Using ePUB

Digital Content in the Wild

I haven't blogged quite some time. The excuse is work, lots of it. But very interesting work.

Getting IGP:Distribution Manager deployed and working in a number of locations and languages; designing methods for large scale ePub production of art and heavily illustrated books; improving the subtleties of online typography in IGP:FLIP; and the intensity of creating the specification and software design for IGP:Content Fulfilment Systems with AZARDI II - have all taken a lot of clock cycles.

This post is not so much about ePubs, but what to do with the ePubs once they have been produced and our experiences with just that. 

ePub-Print Simultaneous Design IV. Flow

Once we get past simple linear reading books, the real challenge in designing for online, ePub and print in a simultaneous design production environment is planning and executing content flows for the different presentation contexts.

There are a number of options available to create a format optimized reader experience. What works for print, does not work for e-books, especially with a text-book style document such as this exercise example, This Dynamic Earth (TDE) by W. Jacquelyne Kious and Robert I. Tilling.

This book is available online as a web pages. It was one of the few copyright free content sources that was adequately "textbook" for this exercise. Unfortunately there are no print resolution images available, so both online and print images may look a little fuzzy. But this blog is about Simultaneous Design, not image processing!

ePub-Print Simultaneous Design III.5. Format Capabilities Chart

While writing SD4 it struck me that I have a lot of experience making e-book formats for a very wide range of devices. We have been at it around the clock since 1999 after all. That analysis of devices by their features, behaviours, limitations and bugs is not something anyone understands intuitively until a lot of digital content water has passed by.

This references the earlier post on content type analysis for various format capabilities. Read this for more context for the chart. Simultaneous Design is a growing series and should be read in sequence.

I created this Format Selection Chart for people unfamiliar with the device quirk driven nature of the digital content production business, and to demonstrate that all e-book formats are not equal in their capabilities. The outcome is a Simultaneous Design decision matrix that can be referred while wrestling with the points, pixels, RGB's and CMYKs that are Simultaneous Design for Print and ePub.

Simple ePub OPS rules for Apple

This is a sardonic post. That means is is disdainfully or ironically humorous; scornful and mocking. While it is serious, it attempts to do it with some touch of humour. My apologies if you don't get it.

Document and book content are not web pages. That is because eBooks are designed for people with an attention span, who have decided to read a whole book and probably want to spend more time reading than playing with the knobs.

It is emerging as a statistical probability that no Adobe or Apple programmer has ever actually read a book on their respective devices. I mean something with more than 20,000 words without pictures.

A smart device producer would expose the rules they use to the world, so producers can make explicit decisions.Obviously the sages at "Adobe of the mud hut" or "Apple of the fruit bowl" are not particularly smart in a user experience way when it comes to actual reading. They both have very loose edges when it comes to the OPS even though it is based on the second best browser in the world (just to start a fight).  

The recent fiasco with the release of iBookstore 1.1 which now displays PDFs boringly and has the new user controlled justification feature, also known as the LAYOUT DESTROYER obviously needs serious action. It appears to have fallen on me to sort the whole darn mess out.

I have therefore written a simple User Story so the folks at Infinite Loop can stop going in infinite circles, and can grasp the basic set of rules that will give users control AND allow authors, editors and designers to create pretty darn hot ePubs.

Google Fonts

OK, not strictly ePub, but very interesting on the subject of typography-not-paper in general, is the launch of Google fonts . just 18 fonts as the starter kit, using SIL and Apache licenses. A lot better than the 18 that were not there yesterday.

If this grows (which it should), there will be some interesting pressure on e-Typography (or iTypography) in general. I managed to waste a few hours today embedding their fonts into all sorts of web pages with obscure class statements and pseudo-elements, just for the hell of it, and to get the feel of the tools. To be able to put something like extract-rw p:first-child {font family: 'Crimson Text';} into a web page is definitely a new luxury.

It is somewhat reassuring when you create your page, the user is going to get the fonts you intended, whether they want/know it or not. These fonts probably wont come through on iSomething devices, which should be interesting in itself. Since HTML5 and channel delivered content are going to continue to grow apace, this one is well worth watching. It is certainly good to see fonts taking a front-stage web position at least for a while.

ePub Best Practices 2010

We sometimes get asked "do we follow the Adobe ePub best practices guide?". Our answer is "we have our own ePub best practices guides which have been formulated producing a lot more content than the authors of the Adobe guide.

The Adobe best practices was written two years ago. It specifically addresses an Adobe viewpoint of ePub and are showing their age, except where they apply to reader/device limitations. Having said that, most of the Adobe guide is pretty much simple common sense but oriented to trade novel type documents. There is a lot more content out there!

Because ADE (Adobe Digital Editions) is possibly the most widely distributed ePub reader to date, and the one with the best DRM support, we live with it and have to compromise ePub production to live with its limitations.

When we create ePubs for publishers new to ePub and devices we get the same set of questions about why e-pubs look and behave the way they do. Here is some practical information from the e-pub production coal-face.

Kindle. The Curse of E-Books

With Amazon releasing Kindle internationally, e-book strategies have been set back a decade and once more the e-book production quality bar has been moved into the mud. Mediocre e-books of all types can now be purchased internationally by all, and probably publishers and e-book aficionados will be grateful to Amazon.

I am a bit sad about this, and was always glad that the unavailability of the Kindle internationally, and restrictive international distribution deals, constrained the Kindle STD to American shores. Now we all get the opportunity to catch it.

Fortunately e-book standards have come a long way since 1999. E-pub has virtually no restrictions on layout and styling, within the constraints of reflow, which means some pretty neat books can be created.

There is even an emerging e-book designer skill set developing, we like to think we are in the vanguard here. There are some very exciting trade books being produced, suitable for on-the-go reading and reference and sometimes, with some content, the e-book is more valuable to the user than the print book.

Amazon - Sirloin to Mincemeat

Of course in its market wind-up Amazon did the con job and said to publishers send in your e-pubs and we will automatically convert them to Kindle - we have the technology! its supports the IDPF 1.0 and IDPF 2.0 epub format.

Now for those in the know, there have been many complaints about the nasty conversions Mobigen does. Realistically that is the nature of a free conversion utility. You get exactly what you pay for.  If e-pub books are made well, they will never convert to Mobipocket (aka Kindle) using the lousy convertor. And they shouldn't for a lot of reasons.

ePub and everything else

ePub was just one of the outputs for Book: The Sequel, produced using IGP:FLIP and output to print and e-book formats simultaneously at Book Expo America. Read the whole story on the Publishing with XML Blog.

ePUB Overview

ePUB is the latest (and greatest) eBook packaging standard maintained by the International Digital Publishing Federation (IDPF). It's best to read their description of what it is; but the fact you are reading this blog tends to indicate you are past the basic stage with eBook formats.

Firstly ePUB is excellent. Firstly because it is non-proprietary, secondly, It is international ready and built on standards, thirdly it really works as a distributable package that does nearly everything an eBook producer, vendor and user could want.

ePUB is capable of a lot. Unfortunately the current status of eBook Reading devices, and the type of content that is currently available, doesn't demonstrate the full potential of ePUB. This blog will attempt to reveal some of the strengths (and occassionally the weaknesses) of ePUB for a wide range of uses.