Quark Forums

HI,

I've been using Quark for about 6 years now (4 years professionally) laying out books for print, but until recently I've been asked to design and layout for the amazon kindle. Since i work with print, i've never needed to work or look into "tags".

has anyone had any experience with layouting books for both print and kindle? if so, could you point me in the right directions.Thanks! - GB

Hi,

I've been some little experience for kindle project. If you using Indesign CS4 there is a feature for export in Dreamweaver. The export the file in xhtml format. After this you can use a free toll available in net. Product name is 'Mobipocket creater' you download this utilities and export the xhtml file into kindle format.

After this u can not seeing style information. So this task u can edit your xhtml. In xhtml top level Indesign define a empty css u can edit css and then convert into kindle format u can see your mobi book looks good.

 Regards

Pramod Pant

(India)

Hi, GB,

you do not state which version of QuarkXPress you use, on which platform you work and what kind of "tags" you need to create.

If you just need HTML or XHTML, then it is easily created out of QuarkXPress 7 or 8:

• Convert your print layout into a web layout (layout > duplicate). Duplication has the advantage that you can keep your print layout in the same project and synchronize styles, designs and even content.
• Adds hyperlinks and anchors (no need to own/use Dreamweaver) if that's what you mean by "tags"
  
• Export as HTML or XHMTL (file > export > HTML)

 

Or if you need PDF, just take your print layout and add hyperlinks and export as PDF (no need for Distiller). Make sure you check the "include hyperlinks" option in your PDF Export style.

If you do that on a regular base, you might want to check out the automation possibilities QuarkXPress Server gives you.

Best
Matthias

Unfortunately,

Your answer is woefully insufficient. Using Quark 7.5x, I get a separate html page for every book page in my quark layout when I export html. Nor would Quark 8 seem to rectify this by allowing a user to redefine a layout so it is considered one huge scrollable stream. This is an impasse. Please tell us how to tell Quark it is to regard a print document as a single page.

Meanwhile, for those needing to prepare existing Quark scripts for ebook publication, I suggest that you export your manuscript as an rtf file which you then process with Word or Word Perfect. I prefer the latter because it has great search and replace tools. Before you export, simply add a marker where you want to lock in an image: I use the image title tagged with XYZ. (i.e. title.jpegXYZ). This make it easy to search the rtf document for each XYZ tag. When you do, you jump from one image to the next. At each stop you simply paste <IMG SRC=" in front of the image title. (i.e. <IMG SRC="title.jpegXYZ) Once you've tagged every image, and you can globally replace XYZ with ">. (i.e. <IMG SRC="title.jpeg">) Etcetera. Is this tedious: Guaranteed, this will have your chain smoking something. But it works. Keep in mind the Kindle 2 and kin are primitive displays.

 

I am having same woes. Kindle's requirements are so different from most other eBooks!! I read that Kindle does not like CSS, and does not support Tables. Just a bare bones HTML file... But when I export my Quark ms as HTML I get one with CSS and tables galore. So far, it seems far better to stay in Print Layout and do File > Save Text > where you can choose Entire Story, and format as HTML. This gives you a fairly clean version of all the text in HTML (not separate pages for each book). However, you still have to go in manually and place all the images... a royal pain! Is there any way to get around this? Anyone come up with a cleaner solution to go from Quark to Kindle?

Has there been any progress since last year? We are facing same frustrations with ePub in general, not even getting into the particulars of Kindle. Yet.

Hm, how do I address you? Do you have a name?

Anyhow, as you might have seen Quark has announced its Digital Publishing Strategy including a roadmap. You can also find it here:
http://dynamicpublishing.quark.com/digitalpublishing/

So ePub Export out of QuarkXPress is scheduled and will be available soon.

In the meantime you might want to explore an ePub conversion service like Easyepub.

Thanks
Matthias

EasyEpub laughed at us.

MarkZWare did their level best, but our file is too complicated.

The Quark Digitial Publishing Strategy is priced for publishers with millions of titles. 

What we need to do is convert 210+ titles to ePubs. 

So far the process is:

1. Save text from Quark.

2. Open the saved text in Word and strip out all formatting.

3. Open saved text in Notepad and further strip out all formatting.

4. Open favorite HTML editor and format file, losing all images.

5. Open file in Notepad and strip out all excess HTML.

6. Create ePub through Calibre.

7. Run file through http://threepress.org/document/epub-validate.

8. Fix all errors in Notepad and/or HTML editor and Notepad.

9. Repeat steps 7-8 as needed.

10. Take HTML file and use Mobipocket for the Kindle file (works great!).

11. Upload Kindle file to Amazon, wait a few days, it's available for sale.

12. Upload ePub file to Apple.

13. Wait 3-5 weeks for Apple to respond with "file not accepted due to multiple errors"

14. Repeat steps  5-9 and 11-13 until you're ready to pull your hair out or have thrown the project in the corner.

15. Check Quark forums to see if they've managed to solve the ePub problem yet. 

16. Attempt to convert Quark file to InDesign. 

17. Reduce file to basic text by cutting and pasting into Notepad, then InDesign.

18. Export ePub from InDesign.

19.  Repeat steps 7-9, then 12.

20. Pull hair out, wail, and gnash teeth at step 13 gets repeated.

21. Curse all page layout programs, and attempt steps again using Apple program "Pages."

22. Curse developer of ePub standard (hah, what standard?!!!) and attempt to find foreign contractor to hand-code pages.

23. Realize one has just spent over 100 man-hours attempting to do something this stupid-simple, and not having the $200-$500 PER TITLE to convert library of published books with experienced US contractors, give up and write long, depressing missives on Quark forums.

Hi Maria,

Maria80386:

The Quark Digitial Publishing Strategy is priced for publishers with millions of titles. 

Quark's Digital Publishing strategy works also out of QuarkXPress, so Desktop only, and not expensive at all.

Of course you can also get fully automated, enterprise systems from us, which you must have gotten quoted.

Please send me an email (via the contact button above this post) to discuss further if you are interested.

Thanks
Matthias

I have designed and laid out many books and now the publishers are asking for file conversions for Kindle and other E readers. Please tell me you have found a better way. This sounds like a nightmare! Should I convert to InDesign in the future? Even so, what to do with all of the title that were created in quark. Please let me know if you have any tips. It sounds horrible.

RigoliArts

Hi rigoliarts,

are you referign to my last post? Then I dont understand, as what we announced is an easy export out of QuarkXPress. Of course EPUB will have some restrictions, the current format doesn't allow very rich format, but that's true for any application exporting to EPUB.

Alternatively you will also be able to export as PDF, as HTML, as Flash, for Blio Reader or as branded APP out of QuarkXPress.

Is that what you need?

Thanks
Matthias

Just to share sth I've learnt last week: iPad does not "like" footnotes. So keep that in mind in case you create or convert files into ePub documents. HTH.