Amazon's new KF8 plugin for InDesign

As a writer in InDesign, and publisher of all my tech books in many formats, the tools we have to make ePUBs and Kindle books are really limited unless you are a good coder. Designers are rarely good coders, and writers even less so. InDesign is the best tool we have at present, but there’s still a long way to go until some of the typographic niceties we rely on in print are actually available in an PUB without a lot of hand-coding.

Ron Bilodeau (@biladew) is one of the coders (a very good one, I think). In an email from him this morning, he gave the following advice about Amazon's new KF8 plugin for InDesign:

As usual, formatting ebooks has no good tool yet

They all require coding strength

• The Mobi format is a Kindle/Amazon proprietary product, and therefore, it is not Adobe's responsibility to build around it. It is entirely Amazon's responsibility to provide any necessary plugins to work with InDesign (which they have done).
• The Kindle plugin for InDesign works well for what it does, but it is only useful if you are using ID to build a document with the single purpose of exporting that file to Mobi for use on the Kindle (Legacy e-ink and Fire).
• The plugin only recognizes the most basic of text formatting and anchored images. (again, still need to test the limitations). 
• It does do a good job of creating working hyperlinks based on properly built cross-refs, hyperlinks, ID-generated TOC, and footnotes.
• The plugin will add eBook section breaks based on separate InDesign files only. It does not recognize InDesign's ability to add breaks via. Para style.
• The plugin will also only recognize content order based on the old-school way of ordering: single text thread with inline images or order by placement on page (top-down, left-right). It does not recognize the use of the Articles Panel. (Not sure yet about XML structure order. Still need to test).

Bottom line for kindle plugin use:

• If you are hoping for the ability to export directly to Mobi from a project using your normal workflow, it's not gonna happen!
• The InDesign to ePub to Kindlegen to Mobi is still a far better workflow. And it also allows you to control much better formatting (especially for the Fire).
• The Kindle plugin for InDesign is ONLY useful if your document/project is intended for Kindle only. For that purpose, it works well. 
• But for anything else, it will be useless.

This is type of thing we have to deal with all the time. This is the appeal of iBook Author (as flawed as that offering may be) though it is limited to textbooks and make huge iBook2 documents. As Dave Bricker said this morning, we're still waiting for the game changer.

Book Typography: Part Zero: The new book publishing paradigm

This week I have decided to do a prequel—something I normally dislike. But things have changed so much in book publishing, that you must understand the new paradigm and why this means you must understand typography. Self-published authors must learn the art of communication with type. This is an excerpt from Writing In InDesign 2nd Edition which will be released as soon as possible. Here's a link to the 1st edition
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Writing within InDesign

Here I am again recommending a road less traveled by—not unusual in my life and work. Before the choruses rise up in defense of other workflows, let me tell you my reasonings. I fully recognize that most people write in Word. What these people do not realize [in most cases] is this simple fact starts their book under a great handicap. If they are publishing their own book, they are missing out on the best tools for communicating with readers.

Books are not entirely about words

Of course as a writer this may not make much sense to you. But hear me out. For years I have taught graphic designers that the content is all that matters. This has been a major fight because many designers never read the copy they design into books. This is still true now that graphic designers are responsible for laying out Websites, blogs, ebooks, and more. In the publishing world there is a real disconnect between the writers and the book designers. They are treated as two entirely separate skill sets. Most designers are of little  help dealing with book design as a method of improving communication.

Most designers do not deal well with words,
many rarely read, few read for enjoyment

However, it is equally true to say that most wordsmiths do not deal well with design. Many do not have any idea how essential design and typography is to their efforts to communicate with their readers. Graphic designers [and this includes most book designers] are visual people, focused on how things look. Writers are verbal people and tend to be unaware of how the formatting and typography choices affect communication.
One of my major concerns as I started to write books in the mid-1990s was my experience in my classes of using published textbooks as examples of poor communication—both from the written side and the visual side. The examples are endless.
My pursuit of functional, reader-centered books has been fraught with trials. I was constantly bumping up against standardized procedures of traditional publishers which really made their books hard to read or use effectively. This reader-centered goal is so far outside the norm in publishing today that there is no room at all for an author who even cares about these things (except in this brand new world of on-demand self-publishing).
Let's talk about some simple examples of this lack of concern for the reader

• Illustrations listed by number with no connection to the copy which talks about what is illustrated: Most traditional non-fiction publishers require this typographic horror. In many cases, authors are not allowed to even pick out the images because they are not considered professional enough to understand what is required of a graphic. But the result is illustrations, maps, charts, and photos—listed by number—which are often not on the same page (or even in the same chapter) as the content they illustrate.
  Why bother to even have them?
  Few readers will find them or take the time to look for them. The result is frustrated readership and readers who simply quit reading in disgust.
  For fiction, it is equally bad to have an illustration or map which cannot be easily referenced by the reader. In my poor attempts at writing novels, I added maps where they were needed in the copy to help the reader understand what was going on a little better.
• Heads and subheads generated by designers: In many cases over the years I spent as a graphic designer, I wrote all the subheads, developed all the lists, wrote all the captions, and even wrote most of the headlines.
  I developed them out of a need to help direct the reader through the copy I was formatting. The author commonly had no clue that they were desirable or necessary. I wrote them as a service to the reader. But I was a real minority as mentioned. Many designers [and it may well be most designers] do not even read the copy they layout, as I said.
  As a writer, you must be aware of these issues and realize that they are a primary method of clearing up communication with the reader. Heads, subheads, list design, and all the rest of the typographic tools are key elements of reader support.
• Page layout determined by fashion and visual concerns: Fonts are chosen because they look good. Layouts are determined by fashion. Columns, margins, sidebars and the like are chosen to stimulate visual interest and provoke excitement. Rarely are they use to help communicate the content more effectively, clearly, and accessibly. Clarity and accuracy are rarely considered by a book designer.
  The most glaring example of this is seen in the books where content is broken up into small pieces—supposedly to help people with short attention spans. We recently bought a book on creationism that is virtually unreadable. The gorgeous, fancy illustrations push the copy into bits and pieces that randomly appear out of the visual clutter of the pages' backgrounds. My wife gave up on it.

But it goes much further than that. Here's a quote from Wikipedia about the normal traditional editorial process (please force yourself to read it, I realize it is difficult to read):

"(Once) a decision is taken to publish a work, and the technical legal issues resolved, the author may be asked to improve the quality of the work through rewriting or smaller changes, and the staff will edit the work. Publishers may maintain a house style, and staff will copy edit to ensure that the work matches the style and grammatical requirements of each market. Editors often choose or refine titles and headlines. Editing may also involve structural changes and requests for more information. Some publishers employ fact checkers, particularly regarding non-fiction works."

Notice that there is nothing in this process
about serving the readers.

The readers' needs are not part of the process. It's all about sales and the marketing decisions of the publisher. Textbooks are some of the worst examples of this editorial damage by traditional publishers.
In most cases they will not even talk to you unless you can convince them that you have a large enough following to guarantee enough sales to cover the costs. Once you've passed that hurdle, they will normally insist that you fit your content into their style—even if that style hinders your book.
In Writing In InDesign, I then take a brief look at this world of traditional publishing—that relic of the pre-digital, pre-desktop information age in which we live. In general, these traditionalists are extremely confused by what is taking place in the new digital publishing world.
As an on-demand, self-publisher you have a wonderful opportunity to break out of this trap and truly work on helping your readers.

What you need to have clear in your mind is simple
As an author it is your job 
to enable your book to communicate well

In this day and age, readers need all the help they can get to understand what you are trying to say. Excellent typography is one of your most powerful tools to aid in this process.
Word cannot do typography—no word processor can.

You truly need to learn typography!

Dave Bricker on Initial & drop caps

Dave's got an interesting posting on the subject this morning:

Though initial caps, large caps, drop caps and all of the variations on that thems are not used as commonly as they used to be, you need to have this understood so you can use it when it will really help your readers.

Book Typography Part 4: Readability

If you ever took one of my classes, you know how much I harped on readability—especially the importance of aperture and other page layout factors concerning readability. Aside from the kindness issue (blessing your readers), this is governed by the realities of modern living.

Everyone has too much to read. If you give them any excuse, they will quit reading your work and go on to the next piece in their long list of things they have to read.

I seen my wife throw novels away because they were too hard to read. People cancel magazine and newspaper subscriptions because of reading issues (even if they are not conscious of what is bothering them). Difficult to read books have become commonplace. One of the attractions of ebooks is the ability to fix some of the worst designs because you can change the type style and size to make it more comfortable to read.

Here’s a little graphic to show you some of the things in the physical design of fonts which influence how easily you can read a font.

Some font design characteristics which might help readability

I’m convinced that aperture is much more important than most people acknowledge. As you can see above in the table, I list seven design characteristics in a font which influence comfortable reading: humanist axis, moderate modulation, slanted crossbars, double story characters, ovals, and a hint of the calligraphic.

I can see now that I was still very ignorant at that time. In the years that have followed I have greatly increased my experience. It’s not important that you understand these seven characteristics at this point. What matters is that you see that Jenson, Brinar, and Caslon (in that order) are the most readable out those six font choices.

What I have discovered I need in a font design are the following attributes

• A humanist axis, but not rigid: We need to believe it was produced by a human
• A wide open aperture: The white space within the character shapes help us see those shapes better
• Moderate modulation: This softens the look increasing the hints of human production
• Slightly slanted crossbars, for the e, A, and H especially: This is just me. I think it makes the fonts look a little "happy" (whatever that means)
• Double-story a & g: These are much more distinctive letter shapes
• Slightly oval bowls: Rigid geometric circles tend to confuse glyph shapes
• A slight homage to calligraphic writing: Again we want indications that a person was involved—not a machine
• An x-height at about 40% of the point size: This increases the white space a little
• Built-in leading at about 5% of the point size

This should give readability and reading comfort that is very good.

More white space considerations

Yet another area I was not familiar with and therefore didn’t take care of in my early years is the whole issue of white space—both within the font design and in the page layout. As mentioned, this is why an open aperture is important, but it goes beyond that. We recognize word shapes by the distinctive outline of the top half of the type. This is why a slightly smaller x-height helps.

But we need to look at the page as a whole. Professional type should have an even color. When your book is seen from far enough away so that the body copy can no longer be read, it must blend into smooth gray shapes. You will come to see that this even type color is imperative. It is what allows the control of the reader’s eye which you need for clear and comfortable communication. You will learn to keep your type as smooth as possible, stepping outside of that only to make important points that the reader really needs and wants to know.

Again, part of this is produced by the design of the fonts you choose. Excellent, consistent letterspacing is one of the major considerations in font choice. InDesign can really help here also. If you have a font that is looking blotchy, you might try to use Optical Kerning. InDesign does a good job of spacing letters optically and evenly. Of course, it is usually better to use and buy fonts which are spaced specifically for text work and which have good metric kerning built in.

Smooth type color needs to become one of your major concerns.

This attribute of excellent typography has a strong influence on readability. That might surprise you. This smoothness is what makes headlines, subheads, and our specialized paragraph styles work. The white space surrounding specialized paragraphs stands out from smooth type color. This white space attracts the eye and leads it to that statement. Without smooth type color, you are forced to make your headers much stronger and the reader often feels like you are shouting at him or her. That is definitely not a comfortable reading experience. Smooth type color needs to become one of your major concerns.

Column width is a major concern


If your column is too wide, readers will have a difficult time finding the beginning of the next line. Basically you are shooting for nine to eleven words per line—this can be stretched with a good font to thirteen words wide. Short line lengths break up too much of the phrasing which makes the reading choppy and comprehension more difficult.

The formula I use for column width is very simple and gives you a good starting point for readability. It’s a practical rule of thumb that’s less complex than most:

40% of the body copy point size in inches 
or the point size in centimeters

So, 10 point type works well in a column that is four inches or 10 cm wide. 12-point type may need nearly five inches (40% is 4.8”). This assumes a normal x-height of about 50% of the cap height or a third of point size. If the x-height or width of the letters is radically different than the norm you will need to make adjustments to keep the word count good.


The same is true with leading (or line spacing). We need to give the reader all the help we can to easily find the beginning of the next line of type. Adding a bit of built-in leading in the actual font design helps here. The norm for body text in publishing is 10/12—or ten point type with twelve points of leading.

This is a mere beginning point, though. It all depends on the x-height, glyph width, letterspacing, and line length. Adjust if from there to make it comfortable both on screen and in your hand. You need to set a full page of nothing but body copy and see if it is actually comfortable to read. If you find your mind wandering after a paragraph or two, you've got some issues. If you find yourself thinking about something else before you finish the first paragraph, you have real trouble.
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Next week, I'll probably talk about the readable fonts: traditional oldstyle and humanist sans

ePUB3: no real solutions yet

Amazon has finally released some Format 8 tools for Kindle Fire. But most of the expanded HTML5 and CSS3 capabilities are ignored for now. Dave Bricker has an excellent article with links to all Amazon has done so far. But it really isn't much.

Liz Castro has written an article stating that as far as she can tell, the new tools for KF8 turn the Mobi files into a snarl as bad as the code Blogger uses for this blog. It's a horrible mess. She finally states that KF8 simply makes a code container for the original ePUB.

There are rumors that Apple, this Thursday, will announce a new tool for K-12 teachers to publish ePUB3 documents to use in the classroom. It would supposedly be built on iWeb. iWeb is an intriguing toolset with limited application so far—because there is so little control of the typography. Apple's tool would have to add a lot to actually be a functional tool for the new group of self-publishers waiting for the tools they need.

The problem, of course, is there are really 
no good tools to create ePUBs yet

These tools we need will probably have to come from Adobe, in InDesign, to do us much good. I've written elsewhere in InDesign On-Demand and Writing in InDesign that CS5.5 was a major step up in that ePUBs could now be exported that validate. But they are ePUB2 and InDesign does not give us any way to edit graphic placement by adding floating divs, no way to control borders and backgrounds of paragraphs, or any of the niceties which could be done.

Instead we are still forced to crack the ePUB code and get in there by hand to adjust the HTML and CSS code exported by InDesign. In Dave's article, he has placed a movie of the sneak peak Adobe gave us of Liquid Layout at the MAX 2011 Sneak Preview. It looks like some excellent tools for magazine development are on the way.

But being able to automatically add extra columns and resize magazine layouts to fit different devices does not help us at all with ePUBs.

What do we need for ePUB production?

• Anchored object control: we must be able to design the div size and location to hold our graphics and sidebars, we must be able to control an object alignment and margins—on each side individually—so we can do useful, readable text wraps
• We need control over lists like this: the CSS controls are good, but we have no access to them without using something as kludgy and manually unzipping the ePUB and editing the HTML and CSS with Dreamweaver or the like.
• Background and border controls for paragraphs: This aspect of CSS has no comparable abilities in print production, but it is the only option for what we are now doing with sidebars.

The basic problem is that eBooks in general are all single-column works with all graphics and peripheral information inline. Adobe has wonderful inline controls and powerful anchored object controls, but we have no tools to convert these to something which can be used within the confines of existing tablets and ereaders.

My hope is that the rumors about iPad3, due out in March we hope, will give us the higher resolutions and ePUB3 compatibility we need. Then all we'll need is a good ePUB3 generator. I hope InDesign is ready to handle this soon. But so far it looks like Adobe is still designing upgrades for magazines.

Does book design really matter?

Of course it does! Joel Friedlander wrote an excellent post on the topic a while back and you should read it.

Does book design really matter?

Yes, it's basic stuff. No, most don't give it much thought.

Books vs. ereaders: a comparison

Interesting information (though it's a bit hard to read and a couple years old)
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Image Source:MastersinEducation.org