Exporting to HTML
There is no doubt that QuarkXPress (version 5 and later) currently offers more robust tools for exporting HTML files than InDesign. However, most people don't realize that InDesign actually has some reasonably good HTML export tools, too. To export an HTML file from InDesign, select Export from the File menu and choose HTML as the export format. That said, while this option provides a quick method for getting content (text, graphics, and shapes you've drawn on your page) ready for the web, it is not our first choice. Exporting as a PDF file guarantees much better fidelity for sharing documents. Also, when converting documents to HTML, InDesign often converts type to a bitmapped GIF image to maintain its appearance, with incredibly ugly results. Nevertheless, if you use the HTML export feature you can control a number of settings in the five panels of the Export HTML dialog box (see Figure 100-1):
Figure 100-1. The five panels of the Export as HTML dialog box
Documents. In this panel you can control whether each InDesign page of your document is converted to a separate HTML page or a single (long, scrolling) HTML document. You can also control the HTML title and the name of the file. Formatting. Using the Format panel controls, you can override all text colors and force them to become black and you can also apply a background image or color to all pages. Layout. With the Layout panel controls you can have InDesign add a navigation bar to multiple page documents and you can determine if the HTML will use Cascading Style Sheets to maintain the positioning of objects on your page. (If you're just trying to get content out to import into some other program, then turn off Positioning.) Graphics. You can use the Graphics panel controls to determine how your imported images are converted for use on the Web. InDesign can automatically determine whether individual images should become GIF or JPEG or you can set them all to one format. The Use Image Sub-Folder checkbox tells InDesign to create a folder for all placed graphics after converting them use on the web. You can also control the quality and size of both JPEG and GIF images in this section. The higher the quality and color depth the larger the size of the images and the longer they take to download. We strongly recommend you use Photoshop to convert images to GIF or JPEG rather than InDesign. Options. This panel only lets you choose between different text encoding choices.
InDesign does not provide any methods for maintaining, checking, or fixing hyperlinks nor does it provide methods for uploading the file to a web server. For all of these features you can use a web site design and management software program such as Adobe GoLive.
|