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Dan Rodney
Dan Rodney Calculating status...
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Jan 18, 2010
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InDesign CS6 Coding ePub Lists Wrong?

Jun 27, 2012 1:04 PM

Tags: #indesign #css #cs6 #epub #numbered_list #bullet_list

I think I found a major bug in InDesign CS6's ePub export of list items.

 

In CS5 I'd get pretty clean lists:

 

<ul>
    <li class="Basic-Paragraph">one</li>
    <li class="Basic-Paragraph">two</li>
    <li class="Basic-Paragraph">three</li>
</ul>

 

Now in CS6 I get this mess

 

<ul>
    <li class="Basic-Paragraph"><span class="char-style-override-1">•&#9;</span>one</li>
    <li class="Basic-Paragraph"><span class="char-style-override-1">•&#9;</span>two</li>
    <li class="Basic-Paragraph"><span class="char-style-override-1">•&#9;</span>three</li>
</ul>

 

The same type of thing happens with ordered lists as well. Why are the bullets and numbering now being entered in the code instead of using the native list formatting? InDesig CS6's CSS actually hides the native list formatted because it would of course conflict with the typed in characters.

 

This is real mess of code. Is there a good reason for this that I am not seeing? This causes a ton of formatting issues. The same ePub that looked great exported from CS5 looks bad exported from CS6.

2065 Views   16 Replies   Latest reply: Magnolee2, Jan 29, 2013 12:21 AM
 
Replies
  • guardaroba
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    1. guardaroba,
    Jun 28, 2012 11:44 AM   in reply to Dan Rodney
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    I'm having the same trouble. I guess the lack of responses means that it's probably a bug and that there's no easy way to avoid ending up with double bullets? Anyone else?

     

    Thanks!

     
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  • Dan Rodney
    46 posts
    Jan 18, 2010
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    2. Dan Rodney,
    Jun 28, 2012 11:55 AM   in reply to guardaroba
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    Clearly it must be a bug. I've resorted to using GREP to remove the bad code Adobe is adding. But it would be great to have a fix so I don't have to remove the bad code!

     
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  • Bob Levine
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    3. Bob Levine,
    Jun 28, 2012 11:59 AM   in reply to Dan Rodney
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    Sadly, I think it's as designed. Makes a littel bit of sense for numbered lists but certainly not for bullets.

     

    If you export the exact same content to HTML it's comes through properly.

     

    Someone made a really bad decision here.

     

    Bob

     
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  • Steve Werner
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    4. Steve Werner,
    Jun 28, 2012 12:01 PM   in reply to Bob Levine
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    Time to file a bug report so Adobe gets the word.

     
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  • guardaroba
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    5. guardaroba,
    Jun 28, 2012 12:04 PM   in reply to Steve Werner
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    Thanks for the help everyone! I was hoping I might have just misunderstood the UL export settings, but alas...

     

     

    (Honestly, I've given up on reporting bugs, making feature requests, and generally expecting Adobe to respond to people who use their products. Not that I'm still bitter about no endnotes in CS6  )

     
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  • Bob Levine
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    6. Bob Levine,
    Jun 28, 2012 12:06 PM   in reply to Steve Werner
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    Just to be perfectly clear...I hope I'm wrong about the as designed thing. This is just brutal behavior.

     

    Bob

     
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  • Dan Rodney
    46 posts
    Jan 18, 2010
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    7. Dan Rodney,
    Jun 28, 2012 12:11 PM   in reply to Bob Levine
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    I agree @bob that Adobe probably meant to do this (as crazy as that sounds). It seems like an intentional change because of the CSS changes as well. I still call it a bug because it's a problem in the software, but Adobe would probably call it a "feature."

     

    @steveI did file a bug report but forgot to mention that in my post here. Of course the more people do it the more Adobe might get the point!

     
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  • Bob Levine
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    8. Bob Levine,
    Jun 28, 2012 12:20 PM   in reply to Dan Rodney
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    I think you need to file it as a feature request, not a bug report. Anything as designed is going to be filed away immediately while a feature request might get looked at.

     

     

     

    This behavior is flat out wrong for bullets and as far as semantic mark up goes. It’s not correct for numbered lists either but does result in the numbers being the same as the InDesign file.

     

     

     

    Bob

     
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  • Bob Levine
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    9. Bob Levine,
    Jun 28, 2012 12:35 PM   in reply to Dan Rodney
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    After a bit more reading, including a what’s new in EPUB article in the new InDesign Magazine, I can assure you, this is as designed.

     

     

     

    Again, I can see the logic for number lists, but not for bullets.

     

     

     

    Bob

     
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  • Dan Rodney
    46 posts
    Jan 18, 2010
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    10. Dan Rodney,
    Jun 28, 2012 12:54 PM   in reply to Bob Levine
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    One person's feature is another person's bug. Non-standard coding of lists like this should at least have been an option, not mandatory. InDesign magazine's example of nested lists looks nice and tidy, but in my project the lists exported from CS6 look horrible. In trying to fix something they also broke it.

     

    I don't think the way Adobe tried to fix this is the correct way. At least I see the problem Adobe "thought" they were fixing, custom bullets and nested lists, but it seems they could have coded things semantically and fixed the issues they were trying to fix with nested lists.

     
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  • Bob Levine
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    11. Bob Levine,
    Jun 28, 2012 1:23 PM   in reply to Dan Rodney
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    I agree with you 100%, Dan but again, if you report it as a bug, it’s not at all likely going to get looked at.

     

     

     

    Bob

     
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  • McWriting
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    12. McWriting,
    Aug 28, 2012 3:58 PM   in reply to Dan Rodney
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    It's not a bug. Adobe brags in CS6 promos that it can now display any character as a bullet, whereas previously we were "stuck" with the CSS bullet characters. This is their solution, and it's awful. I've managed to override it in my own CSS, but when I convert ePubs to Kindle books, Kindle can't handle the CSS and it comes apart, leaving me with TWO bullet characters.

     

    Undo, Adobe!

     
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  • Dan Rodney
    46 posts
    Jan 18, 2010
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    13. Dan Rodney,
    Aug 28, 2012 9:45 PM   in reply to McWriting
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    @McWriting You're right about Adobe not thinking it's a bug. This is how they intended the feature to work. They completely botched it, but yes that's how they intended it to work. This is extremely poor coding on their part, and not to mention it's non-standard and incorrect HTML & CSS.

     

    To fix the conversion to Kindle you'll have to expand the ePub, and use find/change (like GREP) to remove the bullets and numbers that Adobe wrongly codes into the HTML. That and some CSS fixes can eliminate your problems. We're now responsible for cleaning up the bad code Adobe has written. Too bad they didn't just make it optional!

     
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  • Steve Werner
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    14. Steve Werner,
    Aug 29, 2012 5:26 AM   in reply to Dan Rodney
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    Here's the perspective of Ron Bilodeau, one of the experts in the field, in a very insightful blog post:

     

    http://silvadeau.wordpress.com

     
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  • McWriting
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    15. McWriting,
    Aug 29, 2012 9:30 AM   in reply to Dan Rodney
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    Yep, Kindle can't handle the kind of CSS required to make the ID6 bullets display acceptably. Hanging indents don't align well enough in ePubs, worse in Kindle, and thus look amateurish. I found no better solution than to strip out the newly added bullet character and span style from every ePub doc and revert to ePub-generated lists – a real pain, even using GREP.

     

    InDesign added "display: block" to their span tag to disable a list's ability to act, well, list-like. That's the kind of back-door hack I'd try to get away with, not something I expected to see from Adobe.   :-D

     
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  • Magnolee2
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    16. Magnolee2,
    Jan 29, 2013 12:21 AM   in reply to Dan Rodney
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    Hey Dan,

     

    would you mind revealing which GREP-commands you use to sort out these faulty codes? I'm really annoyed by this problem, especially since I have a Book with many many pages and many many bullet- und numbered lists.

     

    Do you also delete the bullet and define the sign via CSS or do you leave the bullet as it is? Do you only delete the span-tags?

    I always have difficulties with the indents.

     

    Thank you very much.

     
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