ePub and Pages Tutorial

I am working on a screencast of how to create ePub documents for the iPad using Pages ’09.

Three things to keep in mind when creating ePub documents with Pages:

• the ePub export feature is only available for word processing documents.
• Your images should be added inline. A good way to ensure all images (as well as video/audio files are inline is to always use the Insert menu, instead of dragging in a file from the Media Browser or the Desktop).
• Use the styles menu to add styles to headings. You can then use the TOC tab of the Document Inspector to check which items you want to be listed in the table of contents automatically created by Pages 09. The top item on the TOC will be used to divide your document into chapters.

The final thing I want to emphasize is that this format is really intended for text.  When VoiceOver is used to read the ePub document in iBooks, it will only read alternative text for those who are blind if the text is added as a caption underneath each image (such as Figure 1a. ….). This is essential for accessibility.

Update: You can get around the fact that Pages does not let you insert alt text for images by renaming your image file to match the desired alt text before you add it to the Pages document.