sample of my handwriting. An ASCII font (256-character), it will work well for desktop, Web, and ePUB. The only place you will be able to buy it with included ebook licenses is here on this Website. Briskly: new font release is here! There are some interesting aspects to this font. First, some of the characters have a unique slant … Continue reading →

Converting Books to Ebooks with InDesign CC

Skilled Workman Posted on by

Book designers often dread converting books to ebooks — the process of changing a greyscale printed book to various full-color ebooks: downloadable PDFs, ePUB FXL and Reflow, & Kindle books of various flavors from e-ink to large Fire tablet. It often seems a bit like wizard work requiring incantations, lots of smoke, and mirrors. Sad to say, on the Kindle end of things, that’s fairly accurate. Yet things are not as they seem, as InDesign CC has … Continue reading →

Where is the future of books?

Skilled Workman Posted on by

I just posted a link to this article from The Bookseller: stating the digital revolution is definitely not over. Of course, that is one of those DUH! facts. The future of books is even more complex than you may think, though. How do we deal with audio, video, interactive content, and so on? Basically… The future of books is in the readers’ hands We really don’t know where it will go. Is a book, with a movie … Continue reading →