Following Nick Barreto's recent post on importing EPUB files into InDesign I was inspired to write this short post providing an alternative method that uses only InDesign itself.
(2) Drill down to the XHTML files as Nick also describes and change the extension of each to .xml
(3) Next import the XML file into InDesign by going to File->Import XML... and selecting the file.
(4) OK the DTD warning that appears telling you something about not having the linked file.
(5) The XML will appear in the Structure panel and from here you can drag it into text boxes - see Adobe's guide for help.
(6) Next open the Tags panel using Window->Utilities->Tags to see all the imported tags
(7) For each tag we need a style: you can either create these afresh or import the styles from another document by either opening the Character Styles, or the Paragraph Styles, panel and then selecting the icon in the top right corner of the panel, which will reveal a menu. In this menu select Load All Text Styles... and then choose the file from which to import the styles
(8) Having imported or created your styles, return to the Tags panel and select the top right icon in the panel and from the menu select Map Tags to Styles...
(9) Now you can select the InDesign style equivalent for each tag and all should now be styled when you press OK
(10) Having done all this you essentially have a template for the next xhtml/xml file that you import, so save a copy of this first file and delete the content before importing the next XML file.
(11) When you import the next XML file all should magically style without intervention.
Import EPUB into InDesign
(1) Follow Nick's post up to the point where he unzips the EPUB - you can do this not only in the way he describes but also by using StuffIt Expander and dragging the EPUB file onto the StuffIt icon in the OS X dock, or by replacing .epub extension with .zip in Finder and double clicking(2) Drill down to the XHTML files as Nick also describes and change the extension of each to .xml
(3) Next import the XML file into InDesign by going to File->Import XML... and selecting the file.
(4) OK the DTD warning that appears telling you something about not having the linked file.
(5) The XML will appear in the Structure panel and from here you can drag it into text boxes - see Adobe's guide for help.
(6) Next open the Tags panel using Window->Utilities->Tags to see all the imported tags
(7) For each tag we need a style: you can either create these afresh or import the styles from another document by either opening the Character Styles, or the Paragraph Styles, panel and then selecting the icon in the top right corner of the panel, which will reveal a menu. In this menu select Load All Text Styles... and then choose the file from which to import the styles
(8) Having imported or created your styles, return to the Tags panel and select the top right icon in the panel and from the menu select Map Tags to Styles...
(9) Now you can select the InDesign style equivalent for each tag and all should now be styled when you press OK
(10) Having done all this you essentially have a template for the next xhtml/xml file that you import, so save a copy of this first file and delete the content before importing the next XML file.
(11) When you import the next XML file all should magically style without intervention.
Further reading
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