Fixed Layout ePub3 to PDF

The digital publishing world is all a-twitter about PDF to fixed layout ePub. We flipped the "problem" and created PDF from an ePub3 document HTML/CSS code. It's actually very easy with the right tools and a bit of planning.

The Challenge

For the normal business reasons it was necessary to create PDF brochures of our main products. They are being translated into four languages and we needed to use a production environment from which it was easy to create highly laid out brochures with layout tweaks for the various languages. On advice from the marketing people who know more about this stuff, the brochures were created in a longer ebook format.

Because we need to put our money where our posts are the brochures are produced in IGP:Digital Publisher as both fixed layout ePub3 AND PDF. Multi-format production from a single XHTML source is what IGP:Digital Publisher is designed to do.

I don't think many organizations have yet faced the challenge of creating brochures for both ePub3 fixed layout and PDF simultaneously.

That is most likely because ePub3 is still in cold start and AZARDI Desktop and iBooks are the only Reading Systems working with any ePub3 fixed layout. Also ePub of any sort has never been seen as a suitable marketing or promotional tool.

It was certainly a first for us. We would normally design the print PDF brochure and not even think of creating an ePub3. After all that is a book format! The world of digital content has to change not only the content but how we think about the content as well. As they become more sophisticated e-Book readers become a useful way to share valuable content with some level of layout and design sophistication.

Now the How

For various reasons explained in the tutorial we designed and created the ePub3 first and then used the identical CSS to create the print PDF. Producing the ePub3 first was a pretty radical thinking flip. The whole publishing production business has been about print first forever.

That meant both the fixed layout ePub and print PDF use exactly the same units and layout metrics. The mighty Internet pixel at 96 dpi. It's a testament to the tools available to us today that this works seamlessly, especially the awesomeness of CSS layout.

You can see from the fixed layout ePub3 and PDF cover images down the side that the rendering in two completely different engines (Mozilla and PrinceXML), in two different presentation formats (ePub3 and PDF) that the tools are awesome. The only significant difference is that the PDF does not have drop shadow on the text as generating the transparency is a major challenge at PDF generation time.

There was a strong temptation to add interactivity to the fixed layout ePub 3 version of the brochure. But we held back because we had to submit the manuscripts for translation and this was our first shot at using ePub3 for marketing.

Now when we market either of these products and a client asks for a brochure we can give a complete ePub 3 reading system and content in the business context.

Next on the sales and marketing drawing board is ePub3 presentations. Those will definitely benefit from a touch of interactivity.

You can download the brochures in all formats from the AZARDI resources page where we maintain the downloadable ePub3 files.

Posted by Richard Pipe