The launch of the Apple iPad 2 ushered in a platform for the display of interactive fixed layout books. At the same time, Apple released iBooks Author for the creation of these books specifically for the iBooks store. Its primary limitations, however, are: books must be created from scratch in the application, the application is Mac-compatible only, and the resulting files can only be used by the latest iBooks app, which only runs on iOS devices. Flipick, a subsidiary of Mediawide, has created a set of plugins for InDesign on both Mac and Windows to take existing book layouts and convert them to the EPUB3 format, which supports interactive, fixed layout books. Coupled with an online portal, Flipick.com, books can be created for a small but growing selection of devices that support this format, including the Apple iPad and Amazon Kindle Fire HD.

EPUB3, What’s the Big Deal?

Before the release of EPUB3, the EPUB specification was limited in its ability to use anything but readily available system/device fonts and had limited layout capabilities. EPUB3, which is based on HTML5, CSS3, and javascript, brings with it not only the ability to use Web fonts, but also interactivity that is not Flash-based using CSS3 animations. However, to date, only a handful of devices support EPUB3, including the Apple iPad 2 and 3 and Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD. And just like previous versions of EPUB, each e-bookstore supports a slightly different flavor of the specification, making designing once and distributing to many a complex task.

Several conversion services will take a Word document and convert it for the various stores, but the result is a generic style and fluid layout with standard fonts. InDesign itself can export to EPUB, but not EPUB3, and the resulting file must be massaged to display correctly on various e-readers.

Enter Flipick

The process for getting up and running with Flipick is fairly simple. Step one is registering on the Flipick portal to set up an account. Step two is installing three InDesign plug-ins: Preflight, Tablet Publishing, and Widgets. These are installed by copying the files into the InDesign plug-ins folder. Step three is uploading a file to the Flipick portal for automatic conversion.

The resulting converted file contains HTML5 and CSS3 files formatted per the ePub3 Fixed Layout Specification.

The plug-in provides:

1. The ability to control the resolution at which images will be sampled. For example, for retina display, images can be generated at high resolution.

2. A set of widgets for creating slide shows, embedding video, and adding hyperlinks and pop-overs.

3. The ability to set whether pages should be displayed as facing or single pages.

4. The ability to add metadata.

After the conversion process, users can download the ePub3 file from the My Library section on the portal immediately or at a later date.

Flipick includes a Step-by-Step Guide and Best Practices Guide to help users prepare an InDesign document for conversion to fixed layout EPUB.

Flipick is compatible with Adobe InDesign CS6 for Windows and CS5.5 for Mac. The company is working on a plug-in for Indesign CS6 for Mac, which was used for this review; however, at the time of writing the plug-in did not automatically upload the output file to Flipick but instead generated a .zip file, which was uploaded manually to the portal. This manual process will be eliminated when the product is out of the testing phase.

While the service is currently in beta, Flipick is free, but the company will eventually derive revenue via licenses per book generated, with prices on a sliding scale as volumes increase. In addition to Apple’s and Amazon’s devices, the converted files can also be displayed on a few more obscure platforms. The company notes compatibility with Readium, a Google Chrome extension for viewing the books on a desktop, and Azardi, an EPUB reader developed by Infogrid Pacific.

The plugin adds a new menu option to InDesign’s top level menu bar, aptly named Flipick. It contains four submenus: Login, Widgets, Create eBook and Preflight check. The Login option is used to log into the Flipick portal when a document is ready to be uploaded. The Widgets menu opens the Widgets Palette for adding interactive elements to the document:

• Scrollable Text, which allows overset text in a text frame to be scrolled;

• Slideshow, for displaying multiple images in a single frame; and,

• Hyperlink, for adding page jumps, turning layers on or off, and opening URLs in a new window.

The Create submenu allows the user to enter meta tag information (Title, Author, Language, and ISBN), select the output device (tablet or smartphone), and select the image resolution for iPad 2 or iPad3.

The Preflight Check looks for non-supported features and presents any errors in the

The Flipick plugins add a new menu item to InDesign with four submenus: Login, Widget, Create eBook, and Preflight Check.

Preflight check panel. The Preflight process checks for overset text frames, text wrap, tables, tabs, footnotes, object states, anchored frames, and missing images. If a user chooses to continue with the existing errors, problematic frames will be converted into images. In the case of Overset Frames, the Auto Scroll option will be set automatically.

The Flipick Widget palette allows users to assign interactivity to image and text frames, including scrollable text, slideshows, hyperlinks, and image panning.

In Flipick’s Best Practices guide, the company notes several things to keep in mind when preparing a document for conversion. Some of the shortcomings mentioned are features Flipick is working to resolve before the final release of the product; others are general best practices based on the EPUB3 specification. For example, only OTF and True Type fonts are supported (an EPUB requirement), and fonts must be stored in the same folder as the InDesign document (a Flipick requirement). The latter is easily accomplished by using InDesign’s Package feature, found under the File menu, which collects all images and fonts and saves a copy of the InDesign document all to one folder. Flipick currently does not support text wraps, tables, tabs, footnotes, or anchored frames—all of which Flipick will convert to an image. In the next release, Flipick will address these issues and convert these elements to text. Effects applied to frames (e.g., transparency, drop shadow, etc.) will be lost on conversion, and only hyperlinks that link to a URL, an internal page, or reveal/hide an InDesign layer, will be converted. For slideshows created with the Flipick plug-in, all images must be precropped before placing them in InDesign and named with a sequence prefix (e.g., 01-image.jpg, 02-image.jpg, etc.), otherwise cropping and sequencing will not be accurate.

Additionally, specific situations that will result in fatal errors (i.e., the EPUB file will not be generated) include:

• If object states are used, (Object States is a built-in feature of InDesign for creating buttons with roll-over actions and other interactivity that is supported when exporting as an SWF file.)

• If the document contains special hidden characters (such as a page number variable, any other variable characters, end of nested style, and right indent character),

• If the document contains blank pages,

• If the document contains text on a path,

• If facing pages is enabled, or

• If the document has missing fonts.

Of all the best practices, precropping is the only one that will add time to production, as most designers do not precrop images before placing them in InDesign. However, there is a plug-in available for InDesign—Link Optimizer Lite by Zervix Solutions ($179.95)—that can batch crop images to the size of the image frame in InDesign. In a future release, Flipick will support images as cropped in InDesign.

Here the size of the text frame was reduced to create overset text and applied the Scroll Box effect via the Widget palette.

Hands On

For the test document, a photobook originally designed for print was used; however several pages were removed to trim the document to 20 pages. Using the Flipick Widget palette, a slideshow was created using four images, text scrolling was applied to a text frame, and two images were moved to separate layers to test the hyperlink functionality of revealing and hiding content on layers. Images used in the slideshow were not precropped, however they were moved to their own folder and renamed with a sequence number prefix.

Here the middle image was moved to Layer 2 and the bottom image to Layer 3. Then clicking on the top image, a hyperlink was assigned to Layer 2. The same was done to the middle image, linking it to Layer 3. Then Layers 2 and 3 were turned off (hidden) before converting our file. In the resulting EPUB file, clicking on the top image reveals the middle image, and clicking on the middle image reveals the bottom image. Clicking again on either hides the corresponding image.

The most obvious missing feature is the ability to preview interactivity; however the company reports it will have an Adobe Air desktop application for previewing e-books prior to uploading. Testing the interactivity required uploading the file to Flipick. iPad2 was selected as the tablet rendering option. Generating the 13.1 MB .zip file of the 20-page document took less than 30 seconds. It took three minutes and seven seconds to upload and convert. The resulting EPUB file was 12.6 MB.

The Readium plugin for Google Chrome was used to review the EPUBs. The files were also transferred to an iPad 3 using iTunes on a Mac. In both cases, the conversion was flawless. The final EPUB file can be accessed here.

My Take

My library full of test files on Flipick.

Overall, Flipick is very easy to use. In total it took about an hour to prepare the file, get accustomed to the plugin tools, and output the final test file. The only noticeable bug was on the cover page of the book, where a white stroke applied to the title was not rendered. Publishers designing children’s books will find Flipick does not add a significant amount of time to the production process when transforming a printed book into an interactive one. Flipick is definitely off to a good start.

Flipick is an interesting product/service, particularly for the textbook and children’s book markets. Ravi Dugal, CEO of Mediawide, the company behind the Flipick service, reports corporate publishers have also expressed interest. The company is currently working on a project to build an interactive multi-choice question test for job candidates with offline capabilities and an admin dashboard for analytics for results uploaded from a tablet. Flipick will also be providing branded bookstores, where publishers would retain 75 – 85 percent royalty when selling their books, and plans to extend the EPUB creation with submission services to other e-bookstore platforms. Additionally, Dugal noted, the company is working on HTML5/javascript-based document delivery for interactive digital ads.

So why EPUB3 versus straight HTML5? Dugal believes the offline caching is more robust and the platform more standard than the HTML5 specification alone, which will provide a more uniform user experience across devices as support increases. The ability to embed fonts and deliver a single EPUB document are additional advantages of the EPUB format according to Dugal. “We have invested a lot of time in creating an EPUB file that mimics an InDesign layout. We handle many complex aspects of layout and typography. In the next release slated two weeks from now, we will improve on conversions of text wraps, footnotes, floating and anchored frames, tabs, and tables. We have seen very complex layouts convert very well. There are still cases where we face some issues, and these are being addressed during the beta phase.”

Dugal says the company plans to take Flipick to a much larger scale. “We are putting together a significant production services infrastructure in India to handle the entire process of digitization—leveraged by technology but complemented with manual processes when needed. These production services would include e-Book conversions (including re-flowable type e-Books), interactive digital ads, print ad adaptations, and weekly ads for publishing on print and digital devices. We are currently working with SGS in Canada for a significant initiative to automate the digitization and production of retail promotions,” says Dugal.

With Flipick’s licensing model and future expansion plans, the company is clearly focusing its sights on larger publishing houses, but it is still in the process of developing a business model, which may include lower priced and even a free version of the service.

The cover page as shown on the iPad 3.

Providing tools that take the guess work out of creating documents compatible with different platforms and devices is the gateway for democratizing the publishing market. While the large publishing houses have the money and resources for promotion and marketing, they detract from the author’s income potential. Just as the music and entertainment worlds are seeing a rise in independent creation, distribution, and selling directly by artists, the publishing world, from books to magazines, and even corporate and educational titles, will see a shift to more independent publishers. Imagine a world where a scientist could create her own physics textbook, or a stay-at-home mom her own magazine. Blogs and social media have proven effective means of self-promotion. The tools available for creating e-books and the like need to support this model. A low-cost or free version of the service would be appealing to self-publishers and those interested in creating EPUBs to give away for free. If Flipick does deliver on its goal of generating e-books that replicate print versions, publishers will find this an invaluable service.

About Rose Rossello

Rose is a technical analyst, writer, graphic designer, web developer, and photographer. She operates two businesses: Rossello Design, which provides marketing, design, and photography services to businesses, and Rossello Photography, which focuses on contemporary portraiture for women. For the past several years, she handled production for the Seybold Report and the Digital Publishing Report, produced by the Joss Group, and managed the publications’ Web sites and online store. She also contributed several reviews for both publications. Earlier in her career, Rose was Assistant Managing Editor for Seybold Publications, which produced the Seybold Report on Publishing Systems and the Desktop Publishing Report. She can be reached at rose@rossellodesign.com.