Pages to ePub... why so difficult? where are my page breaks?

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Pages to ePub... why so difficult? where are my page breaks?

So my book is at the editors and I wanted to start to look into publishing to iBooks. So from pages I exported to ePub and the final book looked terrible. So I went through all the forums and I have got to say that there is no step by step guide to accomplish this. So I put it out there to see if someone can help.

My book is all text, it has 18 chapters and countless page breaks. How can I make the ePub look and work like my pages? Lets start simple no HTML or PDF.

1. Should I open up a new pages document and set it up a certain way then copy paste from my original pages to this new pages. If so how should this be set up?

2. Is there a font that I should write in that will not make ePub bonkers

3. Page breaks... how do I keep these when exporting to ePub?

4. the Apple template to Export to ePub... I just don't understand how to use this... is there a step by step guide?

Lastly, I was very surprised this is so difficult to accomplish... sure Apple makes it simple to export to ePub but the final product is nothing like what I have in pages... so is there a program that I can use where tweaking is not nessesary?

Thanks to all for any help!

iBook, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Jan 30, 2013 10:57 AM

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Answer 1

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

115,836 points

Jan 30, 2013 12:20 PM in response to rab550

Have you read this?

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4168

It has instructions on how to use ePub Best Practices sample. Do these fail for you?

What are you opening your epub with, iBooks?

In iBooks, the user selects from a number of possible fonts. Have you used one of those?

It may not be realistic to have an epub look just like your Pages doc, unless you go to "fixed format epub". A google search on that will provide some info on how it is done.

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Answer 2

rab550 Author

Level 1

0 points

Jan 30, 2013 1:26 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

Thanks Tom,

I did jump on this but I don't know what I am doing wrong. I figured that there could be a set up (when you start a new pages project) one can do before starting a project with pages so exporting to ePub can be seemless (choosing the right fonts etc.) I followed the instructions but the chapters never show up in the table of contents before I export. I have used both page break and section break and started with chapter name (i write in my own chapter name in the same font still does not show up.

And don't get me started on page breaks! when I cant even get my chapters to start on a new page! BTW I export to itunes then use iBooks...

A step by step youtube video guide would be nice... all I have found is this:

http://www6.district125.k12.il.us/staffdev/tutorial/using_pages_to_create_epub_f iles.pdf

And I follow it but I must be doing something wrong...

Do you have a suggestion on chapter and page breaks?

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Answer 3

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

115,836 points

Jan 30, 2013 1:40 PM in response to rab550

rab550 wrote:

Do you have a suggestion on chapter and page breaks?

Unfortunately not. I think there have been discussions about it ever since Pages got the epub export function, without a really good solution (if I remember right). You might want to ask again in the Pages forum.

https://discussions.apple.com/community/iwork/pages

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