![]() The bottom line: it would be nice if InDesign was the publishing Swiss Army knife I was hoping it was. This is a great option to have, especially in an niche area that has scant few options. The results, when all goes well, are a very useable webpages and site. The options in In5's dialog box have those of the native version, plus additional sections like SEO. In5 adds an additional export option, called "Export HTML with In5." right below the export that is natively in ID. For the non-technical there is the alternative of using a plugin called In5, made by Ajar Productions. So what about a plugin? Glad you asked! If all of that information above has your head spinning a bit, you aren't alone. This is best suited for those that have reasonable amounts of recurring content that needs to be brought to the web, and a content management system or workflow that will support it. All of which means we are not talking about a simple one-off project. It's just that one needs to approach it in a systematic way and set up a good workflow. So taking full advantage of the feature ultimately comes down to realistic expectations and the willingness to do the necessary up-front prep in your documents, templates, and styles." With export tagging built into the styles in my templates, the process is fast, relatively clean, and eliminates repetitive work and potential human error from the equation. "For example," Michael explains "every month I export a full month's worth of magazine articles from their InDesign layouts to HTML for posting on the magazine's web site. Even with that limitation however, it's a faster path and far less repetitive than doing it manually, especially when you've already established the formatting and hierarchy in InDesign. It's only going to give you your content - text and images, in the desired order - with appropriate HTML markup for repurposing on the web. Thus, InDesign's HTML export just won't give you easy web-ready output of your print layout. While EPUB export is more predictable, web export is always trying to hit a moving target. In the case of Object Styles, think of each object to which a style is applied as a DIV within your HTML and tag it accordingly. Those options are found in the Export Tagging areas of the Paragraph, Character, and Object Style Options dialogs. ![]() In that situation, you can simply make the necessary connections between your InDesign styles and their respective HTML tags and CSS classes. He went on to explain that typically, the HTML you'll get out of InDesign will be most useful if you have an existing CSS you're targeting (eg, a boilerplate CSS you use for EPUB projects, or a CSS used by your site or its content mangement system). "Because of this, it's unlikely that you'll get from start to finish without tinkering under the hood and getting into at least the CSS, if not the HTML markup itself." However, the CSS InDesign generates strives to preserve the settings you've applied to a print layout (e.g., a book or a magazine article) and there are too many differences between the print- and screen-based reading experiences for that to produce optimal results. "For appearance, InDesign can generate CSS for both EPUB and HTML. These let you maintain the structure and organization of your content, but not its appearance. Both destinations require consistent use of styles (Character, Paragraph, and Object) throughout your project, and that all styles be connected to an HTML equivalent (e.g., the p tag for paragraphs, h1, h2, h3, and so on for headings, and em or strong for italic or bold, respectively). Murphy explained: "When repurposing InDesign content as HTML, there are two built-in export paths: EPUB (either Fixed Layout or Reflowable in CC 2014) or HTML. The courses are InDesign CS6 to HTML and InDesign for Web Design. He was able to shed a lot of light on this subject, and shares it all in great detail in a series of two courses on the subject published by. In fact it is probably safe to say he had brought this to a high art, as with his other visual creations. Murphy was kind enough to make time to speak with me about this subject he may know more about than anyone else.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |