martenf Posted March 13, 2023 Share Posted March 13, 2023 I just finished editing a book which is 420 pages long. I had started from a Word document but then made the same mistake as others have of editing the document in Publisher and so the source is no longer the same as the prepared and edited version in Publisher. I exported this out as a PDF which is fine for having the book printed but I also want an ePub version and another for Kindle. Unfortunately Publisher does not have any option to export in these formats. This has been asked a number of times as far back as 2018 but those features are still not in the product. I had hoped that importing the book into QuarkXpress would resolve this for me but there are so many anomalies that I may as well start from scratch. It made me think maybe I should have thought of this before I started the project in Publisher. nodeus 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff Dan C Posted March 13, 2023 Staff Share Posted March 13, 2023 5 hours ago, martenf said: I also want an ePub version and another for Kindle. Unfortunately Publisher does not have any option to export in these formats. This has been asked a number of times as far back as 2018 but those features are still not in the product. You may be interested in the following tweet: I hope this helps nomi02118 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaoloT Posted March 13, 2023 Share Posted March 13, 2023 A workaround to get a reflowable ePub document from a Publisher document would be to add a DOCX export function. A DOCX document could be loaded into programs allowing reflowable ePub exporting, among which Apple Pages. Currently, the only way to exchange data between Publisher and Pages is by copying&pasting, but this only allows exchanging some of the data, and not the full content (images, internal links and footnotes are excluded). This conversion would not only be useful for ePubs, but also for a series of other reasons (like allowing people only using word processors to reuse part of the content). Paolo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
martenf Posted March 13, 2023 Author Share Posted March 13, 2023 I have a short term solution for myself. 1. I saved the book again with hyphenation turned off to a PDF (reason is that the conversion in step 2 would break the hyphenated words as is) 2. I loaded the PDF into an old version of Nuance PDF Converter that still runs and converted it to DOCX. Surprisingly it did a good job. 3. I can now load it into any application that can create an ePub or anything else from a DOCX, including QuarkXpress. I hope that Affinity (Serif) hurray the ability to export to different formats soon. I much prefer Publisher to my QuarkXpress (even though QXP is more powerful and even lets me export a file to HTML5, which I use for a magazine I produce) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amy Choue Posted December 6, 2023 Share Posted December 6, 2023 I came upon this while searching for ways to create epub, and when Affinity Publisher will have epub export. I have used MS word for this, which seems to work fine with text-heavy books and if the book is released only at KDP. But even with an extremely limited experience in all tech-related things, I seem to see coarseness and waywardness in epubs based on Word. When will Affinity have epub reflowable option? What great news the release of that would be to those waiting for it, who search for it to find out the state of things as regards to it. Please release it in the near future! GordonWatt and nomi02118 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Heath Posted February 19 Share Posted February 19 I'm also looking for an ePub option. I write manuals for products and usually use MS Word. I'm currently setting up a template in Publisher, but would prefer to have some interactive elements in the document. I have used iBooks before because of its interactive features, but iBooks Author was abandoned years ago. There are some interactive features in Apple Pages ePub offering, so I may use that instead of Publisher this time around. The machine has a 24 inch touchscreen, hence why I would like to make the manual interactive. The gallery feature and embedded video features of Apple Pages ePub documents are ideal for step-by-step instructions and overviews of the product. What's missing is the zoomable annotated image feature of iBooks, but I can make do without that. Quote You can: find my website here: www.geometrical.design buy fabric, wallpaper and home decor items that feature my work on Spoonflower join the Geometrical Design Secrets community on Facebook check my work out on Behance, and see me teaching at Geometrical Design School Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Archangel Posted February 20 Share Posted February 20 On 3/13/2023 at 10:23 AM, Dan C said: You may be interested in the following tweet: I hope this helps You already have a fixed layout e-book format in PDF. Surely reflowable would be more useful to implement first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
martenf Posted February 20 Author Share Posted February 20 Fixed is a start but reflowable would be great Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amy Choue Posted February 20 Share Posted February 20 In my case, I found the Epub export option at Reedsy easy to use and great overall, especially compared to the Word to epub conversion that's in place at Amazon KDP. I was so hoping for Affinity to introduce reflowable epub export, but Reedsy's epub export settled the matter for me for now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DashingDave Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 On 2/20/2024 at 5:18 PM, Archangel said: You already have a fixed layout e-book format in PDF. Surely reflowable would be more useful to implement first. I'm guessing that a 'fixed layout' export option would be the equivalent of using Kindle Create to turn a pdf into a "Print Replica" ebook (you see a lot of these on Amazon for math and science/technical books). I'm not really sure if other services use that, but I guess a Publisher fixed-layout export would allow an author to skip the Kindle Create step(s). I'm not sure exactly what the advantage would be having Publisher do it rather than an external deal like KC, but that's what I would need to do if I publish the textbook I'm developing, so I guess it would be useful to someone like me. That said–I was definitely hoping Publisher would already have ePub-export capabilities when I started looking into it in late 2023, which I guess the Adobe equivalent has, for other projects and options. Considering eBooks are likely to be an even more desired option than print for self-publishers–and self-publishers are usually restricted financially (if you have the money, you pay a company to format your book)–these days, I'm surprised Affinity didn't start include a reflowable option right off the bat in v1 given that most people choose Serif's software over Adobe's because of the much more affordable price point imo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaoloT Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 On 2/20/2024 at 11:18 PM, Archangel said: You already have a fixed layout e-book format in PDF. I'm not sure they have. Can a converter extract the semantic data from a PDF table of contents, and make it an ePub's index? Paolo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Archangel Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 1 hour ago, PaoloT said: I'm not sure they have. Can a converter extract the semantic data from a PDF table of content, and make it an ePub's index? Paolo You are possibly correct. I haven't used an e-reader for a while, but my old Amazon Kindle supported mobi-pocket and PDF as ebook formats. No e-pub though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Return Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-an-epub-file-2621084 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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