3.1 Exporting an Ebook

Making Ebooks with InDesign: Module 3, Step 1

  • Subject(s):

    InDesign to EPUB

  • Resource Type(s):

    Step-by-Step

  • Audience:

    Technical

Suggested Prerequisite

Before reading this, you might want to read:

TOC Styles

Having done the work to structure a book with titles, headers, and subheaders, it’s time to pull that structure into a navigation document. The way to do that from InDesign is to create a TOC Style. Found under Layout —> Table of Contents Styles, this is where users organize their content into navigable parts, chapters, and subsections. 

The Layout drop-down menu is activated and Table of Contents Style is highlighted in blue.

It works by pulling paragraph styles into a list. In this case of simple sample content, the chapter number (cn) and subheader styles (H2) are pulled from the “Other Styles” list into the “Include Paragraph Styles” list. 

The TOC Styles menu with the styles CN and H2 pulled through to include paragraph styles in the table of contents.

When including the TOC as an inline list in the content, it’s also possible to assign paragraph styles, and specifics about the page numbers and styles here. 

One note: be sure to check Make text anchor in source paragraph so that all elements are hyperlinked as expected. If you have soft paragraph returns in the headers in your file, you can also check Remove Forced Line Break

Pointing to this TOC style when the ebook is exported results in the following navigation for this Peter Pan book. I will show you how to close the loop, so to speak, on TOC styles when you export the EPUB. 

Screenshot from Adobe Digital Editions of the table of contents navigation rolled down so we can see the listings.

Next Steps

1

Module 3, Step 2

3.2 InDesign EPUB Export Options

Making Ebooks with InDesign: Module 3, Step 2

Subject(s): InDesign to EPUB
Resource Type(s): Step-by-Step
Audience:
Technical
2

Module 3, Step 3

3.3 HTML & CSS

Making Ebooks with InDesign: Module 3, Step 3

Subject(s): InDesign to EPUB
Resource Type(s): Step-by-Step
Audience:
Technical
3

Module 4, Step 1

4.1 Post-export Work

Making Ebooks with InDesign: Module 4, Step 1

Subject(s): InDesign to EPUB
Resource Type(s): Step-by-Step
Audience:
Technical
4

Module 4, Step 2

4.2 EPUB Tour

Making Ebooks with InDesign: Module 4, Step 2

Subject(s): InDesign to EPUB
Resource Type(s): Step-by-Step
Audience:
Technical
5

Module 4, Step 3

4.3 What InDesign Doesn’t Do Well

Making Ebooks with InDesign: Module 4, Step 3

Subject(s): InDesign to EPUB
Resource Type(s): Step-by-Step
Audience:
Technical
6

Module 4, Step 4

4.4 HTML Cleanup

Making Ebooks with InDesign: Module 4, Step 4

Subject(s): InDesign to EPUB
Resource Type(s): Step-by-Step
Audience:
Technical

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