I used to prefer using font-based dingbats for book design elements in InDesign and Quark because they are easier to work with than dingbats that are graphic-based, such as eps, tiff, or jpeg files.

This approach worked for many years, but now that most books are being converted to EPUB/eBooks, the font-based dingbats are showing up in the unedited EPUB files as odd-looking keystrokes without the font attributes.

You can try embedding the fonts in the EPUB file to make the dingbats show up, but so far I have had better luck not embedding fonts when making EPUB from InDesign CS 4 or CS5.

I have two methods for removing dingbats from books that are typeset in InDesign:

1. Remove the keystrokes remaining from the fonts from the xhtml files in Dreamweaver (or another xhtml editor)

2. Create a new set of InDesign files with the dingbats removed before making the EPUB file

If you do want the dingbats to appear in the EPUB/eBook, one method is to convert the dingbats into eps files (using Adobe Illustrator) before placing them into InDesign. There are several other file types that will work, but I prefer eps files for image quality. The dingbat file has to be high resolution so that it looks good in the printed book.

Many dingbats are sold as high-resolution graphic files, but a lot of the books I typeset use font-based dingbats in design templates that were developed by publishers long before print books began to be converted into eBooks.

I have no doubt that the design standards and possibilities of eBooks will continue to evolve, and that people will come to expect and appreciate eBook design that doesn’t look like it was typeset in an early version of Microsoft Word!

Most book design and typesetting conventions exist to make it easier for readers to make sense of the words on a printed page. However, many of these traditional book design and typesetting rules and conventions do not apply to the design of eBooks. One of the most obvious differences is that there are no right (recto) or left (verso) pages in an eBook.

When I design a book that will not be printed and will be sold solely as an electronic PDF book and/or EPUB eBook, the first thing I do is to center the main text block on the page. There is no need to leave extra white space on the inside margins to allow for the book’s binding, but I still leave a generous amount of white space on either side of the main text block of the PDF for ease of reading. The margins of the EPUB eBook are determined by the reader’s settings.

A typical eBook layout might have the running head text centered at the top of the page and the page number centered at the bottom of the page. Another option would be to place a rule (line) below the running head followed by the page number all in a block at the top (or bottom) of the page.

For printed books, I usually begin chapter openers on right-hand (recto) pages unless the publisher wants to keep the page count to a minimum. There are many reasons for starting chapters on recto pages aside from the fact that readers can more easily find the chapter openers.

From a typesetting/layout perspective, if author or editorial revisions made to the typeset pages at the proofing stage cause a single or odd number of pages to be added or removed, the left/right orientation of the remaining book pages will shift. This creates extra work for the typesetter and for the proofreader/editor, as all of the shifted pages have to be carefully checked. If all chapters begin on recto pages, it’s easy to renumber the subsequent pages without changing the recto/verso orientation of the rest of the book.

To make all chapters begin on recto/right pages, a blank verso/left page must be added to chapters that end on recto pages. Some books are designed as 2-page spreads, with the chapter openers on the left/verso pages. This design can be used for aesthetic reasons, because the designer or publisher wants something a little unusual, or to allow for a chapter opener that is preceded by an accompanying photograph appearing on the verso page.

For a PDF eBook there’s no need to set most (or all) of the blank pages that are traditionally used in the frontmatter (title page, contents, preface, etc.) and backmatter (notes, references, index, etc.) to make opener pages all begin on right/recto pages. The reader of a PDF eBook has no need for these blank pages and may be distracted or confused by them.

I almost always use recto page openers (or 2-page verso/recto spreads) for the frontmatter pages, but it’s more a matter of custom than necessity. I do not begin chapters (other than chapter 1 or the introduction) on new right pages in electronic PDFs if it means having to add a blank at the end of the preceding chapter. When I design and typeset a book that is also going to be printed, the PDF eBooks will include blank pages and recto openers as in the printed edition. I can make a PDF eBook without blanks and other artifacts of the printed book, but it requires some reworking and reproofing of the pages.

Recto and verso pages are often designed as mirror images, with elements such as page numbers and extra white space appearing on the outer margins of each page. Print book designers are used to thinking and working in terms of recto and verso pages. I find it distracting to read a PDF book that uses a different (even if mirror) design for opposite pages. Some people may be viewing books on large electronic screens with 2-page verso/recto spreads, but at this time most people are reading books on smaller screens.

The best and proper use of hyphenation is one of the major issues in book typesetting. Page layout programs such as InDesign and Quark XPress give designers a lot of control over how text is hyphenated, including how many hyphenated lines can appear in a row (I always set the maximum to 2 hyphens in a row), and how many letters can come before or after the hyphen (I prefer to have 3 letters before and after hyphens, but I will set the text for a minimum of 2 characters before and after hyphens for text with short columns or when trying to reduce a book’s page count.

Some publishers are okay with a left/verso page ending with a hyphen, but I never typeset a book with a right/recto page ending with a hyphen.

When I first began typesetting books 25 years ago, the editors and designers I worked with spent a lot of time and effort on typographical concerns, including whether the space between words or letters was too tight or loose, or if 2 lines of text in a row ended or began with the same word. Some publishers still won’t accept typesetting unless each paragraph ends with at least 2 words. I don’t always follow the 2-words-minimum rule, but I do try to balance each paragraph in the best way possible, regarding hyphenation and the tightness or looseness (tracking) of the text.

Every publisher has different standards and requirements for the design and typesetting of their books. My goal is to surpass everyone’s expectations, and to apply the best of everything I know  to each of the books I work on.

It’s possible to format just about any book in InDesign so that it will export as a perfect EPUB file–I’m just not sure it’s worth the effort in all cases.

I frequently work on books that contain hundreds of photographs and other design elements apart from the main text. Since almost all of the books I work on are going to be printed, my number one priority is to maintain the integrity and accuracy of the typeset pages without introducing extra EPUB formatting that might cause elements to shift on the final printed pages.

All text and images must be linked to flow in a continuous thread for InDesign to create an EPUB file that contains all of the text and images in the proper order. All unlinked text and images are placed at the end of the linked/main text of the EPUB file, in the order the elements appear on the pages.

It can be very difficult and time consuming to format some books as a single, flowing text block. I’ve gone back and forth on whether it’s best to do all of the hard work of linking all of the elements–text, images, captions, boxes, sidebars, etc.–upfront in the InDesign file or to edit and rearrange the elements in the EPUB file at the end of the job.

Sometimes it makes sense and is easier and faster to typeset the pages in InDesign without linking all of the various elements. This means that you will have to use an xhtml editor such as Adobe DreamWeaver or the <oXygen/> XML editor to cut and paste the unlinked elements into their proper positions within the flowing text.

These are the steps I use to create EPUB files from InDesign:

1. Create a new “Book” in InDesign that includes all of the InDesign files in the order they should appear in the eBook, including an InDesign file of the book’s cover. The cover is usually supplied to me as a jpeg or PDF file. I place the cover image jpeg or PDF into an InDesign file and place that file at the top of the list of the InDesign files in the eBook.

2. Choose “Export book to EPUB” from the pulldown menu in the “Book” window. I uncheck the “Include Document Metadata” box in the General window and the “Include Embeddable Fonts” box in the Contents window. I leave all other settings on the InDesign default settings. It usually takes InDesign less time to create an EPUB file than to make a comparable PDF file.

To access the xhtml files from the EPUB file for opening and editing with an xhtml editor such as Adobe DreamWeaver, yo have to “unstuff” the EPUB file using the Stuffit Expander program. The unstuffed EPUB file will contain two folders–”META-INF” and “OEBPS”–and a file named “mimetype.”

The OEBPS folder contains all of the xhtml files for the book, with one xhtml file for each of the InDesign files used to make up the book. I usually create individual files for each chapter of a book, with a single InDesign file for the frontmatter pages, although some publishers prefer to have books in a single InDesign file.

If the entire book is contained in a single InDesign file, there will only be one xhtml file in the OEBPS folder.

I use Adobe DreamWeaver to open/edit the xhtml files. Using the final typeset InDesign pages as a guide, I cut and paste all of the unlinked elements at the end of the xhtml file into their proper positions in the flowing text, and also correct and remove any unneeded formatting that may have come through from the InDesign file, such as extra or forced paragraph breaks.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The EPUB file created directly from InDesign will not pass the validation required by ibookstores. For the files to be validated and usable, the content.opf file, which is in the OEBPS folder, must be modified.

Open the content.opf file with a text editor (not a word processor), such as TextEdit on the Mac, and search for the <dc:date/> line. Change this text to read:

<dc:date>2011-07</dc:date>

and save the file. The date 2011-07 is just an example. you should use the current date, just in the format mmmm-dd.

When all of the elements are in place in the xhtml file use the downloadable program ePub Zip 1.0.2 to combine the folders and files into a new .epub file. Place the two folders (META-INF and OEBPS) and mimetype file into a new folder, and drag and drop the folder onto the ePub Zip application. This will produce a new .epub file that you can open and view with an EPUB browser.

The final step is to validate or check to make sure that the EPUB file passes the ibookstore requirements. There are several downloadable or online programs that evaluate and validate EPUB files. I am currently using the online validation service at www.epubconversion.com.

The <oXygen/> XML editor offers an even faster and easier way to edit EPUB files. It has many useful features, including EPUB validation and the ability to browse and edit EPUB files without having to unzip and restore the EPUB file. The program is available for evaluation and purchase at oxygenxml.com.

The process for creating EPUB files is evolving rapidly. I have no doubt that a future version of InDesign will address many of these issues, and make it much easier to convert printed books into eBooks.