Know Why The Fixed Layout ePub Is Getting All The Eminence

The emergence of eBooks has given authors an amazing platform to showcase their work to a broader audience in the easiest way. However, one thing to take care of is the format of your eBook. Authors can choose one of the two layout formats – reflowable layout or fixed layout. The reflowable layout, as the name suggests, approaches the content as floating text and images, precisely arranged as per the screen size. Whereas, the fixed layout format involves a predetermined text and image placement, like PDF files. Each of the two has its uses, advantages, and drawbacks. However, the latter is a more befitting choice for electronic books as it enables creating highly engaging eBooks with a comprehensive design and an image-rich outlook. Children’s book, cookbooks, fashion magazines, graphic novels, travel guides, and other such image-heavy publications are best structured under this format.

Why Fixed Layout Is The Best Option For Children’s eBooks?

Children’s eBooks require image-rich and engaging content to allow the readers to easily comprehend the content without disturbing the interactive elements of the page. When you convert your work into fixed layout ePub, you get such features. In the children’s ebook fixed layout conversion, the format incorporates a digital lock on text and image placement. This ensures that certain images go with particular parts of the text for an improved readability. It further adds interactive elements that allow:

• The reader to access the zoom in/out feature and scroll up/down both horizontally and vertically.
• The overlaying of interactive elements. For instance, if you are creating children’s ebook to explain the sounds of animals in the jungle – you can add an image of a jungle as the background and then add independent images of the animals in different areas. You can even add interactive elements like audio-on-click and animations to the animals’ images within the single frame.
• The use of enhancements offering forms of animations, audio narrations etc.
• The interlinking of the text and images while precisely defining how the text wraps on the page and where lines start and end.

The Pros And Cons Of Fixed Layout ePub Conversion

The pros

• The author/designer has a complete control over how the ebook is displayed on the screen – from the text locked to specific points, to images/audio narration interlinked with texts.
• A great option if you want to use graphics, background images, double-page spreads, multi-column text, and vertical text. It supports embedded font, depending on the device and software available at the user’s end.
• The best choice for multi-column text as it requires fixing the text at specific points on the page.
• Best suited for books like cookbooks and graphic novels where the design is the primary element.

The cons

Fixed layout ebooks, as the name suggests, follow a fixed layout, not allowing the reader/user any choice in font, spacing, margins. However, for some image-heavy publications like children’s book and fashion magazines, it is necessary to lock the images with the content. Thus, static content is preferred to restrict the content flow and flexibility.

• You may get limited outreach to your audience as many retailers might not support this format and might deny to distribute it.
• eBooks with this format are larger in file size which may attract higher download fees from some retailers like Amazon.
• Using publishers business services for ebook fixed layout conversion might cost you a bit higher as it is more expensive to produce and update. However, considering its features and benefits, it is worth the cost.

These are the advantages and disadvantages of the fixed layouts ePub conversion. But, before you go on an publish your work, you need to ask yourself – Who is your ebook designed for? Does your content need linking to any interactive elements such as images, audio, graphics, and animation? Does it require one column per page or a more complex layout? If you have an affirmative answer to this or want to consult someone expert on eBooks publishing, just drop a mail to info@suntecdigital.com to know if you should go for fixed layout ePub conversion services.