EPUB Boot Camp: Under The Hood

EPUB for Independent Publishers What’s Under the Hood?

Who Helped? Michael Smith – IDPF Megan Cowie – BNC Brian O’Leary – Magellan Media Phil Madans – Hachette Frank Grazioli – Wiley Liza Daly – ThreePress Andrew Savikas – O’Reilly

EPUB Derivation Based on XML Makes use of XHTML and DTBook Compliant with CSS 2.0

Who’s Afraid of XML? XML is easy – it’s text! You’re already doing XML  ONIX! EPUB is just another flavor of XML, as ONIX is

What is EPUB? Three specs that make up EPUB What it’s used for Why it’s important

Three Specs That Make Up EPUB Open Publication Structure - OPS Open Packaging Format - OPF Open Container Format - OCF

Open Publication Structure (OPS) Standardized way of representing digital content for electronic reading devices Publishers sell digital content to many aggregators Need a single standard so as not to produce multiple file formats

Open Packaging Format (OPF) Describes the components of the OPS publication Provides metadata (like ONIX does) Specifies the reading-order of the publication (which components are meant to be read first, second, last)

What’s OPF For? Specifies how the OPS publication is to be used/packaged Provides supplementary information about the OPS document Provides a way to declare a table of contents

Open Container Format (OCF) Collects the OPS and OPF files in a single “container” file (usually a ZIP file) Defines the rules for the ZIP container files

What’s OCF For? Is the single-file format when exchanging in-progress publications between different individuals and/or different organizations. Is the recommended single-file format to be used as the transport mechanism between publisher and distributor. When delivering the final publication to the end-user, OCF is the recommended format for the single-file container that holds all of the assets that make up the publication.

What Is EPUB Used For? Neutral, standard format for sending and receiving ebooks Allows publishers to make sure that ebooks appear the same way on most devices With widespread adoption, reduces the need to produce ebooks in multiple, device-specific formats

Getting Down and Dirty Converting Word to EPUB Converting HTML to EPUB Converting InDesign to EPUB Tools

Converting Word to EPUB Word 2007 is based on XML Many options – some say too many “ Tag pollution” – MS imposes its own tags on the doc Not many tools available to clean up a Word XML document BookGlutton does Word  HTML  EPUB Calibre does TXT  EPUB

Converting HTML to EPUB Very few tools…for a reason BookGlutton – accepts one HTML file at a time Calibre – primarily a cataloguing system but does HTML  EPUB conversions Caveats HTML is ridiculously styled/coded, unstandardized Unlike XHTML, can’t be tied back to an XML doc and validated

Converting InDesign to EPUB Supported by InDesign Caveats Have to use InDesign functionality (no freehand styling) EPUB requires a separate XHTML stream for each section or chapter - thus each section of an ebook should be created as a different document in InDesign Other documented issues

Tagging and Chunking Best Practices

When Do You Stop? Military History Book Chapter Description of Battle Capsule Bio of General Description of General’s Shrewish Aristocratic Wife Mention of G.S.A.W.’s Best Friend Mathilde Lengthy Digression on Mathilde’s Fashion Sense and Literary Salon Mention of Viscomte Bruno Heffendorf, interloper and troublemaker

EPUB Boot Camp: Under The Hood

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EPUB Boot Camp: Under The Hood