Adobe ebook writing

You need to add the tentative number of pages in your eBook and create Master layouts with common imagery for the eBook. So, get going with adding static images, text, and placeholders for animations, interactions, simulations, and videos. Adobe Captivate 7 is a great tool to create simulations and interactive eLearning content. You can leverage this tool to make your eLearning truly interactive. Watch this short tutorial to follow along the procedure and learn about the best practices for creating interactions and simulations for eBooks:.

Videos can add life to your eBook. You can add demonstrations in the form of videos. Watch this last video in the series to learn how to publish a folio using Folio Builder in InDesign:. Feeling inspired to create an interactive eBook? I would love to know your thoughts and ideas.

Do leave a comment here to keep the conversation on…. How interactive can we make a book? For example, could we make an image of a dragon in a childrens e-book pop out if clicked on, or perhaps be able to draw on the pages of a e-coloring book? Could we potentially get a copy of the finished product? Very interesting and it caught my attention.

Bookmarking your article which will probably be my guide. Thank you very much. Cloudi5 Click Here. Also, for the extreme novice, which software should be learned prior to using InDesign? And nice presentation. But I have one doubt again and again. How to make a responsive Ebook without coding. We are revising a massive, multi-chapter handbook for field professionals in early childhood special education to use either online or print out, and we would appreciate your suggestions for the best software in which to create the document.

The handbook is not particularly complicated: One volume of approximately pages will be narrative text with pages that enable users to make notes online. A second volume will be a collection of pdfs and other files for use as reference. Both volumes will contain live links to a variety of web-based resources resource centers, regulations, etc.

An additional challenge is that the document be accessible to the visually impaired—that is, compliant with Section of the Rehabilitation Act of requiring that federal agencies make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities.

The handbook sections will be posted for access and download on two websites. Some users will access and use the document on their mobile devices; others will print and keep it in binders as a desk reference and training resource.

The text originates in Microsoft Word, and we originally planned to format the handbook in InDesign, save it as a pdf, create writable pages in Acrobat and add them to the pdf. We also use Captivate extensively for our online course modules and considered creating the handbook in ebook format. This interactive eBook was created for iPad only. Dear Dr. Pooja, Thanks for the videos above. These forms are available on a live website that end user fills up.

We record information like name of person, residence, use drop down eto select certain preferences etc. While creating an eLearning course for my users, i want to provide them an experience by which they should be able to practice filling up this form on a module that is created with captivate on a dummy screen, rather than visiting the live website.

Can you guide me regarding the same or let me know a video or some other source where this has been shared. Thanks in advance for the help. Hi i have an ask for you. Are they joking with me??.

Thank you so much. Hi Pooja thank you so much for your e-book guide. Very useful, interesting and inspiring :. Is there any possibility to insert also learning objects? I was just wondering because I am collecting some ideas for an e-book. Hi Pooja, thanks a lot for the prompt reply ; Actually I was planning to create an interactive course of Italian for Japanese people and if the thing goes well… I really hope so…. I would like to present some situations of real life in Italy and explain how to use the language within that situation…..

And, at this point 3 option buttons would show up…. I found some websites where you can register and create your own learning objects but I am not sure if you can save them in a format that in-design supports. Pooja thank you for taking us by the hand and gently leading us through a complex process but making it look simple.

Others use the term inspiring…and they are right. I am grateful you are on video as some of the steps were easier than others. It helps to be able to pause or rewind…as I remember to breathe and try again. Thank you for your willingness to patiently teach us.

Hi, i have written a book on current affairs of the world, and now wish to publish as ebook. Yes, you can. You can create an interactive PDF eBook for sure. The biggest question I have is what is the difference between publishing the ebook to DPS versus just exporting it to an epub file? Second, I created a print booklet using indesign, and now it needs to be converted to an interactive ebook. Do I need to recreate the booklet and adjust the set-up for Digital Publishing?

The major differences between DPS versus exporting to epub is, with DPS you will get broad interactivity more user engaging content , mp4 video support, high fidelity output. DPS provides you interactivity and rich media display, eschewing flexibility in display for immersive and engaging design. Whereas EPUB provides you limited interactivity, very less support for video depends on device , and the layout depends on the device.

Yes, a print booklet created in Indesign needs to be converted for Digital Publishing, with the use of Folio Overlays Panel in Indesign.

Great tutorials! I have one question: can the video be auto played, so one does not have to press play? Thanks so much. I am representing a publishing company which I have already created the ebooks on an indesign and export it to an epub format.

I want to get it animated,can I import indesign or epub format inside the adobe captivate for animation? I have absolutely no knowledge of coding… will I be able to create an ebook without it? And just to clarify… the resulting ebook can be uploaded to itunes for approval to sell? Also, I do still have some text editing to do, but also have photos and possibly maps, lists of military acronyms, indexes, etc. I do have experience in DW and PS, which are also steep learning curves, but have been able to launch three successful websites nonetheless.

TIA for any input and advice! For print, InDesign CS2 will do great! But there were still major issues. You could not embed fonts, include a table, or do a decent list.

With CC, font and lists now work easily with a direct export. Tables will still need more time and future releases.

For graphics, Word is a disaster. In a few words: Go for InDesign! That should be coming within a year or so. So, that gives you a year to get up to speed. I am wrestling with the learning curve as we type. This is a bit of a tough setup. I now have to familiarize myself with the paragraph and character styles and Master Pages and Lord knows what else before I can even think about proceeding with the nuts and bolts.

I know in the long run I am better off switching now, before I get further along with Word. Not to be overlooked is the fact that there are intricasies in learning advanced Word too, which, at least for me at this point in my journey, would be time ill spent when I could be applying myself to learning the intricasies of ID.

I publish an e-zine for kindle. I enjoy the process of putting books together. However, I am in the process of moving towards publishing booklets with a sadle stich binding. Does InDesign have a function that corrects for margin creep so that when I execute the trim cut, the margins come out perfect?

Hi William, You take me way back to when I was an art director for a large commercial printer. I just went and checked. InDesign CC still has a command at the bottom of the File menu called Print Booklet… it has a creep setting for 2-up saddle stitch.

If you are using signatures larger than 4-pages, the printing company will do the adjusting with their imposition software. OK everyone I have read your comments, but for the rest of us that are working on a product with lots of photos, graphics, and text, and is on a very tight budget, and is limited to MSPublisher, MSWord, Acrobat, PS Elements…. Such a joy to see so many constructive inputs.

I first published about 12 years ago and had a very bad experience — spending a lot of money on the advice of people I trusted only to discover that the project never had a hope. I got to the end feeling great excirement only to find it did not work. So back to the drawing board. Thanks to all those who have shared their wisdom so this beginner can have the courage to fall over again — and again and..

There is a lot to learn. I am student doing a distance learning design course and I have indesign l am attempting to write a study booklet on teaching English. Some content will be copied and pasted, but im planning on making the format and layout as interesting and easy to follow as possible, with tables, lesson planning, tasks, games etc. I would also like to create an e-version in time. I am a beginner, which of your books would be most suitable as a guide.

I would recommend the new book. The reviews have been good. Let me know if you have any questions. Ive just purchased both of the books but not the second edition you mentioned, I looked at that and thought it perhaps in advance for my project.

Thanks for your help and I am looking forward to the books and starting work on indesign. In your experience how long do you think it would take someone to utilise and organise indesign if a person is still learning the proposed content for the publication. It answers all the basic questions you seems to be asking.

My book assumes you know a little. I have one for CS6, one for CC 9. Hey there! InDesign and the entire CS5 suite that I use is indispensable. And if there is anything writers and artists alike MUST have, is creative control! I have several manuscripts in the works and all are being done in InDesign. Transitions from PS to ID are a breeze and the finished work is professional and beautiful. Thanks for this post. Not much info about writing in ID.

I have used QuarkExpress for more than twenty years for design jobs, but Word for writing. I see your point in using InDesign and it makes great sense. I would link them and roar on from there, but I am flummoxed.

The program had no book with it and I see no tutorials. I will not use a template, I make my own, and I am at a loss. I looked at books and they were complex and confusing. Thank you. Yes, my book should help quite a bit. David Blatner wrote a book to help people converting from Quark to InDesign.

I assume you just took the type tool and drew a box. InD calls them frames. Any frame can graphics or type. A frame that is not determined can have text added to it by simply double-clicking in the box with the text tool. If you switch to the Selection tool the black one you can click on that plus to load the overflow type into your cursor. Then you can simply click-drag to produce a newly linked frame.

Or you can move the cursor over the upper left corner of the next frame and a link graphic will appear. Actually, they are very different. So, bitmaps for print are very different from the web images in the exported ePUBs and Kindle books. Very interesting article. I love working with graphics and typography and I got an idea for a book — niche topic.

This article was very useful. The fileformat is just the carrier of the data — so what that statement? Interesting article! This book was first written in word, then converted to AuthorIt by a contractor. So NOW we are learning InDesign for ourselves in order to facilitate this update…this book is pages with computer screenshots on almost every page if not multiple.

This is a fascinating idea. Word does introduce all kinds of nuances that make it difficult from a e-pub formatting perspective later on. I was spending a ridiculous amount of time eliminating what was done in Word before I could start formatting. I really started in Word 6 Mac in , but things went crazy quickly. I then wrote in Nisus Classic. It was rick solid, and I continued writing and doing page lay out in Papyrus. Some of my handouts, etc. I edit our national church magazine, but do little of that in InDesign, since we have someone who handles that portion.

I will have to reflect and consider what you have written. Let me know your thoughts, please. I know there is a version that works in Hebrew. Going back and forth would be a bit tricky, I would think. I write in Scrivener, which is an extremely flexible program I use for everything: blog posts, novels, and articles.

But I do agree that writers should be more aware of text layout. I include myself in that judgment. I worked as a technical writer for over 15 years, and used too many tools to count.

Textbook authors? Documents with a lot of graphical elements or an unusual form factor or layout? For that, InDesign is a more appropriate tool, I think. I agree that writers today depending on their goal will need to become more savvy about publishing tools. For them, understand typography and white space a bit better are probably better goals. The only real advantage I ever found in Word was the macros — also the only feature I ever met in WP software that could bring down an entire Mac system.

Five versions of CS and still no print-the-current-page-damn-it button? Am I missing something, or is Adobe simply being perverse? My experiments in this regard led to a lot of re-entering of italics. Writing or editing in ID seems to be a really case- and writer-specific matter. And it is great fun to try and sneak in a few of your own ideas about how stuff should be printed.

Prescriptivism has its place, but language is a cooperative cultural effort as is the effort to capture visually. I can see the value of learning In Design, but not as my default drafting tool. To me, these are secondary parts of the process. Authors will very well benefit from getting their hands dirty in the design process and understanding it better.

I am highly motivated to understand the particulars of my copy—huff, huff, defense posture… ;-. Plus, unformatted copy has many bad associations with me.

I cannot shake the bureaucratic look of it all. I have the opposite response to unformatted copy. It allows me to see the words, the ideas, the writing itself. They render everything unformatted and in monospaced fonts! Part of where I come from is looking at unformatted, straight-up copy helps me focus on the story. No gussying up, nothing getting hidden in design.

The story has to be right, and for me that works great in either Pages or TextWrangler. Design can follow once the story is ready. Like Joel, I love unformatted copy. Once the story is ready, the design helps bring it to its full potential, be that through stylesheets for web, or inside InDesign for print. And as for you understanding your copy, I totally agree. The illustrations were never on the same page as the copy that talked about the graphic and all the things I hate about poorly done non-fiction.

The graphics are part of the read and must be where they make sense in the copy—for me. All the other books I did traditional one of the largest textbooks publishers , I did all the writing, formatting, graphics, fonts, and final PDF. I was fortunate enough to be writing about digital production before the publisher had gone digital themselves. I had to do the fonts, because the things I was writing about typographically were not possible with the fonts I had like how can you talk about small cap figures if you do not have a font with small cap figures to show what they look like within the paragraph your readers are digesting?

As a student of readability, typography, and page layout, what I teach all my students is that unformatted copy is so hard to read that a lot of the content is missed. Without it, the copy is monotone dull. I need the illustration, table, chart, photo, whatever, completed and in place before I can continue.

So, my graphic production is part of my writing. When the invasion happened, I needed the map of troop movements there—both to refer to, and to remind myself—as I wrote. If I need to communicate graphically to the reader, I do so in context, within the copy. I just fumble along trying to communicate with my readers as clearly as possible. But also very alien. Great article. Great food for thought. Thanks, David. I got started when I was still teaching. I was doing tons of page handouts—fully formatted.

It would have been absurd to work outside of InDesign they were for my digital publishing courses in what is now called the Creative Suite. It got to be so comfortable, that when I started self-publishning my books, InDesign was the only app I considered. My workflow is almost completely the opposite. I do this specifically to avoid the fonts, formatting, spacing, styling and everything else that comes with those functions.

Each step of this process pleases me because I have a tool that does exactly what I want it to do, and each mindset for me is totally different. Creativity at the beginning, synthesis and refinement in the middle, and graphics at the end.

For me I need the formatting to develop the book. A book is a synergistic gestalt for me, much larger than the sum of its parts. Yes I totally agree. Get the writing down, perfect the content and then focus on formatting. I think these answers follow two different lines of thought.

Great article and exactly my sentiments. Most of the tutorials out there seem to address authors and making word docs into PDFs etc. As a longtime designer, MFA Design educator and author, I agree wholeheartedly with most of the article. InDesign is the obvious choice for typesetting, layout and design but I would not encourage the use of InDesign as a writing tool. I also agree that the impersonal, corporate editing process you describe is not conducive to creating great results.

As a self-publisher on a budget, I crowdsource my editing. I have ten friends who have agreed to read and comment on one chapter per week. Some are University Professors. Others know the settings and scenarios. Some are just readers whose opinions I trust. By combining their feedback, I get technical and qualitative feedback that one editor alone could never provide. InDesign is the wrong tool for that collaborative process.

At issue is whether we should eliminate the distinction between the manuscript and the typeset book. Graphic designers have the luxury of doing that, but the average writer is best encouraged to hack away in Times New Roman.

Every time a client tries to get fancy with the typography, it means a lot of my time will go into making repairs. Turning Joe Writer loose with a power tool like InDesign is dangerous. When my draft is finished, I export to MS Word and begin the editing process. When the editing is done, I import into InDesign and make it all look great. Each tool offers unique advantages to its particular part of the process. Things we already know how to do are easy. As a designer and a writer, I imagine I share with you a certain inability to separate the writing from the appearance of the type that embodies it.

Word frustrates me, and the need to hold back and not manipulate the text typographically in it does, too. But I just received a manuscript from a client who typed each chapter of his memoir into an email and sent it all to himself!

This is not an uncommon scenario. I have enough trouble gettng my graduate students to set indents and tabs. I love InDesign and join you in your advocacy of it as a brilliant tool, but would counsel the average reader of a self-publishing blog to stick to the basics and leave the prettying-up to someone better qualified like yourself. I find it really helps to have them looking at a formatted book.

It does take some work. But it is fun, exciting work and you never have to look the horrible interface of Word again ;-.

I use Scrivener for my writing because it is designed specifically for writing. My writing performance increased significantly after switching from Word to Scrivener. In fact, writing became pleasurable.

I tried crowd source editing and it was miserable. I found that, no matter how much education someone had, there are some people that just have an innate knack for finding errors.

I switched to a professional editor for my last two books and she is well worth every penny. I pay around 6 or 7 cents per word, depending on the length of the book. Even then she still misses things. Now they only have to pickup the few strays. Now onto InDesign. Because MS Word simply gets overwhelmed when you create a complex book with lots of example graphics of multiple sizes. Trying to get one into the right position is one thing — keeping there is another.

Don't worry about wasting space; unlike paper, electrons are cheap. The constraints of larger type size and a relatively narrow screen display can make it difficult to fit two acceptably wide columns side by side on a typical screen. If so, consider choosing a single-column design and using any left-over space to improve the esthetics of the screen by including appropriate graphics or pull quotes in the space not filled by text.

A single-column design also lets you use larger type than would otherwise be possible, producing an even more legible design. Readers can improve the view of a Web page designed in 7-point magenta type on a chartreuse background by changing their browser settings, but if you're unfortunate enough to receive a PDF file in that format, you're stuck with it.

You can zoom in to make the text more legible, but you can't change the typeface or the colors. That being the case, restrain your artistic urges and choose a design that emphasizes readability over stylistic excess.

A design that relies on a fixed "page" window size works poorly on monitors that can't display the full page without endlessly scrolling or shrinking the page to the point of illegibility. Moreover, documents that must remain visible on-screen at the same time as another program, as in the case of a PDF file that displays explanations of the controls for an online instrument panel, must fit on-screen beside the other program without either concealing the controls or becoming unreadable.

Acrobat lets readers search the text and follow links to related topics, but full-text searching is an extremely poor substitute for a professional index. Moreover, Acrobat only automatically generates links to chapters and main headings; don't forget to create links such as "see page 9", "as discussed in Chapter 10", and "as shown in figure 11" manually. When you choose Acrobat to distribute documents, carefully consider both your goals and the reader's needs. You can produce something that prints well or something designed for onscreen use, but a single document can only rarely fulfill both goals.

Find Out More Geoff Hart is an associate fellow of the Society for Technical Communication STC , and works as a writer, editor, translator, and information designer specializing in the sciences. With more than 20 years of experience in scientific communication, he is a frequent contributor to the techwr-l technical writing and copyediting-l editing Internet discussion groups and to several STC newsletters.

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