PressTo5 User Guide

What you can make

One InDesign document, many ways to publish it.

Opening PressTo5

Once PressTo5 is installed, there are two ways to reach it in InDesign:

• Plugins > PressTo5 opens the PressTo5 panel and lists every command in one flat list.
• The PressTo5 menu that the plugin adds to InDesign's menu bar. Here the commands are grouped: Interactive Elements holds the tools that work on a selected frame (Scrollable Frame through Image Sequence and Scroll Effects), and Media holds Background Audio, which applies to the whole publication.

Each of the interactive-element tools opens its own screen inside the PressTo5 panel. Click ← Back to export at the top of any screen to return to the main export panel.

Your first export

From an open InDesign document to a working web publication in a few minutes.

1. Open the document you want to export in InDesign.
2. Open the PressTo5 panel from Plugins > PressTo5.
3. Set the title and pages. Type a Webpage title (leave it blank to use the title from File > File Info, or the file name). Under Pages to export, keep All pages or choose Custom and type a range such as 1, 3, 5-8, 12.
4. Click Export to HTML5. The Export options dialog opens.
5. Choose your options on the Viewer, Fonts, Misc and Analytics tabs (see Export options dialog). The defaults give a good result, so for a first try you can leave them alone. Click OK.
   • Cancel stops the export and leaves every option as it was.
   • A document with several Alternate Layouts shows an Alternate layout picker at the top of the Viewer tab.
6. Review Preflight if it finds problems. Its screen lists each one: click a problem to select it in the layout, fix it, click Re-check, then Export anyway or Cancel. With nothing found, the export carries straight on.
7. Choose an output folder. Tip: use an empty folder for each publication. A progress bar shows the current step and roughly how long is left, and the log below it lists each step.
8. Open the result. Open index.html from the output folder in your browser to check it.

Publishing the result

1. Check it locally by opening index.html from the output folder in a browser.
2. Upload the whole output folder to your web server or hosting service, keeping its files and subfolders together. Don't upload only index.html: the pictures, styles and scripts live beside it.
3. Share the address of the folder (for example https://example.com/magazine/).

The PressTo5 panel

The log fills the rest of the panel. Click its header to fold it down to a single line that keeps showing the latest message; the panel remembers whether it was folded. The log is worth a glance after each export: it tells you about anything it changed, skipped or couldn't do.

Export options dialog

Four tabs: Viewer, Fonts, Misc and Analytics.

Every option has a short explanation beside it; hover for the long version. Clicking an option's text toggles its box too. Options that don't apply to your current choices are dimmed: for example, Pages-only options are dimmed while Scrolling is chosen, and options that can't work across separate files are dimmed while One file per page is chosen.

Viewer tab

Fonts tab

Misc tab

Analytics tab

Provider, ID, consent and events. See Analytics.

Saved settings & presets

Each document remembers its settings

When you click OK in the export dialog, the settings are saved inside the InDesign document. Next time you export that document, the dialog opens on its own settings, so each publication keeps its own look. A document that has never been exported opens on the settings you used last.

• Not saved with the document: the page selection and title (chosen in the panel each time), and the Preflight and Debug switches (which belong to the plugin).
• The first time you click OK on a document it's marked as changed. Save the document to keep its settings.
• Cancel puts every control back to the document's saved settings.

Saving a preset

1. Open the export dialog and set every tab the way you want it.
2. Click Save Preset… and choose where to save the .pt5preset file. It includes the Analytics tab and Offline app settings.

Using a preset on another document

1. Open the other document and click Export to HTML5.
2. Click Load Preset… and pick the .pt5preset file. The dialog fills with its settings.
3. Check the tabs and click OK. The preset is only used, and saved with the document, when you click OK.

The viewer & layouts

Choosing a layout

Page turns

How readers get around

• Turn pages with the arrow buttons, the arrow keys (→/↓ forward, ←/↑ back), a swipe or mouse drag, your own links and buttons, the page navigator, the page number box, or search results.
• Zoom by pinching, double-tapping or double-clicking, ctrl-scrolling, or pressing +, - and 0 (reset). Esc zooms back out. A zoomed page pans under a finger or the mouse.
• Back button. With Back button turns pages on, the browser's Back and Forward (and the back swipe on phones) step through the pages read. Quick flips through several pages count as one step.

Two-page spreads

Tick Two-page spreads to show facing pages side by side. Spreads only appear when they don't shrink the pages too much: the window must be at least 768 px wide (so never on a phone), and each page must still be shown at 80% or more of its single-page size. Otherwise the viewer shows single pages, and switches back and forth as the window is resized. The cover, and any page whose partner is a different height, shows on its own.

Viewer controls

• Page navigator: click the page counter to open a strip or grid of page thumbnails.
• Search: the search button (or /) opens a panel that searches every page as you type, ignoring case and accents ("cafe" finds "Café"). Results are listed by page with a snippet; click one to go there. Enter and Shift+Enter step through the results; Esc clears the box, then closes the panel.
• Share: shares a link to the current page through the phone's share sheet, or copies it to the clipboard on a computer.
• PDF download: the export includes a PDF named after the publication, with the exported pages as single pages, bookmarks and hyperlinks, and no printer's marks or bleed. Your own PDF export settings in InDesign are left as they were.
• Viewer theme: Dark, Light, or Match system (follows the reader's light/dark mode).

Page sizes & Alternate Layouts

Every page is exported at its own size. A fold-out, a cover of a different size, or a page resized with the Page tool keeps its size: it's fitted to the window on its own, its thumbnail has its shape, and in Scrolling the pages stack at their own widths.

Exporting a document with Alternate Layouts

1. Create your layouts in InDesign with Layout > Create Alternate Layout.
2. Click Export to HTML5. At the top of the Viewer tab, the Alternate layout picker lists each layout with its page count.
3. Pick one layout, or All layouts, one after the other. The choice is saved with the document and in presets.
4. Click OK and export as usual.

Fonts

All copy in the export is real text: selectable, searchable and readable by search engines and screen readers. By default, fonts are loaded from Google Fonts, requesting exactly the families and weights your document uses. A family Google doesn't have falls back to the browser's default font.

Embedding your own fonts

1. Open the Fonts tab and tick Embed fonts.
2. Read the license check that appears, with one verdict per font:
   • OPEN: an open license such as the SIL Open Font License.
   • CHECK: a commercial or system font. Read its license before publishing.
   • NO: the font forbids embedding, or it's synced from Adobe Fonts (whose terms don't allow self-hosting).
   • ?: missing, or a file that couldn't be read.
3. Click OK. The font files are copied into the export.

Image quality & WebP

Print layouts use print-resolution pictures: a photo in a small frame may be 6000 px wide, while on screen it's only a few hundred pixels across. The Image quality slider shrinks each placed JPEG and PNG to the size it's actually shown at, so readers don't download far more than they can see.

• A resized picture is only used when it comes out smaller than the original.
• When the same picture is placed several times, its largest placement decides the size.
• PNGs stay lossless, so transparency and sharp edges are kept.
• The log lists each picture it shrank, for example photo.jpg: 6000x4000 -> 1200x800, 4.1 MB -> 210 KB.

Convert to WebP

With any stop other than Original, tick Convert to WebP to write pictures in the smaller WebP format where it helps. Photos typically come out a third to two thirds the size of the resized JPEG, at the same quality; PNGs are converted losslessly (except at Small, where PNGs without transparency become lossy). Pictures over about 10 megapixels after resizing keep their format.

Pictures browsers can't show

Placed Illustrator, EPS, PDF, PSD, TIFF, BMP, HEIC and InDesign files can't be shown by browsers, so PressTo5 renders each one to a PNG automatically, keeping the frame's crop, rotation and scaling. Nothing to switch on. Vector artwork loses its sharpness at deep zoom; place SVG if you need it to stay sharp. Layer visibility set in Object Layer Options isn't carried over.

Faster loading

Only the pictures on the opening page load straight away; the rest load as the reader approaches them.

Preflight

Catches problems before your readers do.

Before every export

With Misc > Check document before export ticked (the default), each export checks the document after you click OK and before you choose a folder. If problems are found:

1. The panel switches to the Preflight screen and lists everything found.
2. Click a row: InDesign turns to that page, fits it in the window and selects the object.
3. Fix it in InDesign (the screen doesn't block you), then click Re-check.
4. When you're happy, click Export anyway, or Cancel to stop.

You can also run it any time from PressTo5 > Preflight.

What it checks

Preflight only looks at what will be exported: the chosen pages and their masters, not the pasteboard, hidden or non-printing layers, or hidden objects.

Type, headings & tables

Character and paragraph styling, leading, tracking, alignment (including toward/away from spine), all caps, multi-column frames, text wrap, drop caps, bullets and numbering, paragraph rules and shading, and outlined type all carry across. Threaded frames each show their own share of the story.

Copyfit. Browsers don't set lines exactly as InDesign does, so a frame's text can run slightly long. When it does, the viewer shrinks that frame's type just enough to fit (never below 80%).

Making real headings (recommended)

Headings help search engines and let screen-reader users navigate. The page looks exactly the same.

1. Open the paragraph style for your headings (for example "Chapter Title") and go to Export Tagging.
2. Under the EPUB and HTML tag, choose h1 for the main title, h2 for section heads, and so on. Choose p for body text and blockquote for quotes.
3. For emphasis, open a character style's Export Tagging and choose em or strong (also available: b, i, sub, sup, cite, code, mark and more).
4. For text in another language, type lang="fr" (for example) in the tag's attributes. Screen readers will switch pronunciation.

Styles left at [Automatic] still work the old way: a paragraph style named h1–h6 or "Heading 1"–"Heading 6" becomes a heading.

Tables

Tables become real HTML tables. Header and footer rows, column widths, row heights, insets, fills, strokes, merged cells, vertical alignment, rotated text, alternating fills and pictures anchored in cells all carry across. A table threaded across frames repeats its header and footer rows.

Animations

Animations from InDesign's Animation panel play in the export, including motion paths, opacity, rotation and scale, durations, delays, loops and easing. Stock presets (Bounce, Spring, Wave, Zoom and the rest) keep their own timing: bounces even squash on landing.

Setting up an animation

1. Select an object and pick a preset in the Animation panel, or draw a motion path.
2. Choose an Event: On Page Load, On Page Click, On Click (Self), On Roll Over, or On Button Event.
3. Set duration, plays (or Loop), speed/easing, and Animate: From / To Current Appearance or To Current Location. These are respected exactly.
4. Tick Hide Until Animated if the object should appear only when its animation starts.
5. In the Timing panel, set the order and delays, and link items with Play Together to start them at the same moment.

• In the Scrolling layout, page-load animations play as each object scrolls into view.
• In Presentation, On Page Click animations become builds, one per press of Next (see Presentation).
• Custom easing on non-preset animations is approximated.

Buttons & multi-state objects

Multi-state objects export with all their states, showing the one that's active in InDesign. Buttons export with every enabled action, on the event you choose.

Supported actions

• Pages: Go To Next / Previous / First / Last Page, Go To Page, Go To Destination (text anchors, pages, bookmarks).
• States: Go To State, Go To Next State, Go To Previous State.
• Go To URL: on On Release or Tap, the button is a real link; on other events, the address opens in a new tab (a pop-up blocker may stop that on roll over or focus).
• Show/Hide Buttons and Forms, including items set to Hidden Until Triggered.
• Movie and Sound: play, pause, resume, stop, stop all, play from a navigation point.
• Animation: play, pause, resume, reverse, stop, stop all, and Reverse on Roll Off.
• Forms: Submit Form, Clear Form, Print Form.

Events and appearances

• The Normal, Rollover and Click appearances are all used. Keyboard focus shows Rollover.
• On touch screens, a roll-over-only hotspot (for example one that shows a callout) appears on a tap and disappears on the next tap elsewhere.
• Type a Description for each button: it becomes its tooltip and what screen readers announce.
• When a page leaves the screen, its buttons and anything Show/Hide changed go back to how they were designed.

Forms

Collecting form responses

1. Build the form fields in InDesign. Mark fields Required or Read only as needed.
2. Create a button and give it the Submit Form action.
3. For the URL, enter the address of a form service (for example a Formspree endpoint) or your own server. Or enter a mailto: address to open the reader's email app with the answers.
4. Optionally add buttons with Clear Form and Print Form.
5. Export and test the form from its published address.

On Submit, required fields are checked first, and the reader is pointed to the first missing one. Then the reader sees "Sending…", followed by "Sent. Thank you!", the service's own error message, or a timeout/offline message. Signatures are attached as pictures (they can't be sent by email).

Hyperlinks & page links

Links to web addresses, pages and text anchors all work. Every page has its own address (index.html#page-5, or page-5.html with One file per page), so you can link straight to any page from an email or another site.

• Text anchors get an address from their name: an anchor named "Chapter 2" is #chapter-2. Following a link to it turns to its page and briefly highlights the line.
• Shared destinations work like the URL, page or anchor they point to.
• A link to another InDesign document has nowhere to go and is left as plain text; the log names it.

Movies & sounds

1. Place an MP4 (H.264) movie or an MP3 sound with File > Place, or use Video from URL in the Media panel.
2. In the Media panel, set Play on Page Load, Loop, Stop on Page Turn, a poster and a controller as you like. These carry over.
3. Optionally add navigation points, and buttons that play from them.

• Posters are rendered sharp for retina screens.
• Browsers block sound until the reader interacts with the page. A video that's blocked starts muted and gets its sound back at the reader's first click or key press, so nothing is lost.
• A YouTube or Vimeo address used as Video from URL becomes a Web Content player.
• Controller skins aren't reproduced: movies get the browser's own controls.
• FLV, F4V, SWF, AVI, WMV and MPEG can't play in browsers. Preflight and the log flag them.

Interactive elements: how tagging works

The tools under PressTo5 > Interactive Elements add behavior InDesign doesn't have. They all work the same way:

1. Select the frame or object in your layout.
2. Open the tool from the PressTo5 menu. If the screen is already open, click Read selection so it picks up the new selection.
3. Set the options and click Apply to frame / Apply to object (or the toggle button).
4. To take the behavior off again, select the object and click Remove.

The setting is stored invisibly on the object, so it survives saving, copy/paste and undo. It only takes effect in the exported publication.

Scrollable Frame

A frame keeps its exact size and whatever doesn't fit scrolls up and down inside it, instead of being cut off or shrunk. It works on a text frame (long captions, sidebars, terms) and on a frame with content pasted into it (a list of cards, a column of pictures and captions).

A text frame

1. Place all the copy in one text frame and size the frame as it should appear. It's fine for the frame to be overset.
2. Select the frame and open Scrollable Frame.
3. Click Toggle scrollable. Click it again to turn it off.

A group or other content

1. Lay out the content (for example a tall group of cards) and cut it (Edit > Cut).
2. Draw a frame the size of the window it should scroll in, then choose Edit > Paste Into. Position the content so the frame shows what readers should see first.
3. Select the frame with the Selection tool, open Scrollable Frame and click Toggle scrollable.

The content stays live: text can be selected, and buttons and links inside still work. It scrolls vertically only, and a rotated frame doesn't scroll. A group on its own can't be tagged, because it has no edges to scroll within; paste it into a frame first. For a single picture, use Pan & Zoom instead.

In the export the scrollbar is thin and drawn in the text's own color, and the content fades at whichever edge has more past it, so readers can see there's more. The up and down arrow keys scroll the frame instead of turning the page. Threaded frames can be tagged one at a time.

Web Content

1. Draw a rectangle, oval or polygon frame where the content should appear. Optionally place a picture in it to use as a poster.
2. Select the frame and open Web Content.
3. Paste a link, address or HTML code (see the table below).
4. Choose the options and click Apply to frame.

Until clicked, the frame shows a poster: your placed picture, or a thumbnail fetched from YouTube or Vimeo, or a placeholder. Players pause when the page turns.

Lightbox

Two ways to use it:

Enlarge a picture when clicked

1. Select a picture frame.
2. Open Lightbox and click Toggle lightbox.

Clicking the picture in the export opens it whole and uncropped over the page, with its alt text as a caption.

Open image links in the lightbox

1. Add hyperlinks to image files on a frame, or on words inside a text frame.
2. Select that frame and click Toggle lightbox.

Those links now open the image in the lightbox instead of leaving the page. Image files linked from your own disk are copied into the export automatically.

In the lightbox, readers can…

• Double-tap or double-click to zoom in; pinch or use the mouse wheel to zoom smoothly; drag to pan.
• Swipe sideways, use the arrow keys or the ‹ › buttons to move between lightbox images on the same page or spread.
• Close with Esc, a swipe down, a tap on the dark surround, or the close button.

Only JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP, AVIF, SVG and BMP open enlarged. A frame can be only one of Lightbox, Pan & Zoom and Image Sequence.

Carousel

1. Build a multi-state object in InDesign (Window > Interactive > Object States), one state per slide.
2. Select it (or anything inside it) and open Carousel.
3. Set the options and click Apply to object.

Readers can click a dot, swipe sideways, pause it, or use your own buttons that change its states. It only advances while its page is on screen. Readers who prefer reduced motion get no transitions and a paused carousel.

Flip Card

1. Design the card's front and back at the same size and stack them exactly on top of each other.
2. Make them a multi-state object. The state showing in InDesign is the front.
3. Select it, open Flip Card, choose the options and click Apply to object.

Clicking or tapping the card turns it over in 3D; clicking again turns it back. With more than two states, each click goes to the next. Links and buttons on the card keep their own click. Keyboard users press Enter or Space.

Pan & Zoom

Readers drag a picture around inside its frame and zoom into it: great for maps, floor plans or detailed artwork.

1. Place a picture bigger than its frame (rectangle, oval or polygon).
2. Crop it to the view readers should start with.
3. Select the frame, open Pan & Zoom, choose the options and click Apply to frame.

• Mouse/touch: drag to pan; pinch or ctrl-scroll to zoom; double-tap to zoom to 2×.
• Keyboard: Tab to the frame; arrow keys pan, +/- zoom, 0 resets.
• The picture always covers the frame, dragging never turns the page, and the frame resets when the page turns.

Text frames and frames holding a movie, sound or Web Content can't be tagged. With a low Image quality, deep zoom into a very large picture can look soft.

Image Sequence

Turn a numbered series of pictures into a 360° product spin or a frame-by-frame animation that readers drag through.

1. Prepare the frames in one folder, named the same way with a number: spin_001.jpg, spin_002.jpg … spin_036.jpg. Zero-padding is optional. Use JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF or AVIF, between 2 and 360 frames.
2. Place one of them with File > Place and crop it as every frame should be shown. This frame is where readers start, and what prints.
3. Select the frame and open Image Sequence. The screen tells you how many frames it found, which numbers are missing, and their total size.
4. Set the options and click Apply to frame.

Keyboard users Tab to it and use the arrow keys, Home/End, and Space to play and pause. The frames are found again at each export, so you can add or remove frames after tagging.

Scroll Effects

Effects that play as the reader scrolls. They only appear in the Scrolling layout; in the Pages layout the object simply stays where you placed it.

1. Select an object placed directly on the page.
2. Open Scroll Effects, choose Sticky, Parallax or Fixed, set its options and click Apply to object.
3. In the export dialog, set Layout to Scrolling.

Sticky

The object scrolls with its page until it reaches the top of the window, stays there while the page scrolls past, and lets go at the bottom of its page.

Parallax

The object (or just its picture inside the frame) moves at a different pace from the page, for a sense of depth. It's exactly where you placed it as it passes the middle of the window.

Fixed

The object holds still in the window while pages scroll beneath it, like a logo or menu button.

Background Audio

A soundtrack for the whole publication that keeps playing as pages turn.

1. Open Background Audio.
2. Click Choose… and pick an audio file. MP3, M4A or AAC play everywhere; OGG doesn't play in Safari on older Apple devices, and WAV is large and slow to start on phones.
3. Set the options and click Apply to document. The setting is saved in the document. Click Remove to take it off.

Browsers won't play sound until the reader first clicks, taps or presses a key, so it starts then; until then a speaker button pulses. It fades in and out on pages outside the range. The speaker button mutes and unmutes it.

Search engines & page files

Add search information first

1. Open File > File Info > Basic and fill in Document Title, Description, Author and Keywords. Save the document.
2. To set the language, choose Edit > Deselect All and pick a language in the Character panel.

The export uses these for the page's title, description and language, and for the preview shown when a link is shared on social media. The log reminds you if there's no description.

One file per page

Every page becomes its own web page (index.html, page-2.html, page-3.html…), each with its own title (from its highest heading), description (from its own text) and canonical link. This helps search engines find and show individual pages. Search still covers the whole publication. Scrolling, Back button turns pages and the Curl page turn aren't available with this option.

Site address

Type the address you'll publish at, for example https://example.com/magazine/. Then the export also:

• Writes a sitemap.xml listing every page, for search engines.
• Writes a robots.txt when the address is the root of a site. For an address in a folder, the log gives you the line to add to your site's own robots.txt.
• Renders the first page as share.jpg, so shared links preview with your cover.

Page share pictures

With One file per page and a Site address, tick Page share pictures so each page's link previews with its own page instead of the cover. It renders every page once more, so exports take longer and grow by a few hundred KB per page.

Embedding in a website

1. Fill in the Site address (where the publication will be published).
2. Tick Embed code and export.
3. Open embed.html from the output folder in your browser. It shows a preview and a ready-made snippet.
4. Click Copy and paste the snippet into your web page's HTML.
5. Upload the publication to its Site address. (embed.html is for you; there's no need to upload it.)

The frame is sized so pages show at 100% and shrinks to fit narrower columns, keeping its shape. Fullscreen is allowed. Page turns inside the frame don't affect the host page's Back button.

Without a Site address, the snippet contains https://YOUR-SITE/: replace it with the real address.

Analytics

Find out which pages are read and for how long, in Google Analytics 4, Plausible, or your own system.

1. Choose a Provider: Google Analytics 4, Plausible or Custom endpoint.
2. Enter the ID or address:
   • GA4: the measurement ID, G-XXXXXXXXXX.
   • Plausible: your site's domain as registered (example.com), or the script address from your Plausible snippet.
   • Custom endpoint: the https:// address that should receive the events.
3. Choose how Consent is handled (see below).
4. Tick any optional events you want, then click OK. The settings are saved in the document.
5. Publish to a web server: analytics doesn't send anything from a file opened from disk, unless Count local previews is on.

Optional events (all off by default)

Each page counts once per visit, so turning back to a page doesn't count it twice.

Consent

• Send right away: counting starts on the first page.
• Ask readers with a banner: a small bar asks "May this publication count your visit?" with Allow and No thanks. Readers are asked only once.
• Wait for the site's consent manager: nothing is sent until your website's consent tool calls pt5Analytics.consent(true) (or false). Pass this to whoever manages your website.

GA4 uses cookies, so in the EU and UK readers usually need to agree first. Plausible uses no cookies.

Offline app

Readers can install the publication like an app (the browser's Install button, or Add to Home Screen) and read it without a connection once they've opened it.

1. On the Misc tab, tick Offline app.
2. Type an App name (shown when installing) and a Short name (under the home-screen icon, about 12 characters). Blank uses the page title.
3. Choose Display: With the status bar (keeps the phone's time and battery visible) or Full screen.
4. Choose Orientation: Any, Portrait or Landscape (Android only; iPhone and iPad always turn freely).
5. For App icon, keep the first page or click Choose picture… to use a JPEG or PNG logo. A square picture (1024 × 1024 is plenty) fills the icon edge to edge; keep anything important in its middle 80% for Android's round icons.
6. Consider ticking Embed fonts on the Fonts tab, so your type also works offline.
7. Export and upload to an https address.

What readers do

• Android / desktop Chrome or Edge: use the browser's Install button or menu.
• iPhone / iPad: tap Share > Add to Home Screen (iOS shows no install prompt).
• They must open the publication online once, and keep it open long enough for the files to download.

Updating

Export again into the same folder and upload. Readers who have it open see "A new version of this publication is available" with a Reload button; others get the new version next time they open it.

What isn't kept offline

Videos, audio and the PDF (they're the largest files), content from other sites (YouTube, Vimeo, maps, analytics), and Google Fonts until a reader has loaded them once. The log reports the offline size and warns above 100 MB; a lower Image quality and Convert to WebP help.

Publishing to the app stores

An Offline app export can be packaged for Google Play, the Apple App Store or the Microsoft Store using Microsoft's free PWABuilder (pwabuilder.com). Before you do, consider whether you need a store at all:

Steps

1. Export with Offline app on, an App name, Short name, a square App icon, and the Site address filled in.
2. Upload the whole folder to that https address and open it in Chrome to check it works.
3. Go to pwabuilder.com, enter the publication's address, fix anything it marks as required, and download the package for your store.
4. Finish in each store's developer account: Google Play needs a developer account and access to your domain's root; Apple needs a Mac with Xcode and a paid developer membership; Microsoft needs a Partner Center account.

The store app opens your published export, so updating the publication on your website updates the app without a new store release.

Presentation mode

Present straight from a browser: full-screen slides, clicker support, builds, a laser pointer, speaker notes and a presenter view.

Setting up a deck

1. Lay out the deck at a 16:9 page size, such as 1920 × 1080 px (or 1440 × 810 pt). Other sizes work with black bars.
2. For builds, set animations to On Page Click in the Timing panel (see below).
3. For speaker notes, add a layer named Notes and put each slide's notes in text frames on that slide's page.
4. Click Export to HTML5, and on the Viewer tab choose Layout > Presentation.
5. Choose a Page turn: Fade (default), Slide or Cut (no animation). Leave Page navigator on for the slide overview.
6. Export, open index.html, press F for full screen, and present.

Keys

Presentation clickers (Logitech, Kensington and the like) work as they do in PowerPoint or Keynote.

Mouse: click for next, right-click for previous. Touch: tap for next, swipe to turn. Links, buttons, media and other interactive items keep their own clicks. On a touch screen, press and hold for the laser.

Builds (On Page Click)

Each group in the Timing panel set to On Page Click (one item, or items linked with Play Together) plays on one press of Next, in order, before the slide turns. Going back to a slide shows it fully built, as in PowerPoint.

Speaker notes

• Name the layer Notes or Speaker Notes. Hide it or make it non-printing so it's out of your way; it's read either way and never shown on the slides.
• The frame's whole story is read, overset text included, so the frame can be small.
• Notes are plain text: bold, italic and links aren't kept.
• Hide the Notes layer before exporting if you use the slide overview (G), since its thumbnails show visible layers.

Using the presenter view

1. Open the presentation and press S. The presenter view opens in its own window (allow pop-ups if the browser asks).
2. Drag the presentation window to the projector, click it and press F for full screen.
3. Keep the presenter view on your laptop. It shows the current slide, the next slide, your notes (resize with A−/A+), a timer with Pause/Reset, the slide and build number, and the time of day.
4. Your clicker works with either window in front. With Laser on, pointing at the current slide in the presenter view shows the laser on the audience's screen.

It works from a folder on disk with no internet connection. If the presentation reloads, the presenter view reconnects and keeps its timer.

Accessibility

Screen readers read an export from what you set in InDesign. Follow these steps to make your publication usable by everyone.

1. Describe the pictures. Open PressTo5 > Accessibility, select a picture (or a shape, box or group) and click Read selection. Type what it shows and click Describe it. For pure decoration, click Decorative instead, and screen readers skip it. Not set returns to InDesign's defaults. A counter warns past 250 characters.
2. Treat a group as one picture. Group a logo, chart or diagram made of several shapes, select the group and describe it. It's read once, as one picture. Any links and buttons inside stay reachable.
3. Tag the headings. In each heading's paragraph style, open Export Tagging and pick h1, h2… (and p for body text). Tag emphasis character styles em or strong, and add lang="fr" (for example) for copy in another language. See Type & headings.
4. Set the reading order. In Window > Articles, drag frames into an article in the order they should be read. Keep Reading order from Articles panel on (Misc tab, on by default). A story threaded over several pages is followed through all its frames. Objects in no article (backgrounds, folios) are read first.
5. Describe buttons and form fields in the Buttons and Forms panel's Description. Without one, a button is named by what it does ("Next page"), which is less helpful than your own words.
6. Check the document. On the Accessibility screen, click Check document. Click a result to select that object, fix it, and check again.
7. Export.

What Check document looks for

• These settings are InDesign's own (Object > Object Export Options), so they also carry into PDF and EPUB exports, and you can set them there instead.
• A picture with no alt text gets an empty description. To use frame names instead, tick Use frame names as alt text on the Misc tab.
• A text frame's own words are always read; only Decorative changes anything for one.

Batch Export

Export many documents in one go, each into its own folder, without opening a window for any of them.

1. Add documents. Click Open documents, Add folder… (tick Include subfolders when adding a folder first to look inside subfolders too) or Add book… (adds the book's documents in order). You can mix them. Untick any document to leave it out; Clear list empties the list.
2. Choose the settings.
   • Each document's saved settings: what each document was last exported with. A document never exported uses the dialog's last-used settings.
   • This preset, for every document: one .pt5preset file for all of them.
3. Choose the output. Pick the output folder. Each document gets a folder inside it named by the Folder name pattern (see below). Choose whether a folder that's already there is exported into or the document is skipped.
4. Choose a Preflight policy. Skip documents with missing links or fonts (default) or Warn and export anyway.
5. Click Start. Each document is opened without a window, checked, exported and closed without saving. Documents that were already open stay open. Cancel stops after the current document.
6. Read the report. batch-report.csv (opens in Excel) and batch-report.json in the output folder list each document: exported, skipped, failed or cancelled; pages; time taken; and any warnings or errors.

Folder name patterns

Example: {name}-{date}. The pattern must include {name} or {n}. Two documents that would get the same name get -2, -3.

Job files

Save a whole batch so you can run it again exactly the same way, or keep it with a project.

Saving a job

1. Set up the Batch Export screen as you want it.
2. Click Save job… and save the .pt5job.json file. It holds the ticked documents, the preset (if chosen), the output folder and options, and the Preflight policy.

Running a saved job

1. Choose PressTo5 > Run Job… (or Load job… on the Batch Export screen) and pick the job file.
2. The screen fills with the job's documents and settings. Any individual settings the job changes on top of the preset are listed under Settings, with Don't use these to drop them.
3. Check the list, then click Start. Nothing runs until you do.

If a job has a mistake (a misspelled setting, a missing file, a folder pattern without {name} or {n}), it doesn't load, and every problem is listed with what to fix. A document that has never been saved can't be part of a job.

What an export contains

Everything is written into the output folder you chose. Upload the whole folder. The main items:

Optional features that are switched off add nothing, so an export only carries what it uses.

Troubleshooting

Reporting a problem

1. Tick Debug in the panel and export again.
2. Copy the log with the copy button above it.
3. Send the log, plus the model.json file from the output folder, through PressTo5 > Feedback.