patchmcm's blog

We had a number of technical issues as we went through the process of converting an InDesign book file to an ebook medium. First of all, I had never before used InDesign so it was an unfamiliar tool. This meant that the first day or so of the conversion process involved a good amount of trial and error in trying to clean up the InDesign file. For example, it took a good 15 or 20 minutes to find out how to check for "nonbreaking" spaces.

We started the collaborative e-pub project, and I was paired with Melanie Payne working on the conversion of the Bazerman book. We got fairly far in the process last week, as we successfully exported the .epub file from the InDesign file after ensuring that all the pages, Table of Contents, and fonts were in check. We then were able to verify in Sigil after making a few slight changes to the code. The only thing remaining is adding the meta-data and testing it on the IPad before starting the conversion to Kindle format.

This week we finished up the collaborative documentation project. We ended up having to take away a bunch of the tables that made up the previous draft of the project, as it had to be compatible with different types of style sheets. Other than that, it was really just a matter of adding a couple more screenshots, gathering the images used in one location, citing in the correct format, and proofreading what we had already created. On Thursday, we started looking at Adobe InDesign and the .epub format in preparation for our next project starting Tuesday.

This is the final week of the Collaborative Documentation project, due this upcoming Thursday. We completed user testing last week and made a list of things to complete before the deadline. We decided to add side-by-side instructions for MacOS users because some of the steps are significantly different for removing embedded images from word documents and converting word documents to pdf files. Other than that, we are adding citations for instructions taken from the parlor press author's guide and other sources as well as changing the "sources" section to proper MLA format.

1. include note about sending word file along with pdf.

2. check for typos

3. Put mac instructions next to windows instructions

4. Note about mac pdf quality

5. Add to FAQs, epubs can also be saved to zips

6. On Mac - enable file extensions in finder

7. Note on why you print to pdf - to give to publisher for use in Adobe InDesign

8. Do screenshots on lab machines for printing to pdf

9. make links for step referral in the embedded images instructions