From my workshop at PePcon 2014, a how to on creating fixed-layout ebooks both from scratch, and using Adobe InDesign's brand-new FXL export option.

1. Creating
Fixed-Layout
EPUBs
(Starting slowly)

2. Goals
• Clear understanding of the format
• A good sense of where, when, why
• How to bake your own
• Ideas for how to enhance with grace
• A little about the various tools
• How to best use the new ID FXL export

3. How FXL ebooks are made
http://lifenebooks.tumblr.com/post/53204914234/how-ebooks-are-created

4. What is Fixed Layout?
• Print-replica format
• Absolutely positioned text overlays on image
backgrounds
• Text size cannot be changed
• Layout holds its shape, with very little device
fragmentation

5. Structure
• Very similar to reflowable
epub – same basic ingredients
• One HTML per page/spread
• CSS contains positioning

6. Where
• iBooks: iPads and on Desktop
• Kobo iOS and Android
• Google Play
• Kindle KF8*

7. When
• Children’s picture books
• Manga/Digital comics/Graphic novels
• Heavily illustrated non-fiction

8. Cautions
• Be sure to serve your content
• Check your digital comfort level when opting
for this format
• Refer back to “Where”
• Smaller distribution channels

9. More Cautions
• Opposite of responsive
• Text-heavy pages are going to give you device
fragmentation headaches
• Confusing consumer experience
• Expensive to produce

10. https://xkcd.com/927/

11. Diversity of the spec
• Apple/Kobo/Google FXL epub
• Kindle KF8-MOBI
• Barnes & Noble ePib
• And, until recently, Sony epub3 format

12. Some Non-fiction Samples
• Just Another Day
• Draw Out the Story

15. Three main parts of FXL
• One HTML file per page
• Viewport
• Metadata

16. Structure of the HTML

17. The CSS behind it

19. Viewport
• Defines the size and aspect ratio of the page
• An artifact of the print trim size
• Defined in the header, the CSS and must
match background image size

21. Metadata
• Key difference, forces the device to render the
epub differently
• Make sure the orientation serves the content

22. Spine <meta property=“ibooks:binding”>
false</meta>

23. Metadata in EPUB2
• Viewport definitions are the same

24. Images
• 3.2 million pixels limit in iBooks
• Double pixel depth of viewport for pinch-and-
zoom
• Scaled via the CSS
• Avoid flattening text into the image
• Mind your alt text

25. Workflow1: prep
• Duplicate the ID file
• Fonts?
• Add in covers, endpapers, marketing pages as
required
• Edit out print-specific material from copyright
page

26. Workflow: Text1
• Add a header to
each page, set that
text to “break epub
here”, export to
reflowable to get
one HTML file per
page

27. Workflow: Text 2
• Children’s titles that will have MO:
– Text into something like TextWrangler with line breaks
– Mark the end of the line (xxx)
– Put each word on it’s own line
– Number the lines
– Use the following find/replace:
(d+) (.*?)(xxx)*r with
<span id="W1">2</span> 3

28. Workflow: Text 2 (cont’d)
• Replace xxx with r and you have the shape
back
• Using an HTML template for your book, create
the pages from your tagged text file

29. HTML Template

30. Workflow: Images
• Save-as
• Delete all the live text boxes
• Output the ID file as a series of JPEGs, sRGB,
150dpi
• Name in a simple manner: ISBN? Page
number?
• Use PNG only when you require transparency

31. Workflow: OPF
• List each HTML/image in the <manifest>
• Order them in the <spine>
• Adjust metadata
• Add fonts, media to the <manifest>
• Point container.xml to OPF

32. Workflow: CSS
• Dupe the ID file one more time
• Delete all artwork, empty frames etc., until
nothing but live text frames are left
• Run Rorohiko’s CSS Geometry script to get the
page <div> CSS for the positioning

34. Workflow: CSS2
• Remembering viewport definitions from
earlier, write the CSS
• Simple, minimal – similar to reflowable CSS in
tone, clarity
• iBookstore Asset Guide says to avoid
fractional definitions, to define font size in
pixels not ems
• Fonts must be embedded

36. SVG
• Use sparingly per
Asset Guide and
accessibility best
practices
• For type on a curve
• Include a fallback
• MO highlights may
not work

38. FXL QA
• iBooks
• Kobo iOS and Android
• Readium (Chrome app)
• Google Play
• Test on device, not just in emulators!

40. Read Aloud
• Syncing chunks of audio to highlight along
with chunks of text
• Need an .m4a
• Use Audacity to
demarcate chunks
of the soundtrack

41. Audio Sync
• Export tagged chunks
to a txt file
• Number the lines
• Regex:
^(d*)s(.*?)t(.*?)t
to
<par id="par1">r<text src="filename.xhtml#W1”/>r<audio
src="audio/filename.m4a" clipBegin="2s" clipEnd="3s"
/>r</par>

42. • Add a little header text and you have your
SMIL file. Ta da!

43. Okay, it’s tedious
• Liz Castro’s Read Aloud Miniguide is very
helpful
(www.elizabethcastro.com/epub/)
• An automated audio/text synchronization
tool, in beta: https://readbeyond.it/sync/

44. OPF Changes
Your epub2 will no longer pass validation!

45. Audio Styling
• Customize the CSS
on a page-by-page
basis if you want
• Kobo support is varied – no highlight
customizing in Android; use CSS kobo-smil-
highlight for custom colour in iOS
• Read-aloud highlighting can be micro or
macro – at the word, sentence or page level

47. Other Audio
• Ambient soundtracks are possible in iBooks:
<audio epub:type="ibooks:soundtrack"
src="audio/soundtrack.mp4"/>
• Controls will automatically appear but
additional start and stop buttons can be made
for iBooks

49. Javascript
• Simple animations, small interactivities
• Call it in the HTML header, list it in the
<manifest>
• Good support from iBooks, Kobo iOS, Kobo
Android

51. Plug-Ins
Aquafadas:http://www.aquafadas.com/en/
Rorohiko’sEpubCrawler:www.rorohiko.com/wordpress/manuals/fixed-layout-epub-assistant-in-indesign-epubcrawler/
Flipick:http://production.flipick.com/
CircularFlo:http://www.circularsoftware.com/home-us/
ZooDigital’sZEBtool:http://www.zoodigital.com/who-we-work-with/publishers/
EasyPress:www.easypress.com/markets/book-publishers#
TigerCreate: tigerbooksmedia.com/
PubCoder: http://www.pubcoder.com/
Booqlab: http://booqlab.com/
Magic Epub: http://magicepub.com/home

52. But but but
• An hour or so ago, creating an FXL epub got a
lot easier

53. • This is big.
• Beautiful, clean,
pixel-perfect
layouts directly
out of InDesign

54. Things You Should Know
• Exports word-level positioning controls with
inline styling at <div> and word level.
• The HTML includes inline styling and
positioning.

57. Basics of Layout
• Clean layouts still matter (stern look) but,
well, not so much.
• Structure still matters
• Good typography habits matter a lot
• White space via em-, en-, or tabs won’t export
(as expected)

58. What?

59. Fonts
• Fonts must be available for packaging
• Only OpenType and TrueType fonts can be
used
Also: kerning is not supported on individual
characters

60. Some tips and tricks
• Rules and box outlines won’t come out at the
same thickness

61. • Layers and transparency are tricky.

62. • Unlike reflowable
epub, master page
items will come
through: folios,
running heads, any
drawn page items
that will be on each
page.

63. • Editing the code is hard

64. Best practices
• No sketchy typography practices
• Set up the ID file, deal with layers and
transparencies, and iterate from the file
• Especially for long documents, a clean
navigation file will make your life easier

65. Hyperlinks
• At present, cross-references, indexing, and
hyperlinks are not supported.

66. Beware the z-index
• The z-index property specifies the stack order of an
element.
• An element with greater stack order is always in
front of an element with a lower stack order.
• Note: z-index only works on positioned elements
(position:absolute, position:relative, or
position:fixed).

68. Final notes
• Conversion to KF8-FXL from this epub export
will be difficult
• Without word-level IDs applied to the <span>,
adding media-overlays will be tricky
• Revision is best achieved by re-running the
entire file – single CSS for the whole
document

69. Thanks!
Twitter: @LauraB7
laura@bradytypesetting.com