Export a single article or a complete publication or separate articles.
1. In general
Once you have finalized your design, and have added the interactive elements you wanted to include, you can select "Export article" or "Export Publication…", available from the Twixl Publisher palette.
Choose a destination for the export package and click OK. The Twixl Publisher plug-in will now export all contents (possibly different versions for landscape and portrait, or different form factors…)
One InDesign document -> .article file
If you are exporting one article (possibly consisting of multiple pages), then a package file with the extension .article will be generated.
Complete InDesign book -> .publication file
For a complete export of an InDesign book, a package file with the extension .publication will be created.
TIP ABOUT .PUBLICATIONS AND THE TWIXL PLATFORM:
When uploading a .publication file to the Twixl platform, it will automatically be split in different .article content items during post-processing.
Complete InDesign book -> separate .article files
You can also export all members of your book (.publication ) as separate .articles .
TIP ABOUT EXPORTING AS SEPARATE ARTICLES:
InDesign has always been rather buggy when it's about exporting book files. Most of the time they are caused by too many book files, too many fonts, etc. This also influences the export or preview actions from Twixl Publisher. If your InDesign book fails to export, you can also use this functionality to export separate articles and avoid crashes.
ABOUT WINDOWS:
On Windows, the . article or .publication package file will appear as a folder.
PREFLIGHT:
When exporting an article or a publication, Twixl Publisher will always start a preflight check first. If the plug-in detects a problem, depending on the severity, you may or may not choose to continue the Export.
2. Best practice for exporting 'Web Resources'
Web Resources are used to embed (HTML) content in a .publication or .article . They are also used in case of shared content (e.g. a movie that is used in different .articles). Different Export options have different consequences. We explain them briefly here:
2.1. How are Web Resources being exported?
- Exporting a .article that is part of an InDesign-book: The Web Resources folder of the InDesign-book will be completely integrated in the export of your each of the .article packages.
- Exporting a .article that is not part of an InDesign-book and was created independently: The Web Resources folder of the InDesign-article will be completely integrated in the export of your .article - and so will only contain those resources that are required for that article.
- Exporting as separate .articles (all articles of an InDesign-book): Each article will include a complete copy of the Web Resources folder from the InDesign-book.
2.2. Which choice to I need to make?
If your Web Resources folder doesn't contain a lot of huge files, you can choose for the automatic management: exporting a complete .publication or exporting as separate .articles will do just fine.
If all of your .articles contain a lot of huge files in the Web Resources folder, it's best to create separate InDesign-articles and export all of them separately. You can also combine them in a book-file afterwards, but you need to start with the creation of separate Articles first (separate InDesign-files):
- Create all new Articles (via the Twixl Publisher plugin)
- Populate your Web Resources with the necessary files, only needed for each specific .article
- Group all InDesign files in an InDesign .publication (an InDesign-book file)
- Use the Export as Articles so that you get an optimized .article export for each article.