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Mapping book features to HTML elements and classes

For ebook-friendly consistency across typesetting and ebook production, it’s important that you use exactly the same terms for intended book features, InDesign style names and HTML/CSS classes.

To get there, map your current in-house terms for book features to HTML elements and classes in a three-column table, like the example below.

For each book feature, you’re aiming for a style/class name that describes its purpose, and not it’s appearance. And all lowercase with no spaces or special characters.

In-house term for feature

HTML element*

HTML class/InDesign style name

Topic head

h1

topic-head

A-head/Unit heading

h2

unit-head

B-head

h3

unit-subhead

Box heading

p

objectives-head

List of objectives

ul

objectives-list

Let’s talk about … heading

p

talk-about-head

Let’s talk about … text

p

talk-about-text

Body text

p

body-text

Bullets in body text

ul

body-text-list

Numbered list in body text

ol

body-text-list

*Note: anything that would appear in a table of contents should have an HTML heading tag from h1 to h6.

Arthur Attwell 27 January 2014
This information is more than two years old, and may no longer be accurate.