While in5 is super easy to customize, sometimes it helps some prebuilt tools that your viewer can use to navigate your publication.

In the video below, you can see the new Viewer Display options that is now available with in5 (InDesign to HTML5).

As you can see in the video, all you have to do is check a few boxes to add the following items to your HTML5 output from InDesign:

• Jump to Table of Contents (configurable)
• Show Page Thumbnails
• Zoom in/out
• Switch to fullscreen
• Download a PDF
• Show reading progress (as a progress bar and/or page count)

These updates are available to Pro subscribers as of version 3.1.

in5 (InDesign to HTML5) is incredibly flexible. It’s easy to attach custom functionality to your output.

I’ve shared several customizations on this blog and on the Answer Exchange.

The most popular customization by far is the “desktop scaling” code that scales layouts proportionally to the browser window.

In fact, when most people ask me about a “responsive” layout, they actually want to maintain their layout and simply scale it proportionally (a truly responsive layout changes at different sizes—I’m working on that, too).

To make it even easier for you to create flexible layouts (on both desktop and mobile), I’ve folded this scaling feature into in5 and refined it further.

Check out the video below to see it in action.

(It even works with the new page flip transition!)

Are you moving from print to digital?

Need help exporting your spreads to HTML?

Starting with version 3.1 of in5 (InDesign to HTML5) comes with a script that lets you merge multi-page spreads into single pages.

Before running the script

Here’s a screenshot of a document with spreads before the script has been run.

To merge each spread into a page, you’ll simply run the Merge Spreads script that will be installed with in5 v3.1.

After running the script

The script will produce a new document (so your original is left unchanged).

Note that the number of spreads and the number of pages are now the same in the image below.

You can now finish prepping the modified document for a digital format (web, mobile app, etc).

This is just one of the ways that in5 will help you transition from print to digital documents.

Way back in 2008, I wrote my first InDesign extension at the behest of then InDesign Product Manager, Michael Ninness.

The MergeText Frames extension combines multiple textframes into a single frame so that your text can easily be edited.

This is especially useful if you’re using the PDF2ID extension from Recosoft.

It was wonderfully promoted by the community and has been one the most popular items on my site ever since.

Why update it now?

There are two main reasons that I’m releasing this update.

1. The extension is still useful and these feature requests continue to come in.
2. I can apply my years of experience to improve the script. 🙂

What’s new?

There are three main, major changes in this update.

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I’ve heard from a few people lately asking for introduction to in5.

This post has some resources to help you go from “zero to hero.”

I’ll explain what in5 does and how it can help you publish yourAdobe InDesign content online.

The 30-Second Version

in5 lets your export your layout, animation, and interactivity directly from InDesign.

in5 uses InDesign’s own interactive features, so you can focus on your design, instead of learning how to use unfamiliar software.

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