CASE STUDY: FROM EBOOK TO EPUB

Research

I first researched how to access a Kindle eBook and where to find my files in my computer. These are protected documents, for obvious reasons, but it is possible to access these files using software solutions that are “free”. You can easily find these solutions with a quick search online. One of these solutions provides a free version that allows you to save a PDF but the quality is not great. However, they advertise that you can get a better-quality output if you pay for the full version. And so, I did. Unfortunately, the product of the full version was not as desired: I was able to save a PDF and also an ePUB version, but the content and images were all distorted. Needless to say, I requested a refund.

I also considered turning my files into an editable PDF, with all my images cleaned and with text boxes, and then converting them into an InDesign file using PDF2ID from Recosoft. That seemed like a better solution, until I realized that I am not a designer and will probably not use PDF2ID enough to justify buying the product. However, I am still curious to see what the outcome could have been if I had chosen the route of Recosoft. But for this case study my final solution was more rudimentary than I had expected.

Workflow

Ultimately, my workflow was from screenshots, to Photoshop to InDesign. In the following infographic I list the steps that I followed to recreate an eBook into an FLO ePUB:

Trial and Error

Before I decided to follow the steps in the infographic above, I began working with Photoshop. I cleaned the images and created layers with editable text. But as mentioned above, during this tedious process, I discovered that my options were limited because I needed a way to have a file with multiple pages and editable text. However, that did not happen. So, I ended up spending several hours cleaning up the images and recreating the design to ultimately turn them into PSD files with no text. However, all of this work and practice will certainly not be wasted. Here is a glimpse of that work:

Localized Images

In this next video you can see the final localized images that I created in Photoshop, which I converted to images with no text.

Creating an ePUB

In the following video I show the process of creating an ePUB (using an Adobe free template), the translation process of the IDML file using Phrase, the post-translation cleanup, and the final ePUB version compared with the original Kindle eBook.

Localized ePUB

Conclusion

The final Spanish ePUB has room for perfection. Somehow the book title did not properly display in the ePUB although the featured image in Thorium Reader did show the title. I also need to do more research and play around more with image sizing.

Additionally, going from a screenshot to an image is not the most efficient way to localize any asset and I would not ever recommend this solution. As one of my MIIS professors always says, “ask your client for the original files!”. But for this case study I was my last resort. It is obviously more work than anyone needs to do. But if you have the time and want to experiment with Adobe products you will definitely end up refining your knowledge of these products.

For any future image localization project, I will definitely research how to properly resize images to ensure the final asset displays them correctly. Overall, I am satisfied with the simplified version of the Kindle eBook that I was able to recreate. This case study has awakened my curiosity of how these resources can be used to localize open-source ePUBs to increase access to information to people who prefer to read in Spanish and other languages.

Now I will be able to read Unstoppable Me! to my kids in my mother tongue: Spanish!

I hope this information is useful to you. If you have any questions or comments or if you want to know more about localization, send me a message here!

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