This time was my first attempt to convert the entire book into an eBook. From InDesign, I selected "Export Book to Digital Editions". I was then able to open the resulting ePub file by using Calibre. The resulting file was actually not that horrible, although the cover changed a lot. As expected, the font changed and the images look exactly the same, but the type is much larger than I would have thought for the cover and the copyright page.
The chapter titles do not link to the appropriate chapter but the ugly blue default html links are there linking to the different chapter parts, and they surprisingly work. I am not going to fight the default html link. There is at least beauty in the fact that are universally seen as links. I have been playing with Calibre to make it look better, but I am afraid all Calibre will do is convert an existing book into different formats, so I think I might be back to square one if I want to be able to edit it more. I also think that I will probably have to go in and code in xml, especially if I want to get the metadata correct. I am back to my previous thought that converting the entire book was too ambitious, that it might just have to be a chapter or chapters.
The List of Tables and the List of Figures also do not link to the actual tables and figures that were set up to link to in Indesign and that worked in pdf format.
Although the pull quotes did not show up on the colored box with the artwork that they were originally designed as, they still showed up clearly as pull quotes, and I don't have much issue with how they look.
I also noticed that Figure 1-1 did not show up, but it was a whole page size so again, I am not surprised. It most likely needs to be reduced in size in order for it to appear. I will have to figure out what those size limits are. The other Figures seem to be showing up fine which is what leads me to think that it's the size of Figure 1-1.
Another surprise is that the tables don't look bad at all. That is one instance where I can take credit for careful design at the get-go. Although, since I don't have an iPad or Kindle, I am testing it on my computer screen, which I can adjust. If you can't adjust the screen size to make it the width of a table, I can see how the tables might end up being a problem after all. This is kind of difficult to test without an e-reader.
Speaking of, I sent the ePub file to my coworker who has an iPad to test it. She wasn't able to open it at all on her iPad. So far, the only way that I know a person can read this ePub file is by opening it up by using Calibre. I think this might be another example of how the eBook process is broken.
I think I have succeeded in making this document an ePub, but it needs a lot of tweaking. The people who created Calibre say it is a eBook converter, not an editor. They suggest 2 editors: Sigil and Book Designer. The name of Book Designer appealed to me the most, but that website is almost entirely in Russian, so I am going to try out Sigil. I will update with my results.
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