ppub to epub, a new beggining

noreply@blogger.com (Damian) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 18:42:00 +0000

I've worked as a typesetter for over 20 years now and all along codes and tags have been a crucial part of typesetting. Paragraph and character style sheets are essential mechanisms, and in recent versions of InDesign, table and object styles.

In the last 12 months, more and more clients have been asking about epubs. What's involved, how do we convert (actually, how much work and how much will it cost), how quick can it be done, how will it affect workflow, etc ? All the time I could see epublishing coming over the horizon, and all the time prodding publishing houses' design and production managers to look carefully at style sheets and try and ensure consistency so that when the time comes, it will be a whole lot easier.

Well the time has come and now epub production is about to start, time to put my mouse where my mouth is. I will be starting a new title (approx 400 pages for tertiary level education) and will have epub in the front of my mind for everything I do for this title.

From the spec design (spec design is done inhouse) I can see that not everything will be epub “compatible”. There are quite side margin boxes, Activity features and icons that are not easily linked to text.

This is going to be quite a mind shift. When typesetting straight for pbook, there are overrides that are a lot easier just to do than make a character style for each variation.

Consistency and structure are going to be key.

Orchard Publishing

ppub to epub, a new beggining