Creating another ePub file with ... desktop publishing software

The third and last way I will use to make an ePub file is with Adobe Indesign. If you want to check out some speed courses for Indesign, take a look at this blog: andreaculturelestudies.tumblr.com. If you'd rather design your ePub file with free software, try out Scribus. A speed course for this program can be found here: lindseylearnsscribus.wordpress.com. But even if you're not familiar with Indesign or Scribus yet, you'll be able to just design some text lay out and insert a picture to create a basic ePub design.

Formatting & publishing in one

The best aspect about this option is the fact that it is an all-in-one solution without any code and with a great designing interface.

I did some (limited) research, just to look for some attention points. Apparantly, there is a difference in creating a 'reflowable' and 'fixed' ePub. For my collection of quotes, I am going to use a reflowable ePub, because it focusses on text. If you want to make a really graphic publication and/or use interactive links, a fixed ePub is the better option. Another aspect I had to do research for, was how to create table of contents in Indesign.

Here is a home made step-by-step plan:

• Open Indesign and create a new document (or book, in the end you can still choose how to export it).
• Pick 'A5' (or A4, I don't think this matters). If you're in a hurry and not planning on being creative in designing different text blocks, select 'Primary text frame'. 
• Copy/write your flat text in the text blocks and make a new page for every chapter.
• And the nicest thing (for me, that is): do whatever you want with your titles, subtitles, ... Important: if you want to have a table of contents, you should work with 'paragraph styles' for your titles and subtitles.
• How? Design a paragraph style for your chapter titles + click on 'Edit all export tags' and choose this style as a page breaker.
• Choose 'Layout' and 'Table of contents' in the menu.
• Edit the Table of contents, maybe choose a style you made beforehand (in Layout/TOC Styles).
• Click 'OK' and choose where you want to place the TOC.

• After the formatting, you just have to click 'export' and choose 'ePub'. Check the options (select 'Split document: based on paragraph style export tags' for your page breaks. And fill in your metadata.
• Click 'OK' and there it is!

Sources:

• helpx.adobe.com/support/indesign.html