Making Ebooks with InDesign: Module 2, Step 3
Subject(s):
InDesign to EPUB
Resource Type(s):
Step-by-Step
Audience:
Technical
Before reading this, you might want to read:
Hyperlinking internal references in InDesign has always been a bit of work, particularly if you have the fitness of an ebook in mind. The Insert Cross References feature is one way to do it, but it is laborious and the links are only one-way in the ebook. This is also just not an option for something like a books index.
LiveIndex is a paid script that helps with the process. And it works really nicely. Activated from the scripts panel, it has a series of options, and even allows you to ask it to hyperlink everything with a specific character style — which is helpful for roman numerals.
The numbers that are hyperlinked appear with a visible square around them in the InDesign file. In this instance only the numerals under the “N” header are hyperlinked.
It works by placing anchors at the start of the page where the index item is mentioned. So it’s not perfectly precise in that the user won’t get linked to the instance where the word or phrase is used. But it is vastly better than an index that is not linked at all.