SWF/HTML generated by Indesign not displaying in browser

Web Design
#1

I’ll start with a disclaimer: I am a print-based graphic designer with a little HTML/CSS knowledge.

I maintain the website for my company, but I’ve been forced to use this awful GoDaddy Website Builder and one of their hideous themes. I’ve tried to talk my boss into letting me build a new page from scratch, not using the stupid Website Builder, to no avail, so this is what I’m working with. This is probably a factor in the issue I am experiencing.

I was asked to take a print document that I created and make it display in the browser with page-turning effects. That’s easy enough to do in InDesign - it exports as both .SWF and .HTML. files. I can open the HTML in any browser. The SWF will not open unless I open it in an Adobe program, which converts it to that particular file type.

I tried to upload and link both the HTML and the SWF to the website. The HTML displays a blank page, and the SWF just downloads the file. I think I need to somehow upload the SWF and use the HTML to display it? This is further complicated by the fact that the horrendous GoDaddy Website Builder does not have any sort of traditional FTP, so I’m not sure how to find the location and file path.

Go here: https://www.nortonceilings.com/products.html (have a laugh at the hideous site) and click the “View our Wood Ceiling and Wood Wall Inspiration Booklet” link. That is the HTML file, generated by InDesign and uploaded.

Any ideas?

#2

Ugh. I know this isn’t funny or helpful, but you need a new job. Anyone who is still asking for that might also be secretly having a rotating-globe animated GIF logo designed.

Right, and impossible to deploy due to its dependence on the swf format. You need a dedicated platform for that. I often see them recommended on the Adobe forums, but never remember the names because it’s such a lame notion.

#3

There are a lot of websites that have options for page turning effect through HTML, perhaps one of those will work for you.

So, I guess “page flipping” is still a thing?

#4

Having a simulated physical book on a computer screen is like hand-cutting wood with an unplugged power saw.

#5

Today’s posts are like a trip back to the '90s. Here’s a thread from today giving various opinions on Flash and Flash-like formats on the web. My opinion: stay away from SWF — it’s an old, outdated and all-but-dead format.

https://www.graphicdesignforum.org/t/are-you-still-using-image-slicing/1750

#6

Have you considered, instead, a PDF? There are a number of ways and applications to convert PDFs to online flipbooks if that’s what you really need.

#7

A PDF would be ideal… there are plenty of page transitions that I can apply in InDesign, but no “page turning” one. I guess I will have to look into another way to add that effect.

Believe me, things would be a lot different if I had more creative control, but at this point I just kinda have to do my best to fulfill my boss’s requests.

#8

You can’t get that effect from InDesign, but there are third-party applications that will do it for you. Just Google convert PDF to flipbook for a bunch of options.