On Wednesday, I was invited to talk about EPUB3 at IDPF's Digital Book World Conference which is part of the Book Expo America going on in New York City this month.
My basic thesis is that EPUB3's promise is as a galvanizing, common goal for both ebook publishers and ebook designers and production workers that will enable all of us to move forward together, even if it means getting to our objective at different times. Because EPUB3 doesn't break EPUB2 books in older ereaders, there is no reason to put off using EPUB3 right now. And because many ereaders are already supporting many of EPUB3's flashier features—some of which I show off in this presentation, there are lots of good reasons to go ahead and make the jump.
In my talk, I mention the fact that Hachette, part of the second largest publisher in the world and one of the Big Six in the United States has announced that not only will they soon deliver all of their ebooks in EPUB3 format, but that they will stop delivering books in EPUB2. They haven't served books in Kindle format since 2007.
The promise of a single file that works on all systems is before us, and EPUB3, our common goal, is what will enable us to get there.
I have not only published my slides, but I re-recorded my talk so you can get all of the details. Be sure to activate the audio portion.
(I couldn't get the audio to play in Chrome, but it seems to work just fine in Safari.)
Note that you can download (or buy) the EPUB3 version of What's up with Catalonia? that I use as a sample in my talk here.
You can buy the Monarch Butterfly book on the iBookstore.
Barcelona Beyond Gaudí is available both at the iBookstore and on my website.
I welcome comments and suggestions.
Showing posts with label IDPF. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IDPF. Show all posts
Friday, May 31, 2013
Monday, July 9, 2012
What I learned in Japan about EPUB 3, Rakuten, Kobo, Kodansha, and Japanese e-publishing in general
Here are some of my notes from the IDPF's first conference in Asia, specifically in Tokyo, Japan. The topic was EPUB 3, and it was co-sponsored by Voyager Japan. It was held as part of the larger 16th Tokyo Ebook Expo, in Tokyo Big Sight, a huge complex at the edge of the harbor.
NB: I don't speak Japanese, so not only are the quotes pretty rough, but they are quotations of how the interpreter translated what the speakers were saying. And it was all going by pretty quickly. Corrections welcome.
The opening presentation featured Hiroshi Mikitani, the head of Rakuten, the Japanese online retailing giant that just bought Kobo; Yoshinobu Noma, from Kodansha, one of Japan's largest publishers, and Bill McCoy, head of IDPF. with Takehiko Ogi, CEO Maruzen Chi Holdings, as the moderator.
Photo courtesy of Hagino-san, president of Voyager Japan
A few points stuck out for me. First and foremost, the Rakuten CEO stated that all their Japanese content would be in EPUB 3. He said they chose the open standard so they can compete not on format but on ease of use of their reade, that EPUB3 allows content to be viewed on all sorts of different devices. He talked about localized service on a globalized platform. Second, he stressed his desire to spread Japanese culture abroad, as well as to encourage reading in kids all over the world. Their initial target is to have 1,000,000 Japanese books in EPUB 3 format, and then add another half million, so you can get "any" book in Japanese as an ebook.
When asked how Rakuten was different from other players, and how the Japanese market was unique, Mikitani answered that they want to take advantage of the existing framework, including bookstores, of which there are 4x as many in Japan than in Europe or US.
The second panelist, Yoshinobu Noma, from Kodansha, said domination from one company was not good, and was encouraged by Rakuten's entry into the market. He mentioned that there are 70 million Rakuten club members with "points", and that the low price of the new Kobo Touch in Japan ($99) would help Rakuten and Kobo device gain foothold. He was concerned that fewer competitors keep books from coming to market. More publishers mean more freedom of expression, freedom to publish.
Then Bill McCoy (Executive Director of IDPF) added that the IDPF and open standards pave the way for the fusion of digital books: like manga is a fusion between comics and books, making a bigger world for all of us.
Mikitani then said "I am nationalist and as Japanese company, I want to make an impact in the global industry, and I want to export that overseas, not just manga, expand Japanese culture. Unless we have a device, [like Kobo], we cannot compete with overseas competitor: so there's a philosophical part plus a business part."
When asked if it was about books, he answered, "Kids are not reading, I'm not criticizing consoles, but this is a crisis because kids are not reading, and that affects the intellectual level. I think back to books I read in the past. In Brazil, there is no consumption tax on books, in EU, there is a lower tax. As a nation, we need to figure out how to expand book business.
The moderator immediately asked about Rakuten's servers, and it turns out they're all in Canada, which has some tax ramifications: Mikitani replied that "we must comply with the law, but we have servers in Canada for logistics… but that means no tax in Canada, 3% in EU and 0 in Japan."
[A quick internet search reveals that there is a 5% consumption tax in Japan, that will rise to 15% by the end of the year. It is not currently levied on electronic products purchased abroad, and thus by selling from Canada, Rakuten would not have to charge the tax.]
Mikitani played down color tablet ereaders because of weight and price [which I think are important points]. He said 70% of users in US have both tablet and e-ink. [Not sure where this number comes from.]
Then Noma-san spoke about government subsidized initiative to convert 60,000 books [to epub3 format??] but stressed idea that paper and digital is not zero-sum, that one can build on and benefit from the other.
He said that Japanese government has said that all textbooks must be electronic by 2020 and that that will be the tipping point for ebooks.
Question: EPUB 3 content is not widespread, how do you position it?
Bill: Japan has chance to leapfrog the splintering of EPUB 2. Mikitani: we have to have one Japanese standard and one global standard. Noma-san (Kodansha) is member of IDPF and also working on EPUB 3.
Noma-san continued on to explain concept of #GAFMA (or Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple), and said that they had to find a way to deal with that group. "As partner, we can work with them, but in US, there is competition. How can *we* compete with them? EU companies say Japanese companies exist that can compete, and they asked how we work with them, and we talked about how to compete healthily against each other. From EU perspective, they welcomed Rakuten's acquisition of Kobo. In short, GAFMA can be competitor or partner.
Question: Will Rakuten buy publishers? Bookstores? Mikitani: "I think we should let experts do what they do best, we have no plans to buy publishers or bookstores, but would like to strengthen alliance with bookstores [and indeed I saw Kobo being demo-ed in Bunkyo-do the next day.]
Question: What about writers? Are they thinking of ebooks?
Noma-san: Some are against, but gradually this will change. We are trying to do simultaneous paper, ebook, so get contract from author for both is way to go.
Question: Can Japanese culture be exported with ebooks?
Noma-san: "Already with manga, in Taiwan we have distribution company going to mainland China eventually, Japanese flavor needs to be added to Kobo in order to go global"
Mikitani: "I was amazed at how much manga was in FNAC in Paris, but in suburban stores, there's no shelfspace. So, selling ebooks online, where there is infinite shelfspace enables that possibility. This is great opportunity to export Japanese literature."
Question: Talk about how passionate you are about ebook industry.
Mikitani: This is going to be the initial year for ebooks themselves, this is an opportunity for ebook industry to expand overseas, with Kobo, and Kodansha, we'd like to support your business.
Noma-san: I make many speeches on big trends, but sometimes people misunderstand me. In Japanese market, unless we win in print, we won't win in digital. We have to win in print, now we will see a transformation, this is the chance to go digital. We have to create good content.
Bill: Digital books can be complimentary to print, but we don't yet know what digital books are, and can be. Publishers must become web publishers.
----------------
On the second day, after my and Markus Gylling's talks in the morning, Ren Ando gave another presentation on Kobo and Rakuten which I found interesting.
Here's a brief synopsis of what he said:
Rakuten is an online marketplace, travel, financial, banks, credit services, advertising, entertainment. They do 1 trillion yen of business per year (about 12 billion dollars). Kobo is 3 years old, with 9 million users in 190 countries, 17000 publishers, 2.4 million titles, sales partners in 7 countries. Joined Rakuten in 2012.
Partner model: authors and publishers => Kobo => distribute device through local partners
Kobo touch, to be available at the end of July. Make Japanese reading culture a part of the global culture. "Renaissance and revolution of the reading culture"
EPUB 3 for all Japanese books in the catalog
Why? A: An open ecosystems is better for global interoperability, publishers and authors can trust EPUB, rapid increase of number of titles, a reliable reading platform, fast circulation of EPUB based books, migration pain mitigation, other EPUB based services, authors, publishers
"We are at a tipping point in Japan"
Creators can create and there will be lots of channels for distributing content
Strategy:
1 EPUB migration assistance for publishers
Assistance on converstion process
EPUB 3 authoring guidelines
2 High fidelity to the Japanese publishers typography requirements
co-developed between Access and Kobo
Cross platform reading experience (Android, iOS, Mac OSX, Windows)
3 Rakuten viewer aligns with latest drafts of CSS writing modes and CSS text modules
Rakuten working with W3C and Unicode consortium on these drafts
"We don't want to compete on EPUB capabilities, but rather on ease of use"
4 For "renaissance of reading culture on global scale" Rakuten works with Access to share some part of our outcomes through Readium Initiative.
----------
Finally, this was my first trip to Japan. You can see my pictures here.
NB: I don't speak Japanese, so not only are the quotes pretty rough, but they are quotations of how the interpreter translated what the speakers were saying. And it was all going by pretty quickly. Corrections welcome.
The opening presentation featured Hiroshi Mikitani, the head of Rakuten, the Japanese online retailing giant that just bought Kobo; Yoshinobu Noma, from Kodansha, one of Japan's largest publishers, and Bill McCoy, head of IDPF. with Takehiko Ogi, CEO Maruzen Chi Holdings, as the moderator.
Photo courtesy of Hagino-san, president of Voyager Japan
A few points stuck out for me. First and foremost, the Rakuten CEO stated that all their Japanese content would be in EPUB 3. He said they chose the open standard so they can compete not on format but on ease of use of their reade, that EPUB3 allows content to be viewed on all sorts of different devices. He talked about localized service on a globalized platform. Second, he stressed his desire to spread Japanese culture abroad, as well as to encourage reading in kids all over the world. Their initial target is to have 1,000,000 Japanese books in EPUB 3 format, and then add another half million, so you can get "any" book in Japanese as an ebook.
When asked how Rakuten was different from other players, and how the Japanese market was unique, Mikitani answered that they want to take advantage of the existing framework, including bookstores, of which there are 4x as many in Japan than in Europe or US.
The second panelist, Yoshinobu Noma, from Kodansha, said domination from one company was not good, and was encouraged by Rakuten's entry into the market. He mentioned that there are 70 million Rakuten club members with "points", and that the low price of the new Kobo Touch in Japan ($99) would help Rakuten and Kobo device gain foothold. He was concerned that fewer competitors keep books from coming to market. More publishers mean more freedom of expression, freedom to publish.
Then Bill McCoy (Executive Director of IDPF) added that the IDPF and open standards pave the way for the fusion of digital books: like manga is a fusion between comics and books, making a bigger world for all of us.
Mikitani then said "I am nationalist and as Japanese company, I want to make an impact in the global industry, and I want to export that overseas, not just manga, expand Japanese culture. Unless we have a device, [like Kobo], we cannot compete with overseas competitor: so there's a philosophical part plus a business part."
When asked if it was about books, he answered, "Kids are not reading, I'm not criticizing consoles, but this is a crisis because kids are not reading, and that affects the intellectual level. I think back to books I read in the past. In Brazil, there is no consumption tax on books, in EU, there is a lower tax. As a nation, we need to figure out how to expand book business.
The moderator immediately asked about Rakuten's servers, and it turns out they're all in Canada, which has some tax ramifications: Mikitani replied that "we must comply with the law, but we have servers in Canada for logistics… but that means no tax in Canada, 3% in EU and 0 in Japan."
[A quick internet search reveals that there is a 5% consumption tax in Japan, that will rise to 15% by the end of the year. It is not currently levied on electronic products purchased abroad, and thus by selling from Canada, Rakuten would not have to charge the tax.]
Mikitani played down color tablet ereaders because of weight and price [which I think are important points]. He said 70% of users in US have both tablet and e-ink. [Not sure where this number comes from.]
Then Noma-san spoke about government subsidized initiative to convert 60,000 books [to epub3 format??] but stressed idea that paper and digital is not zero-sum, that one can build on and benefit from the other.
He said that Japanese government has said that all textbooks must be electronic by 2020 and that that will be the tipping point for ebooks.
Question: EPUB 3 content is not widespread, how do you position it?
Bill: Japan has chance to leapfrog the splintering of EPUB 2. Mikitani: we have to have one Japanese standard and one global standard. Noma-san (Kodansha) is member of IDPF and also working on EPUB 3.
Noma-san continued on to explain concept of #GAFMA (or Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple), and said that they had to find a way to deal with that group. "As partner, we can work with them, but in US, there is competition. How can *we* compete with them? EU companies say Japanese companies exist that can compete, and they asked how we work with them, and we talked about how to compete healthily against each other. From EU perspective, they welcomed Rakuten's acquisition of Kobo. In short, GAFMA can be competitor or partner.
Question: Will Rakuten buy publishers? Bookstores? Mikitani: "I think we should let experts do what they do best, we have no plans to buy publishers or bookstores, but would like to strengthen alliance with bookstores [and indeed I saw Kobo being demo-ed in Bunkyo-do the next day.]
Question: What about writers? Are they thinking of ebooks?
Noma-san: Some are against, but gradually this will change. We are trying to do simultaneous paper, ebook, so get contract from author for both is way to go.
Question: Can Japanese culture be exported with ebooks?
Noma-san: "Already with manga, in Taiwan we have distribution company going to mainland China eventually, Japanese flavor needs to be added to Kobo in order to go global"
Mikitani: "I was amazed at how much manga was in FNAC in Paris, but in suburban stores, there's no shelfspace. So, selling ebooks online, where there is infinite shelfspace enables that possibility. This is great opportunity to export Japanese literature."
Question: Talk about how passionate you are about ebook industry.
Mikitani: This is going to be the initial year for ebooks themselves, this is an opportunity for ebook industry to expand overseas, with Kobo, and Kodansha, we'd like to support your business.
Noma-san: I make many speeches on big trends, but sometimes people misunderstand me. In Japanese market, unless we win in print, we won't win in digital. We have to win in print, now we will see a transformation, this is the chance to go digital. We have to create good content.
Bill: Digital books can be complimentary to print, but we don't yet know what digital books are, and can be. Publishers must become web publishers.
----------------
On the second day, after my and Markus Gylling's talks in the morning, Ren Ando gave another presentation on Kobo and Rakuten which I found interesting.
Here's a brief synopsis of what he said:
Rakuten is an online marketplace, travel, financial, banks, credit services, advertising, entertainment. They do 1 trillion yen of business per year (about 12 billion dollars). Kobo is 3 years old, with 9 million users in 190 countries, 17000 publishers, 2.4 million titles, sales partners in 7 countries. Joined Rakuten in 2012.
Partner model: authors and publishers => Kobo => distribute device through local partners
Kobo touch, to be available at the end of July. Make Japanese reading culture a part of the global culture. "Renaissance and revolution of the reading culture"
EPUB 3 for all Japanese books in the catalog
Why? A: An open ecosystems is better for global interoperability, publishers and authors can trust EPUB, rapid increase of number of titles, a reliable reading platform, fast circulation of EPUB based books, migration pain mitigation, other EPUB based services, authors, publishers
"We are at a tipping point in Japan"
Creators can create and there will be lots of channels for distributing content
Strategy:
1 EPUB migration assistance for publishers
Assistance on converstion process
EPUB 3 authoring guidelines
2 High fidelity to the Japanese publishers typography requirements
co-developed between Access and Kobo
Cross platform reading experience (Android, iOS, Mac OSX, Windows)
3 Rakuten viewer aligns with latest drafts of CSS writing modes and CSS text modules
Rakuten working with W3C and Unicode consortium on these drafts
"We don't want to compete on EPUB capabilities, but rather on ease of use"
4 For "renaissance of reading culture on global scale" Rakuten works with Access to share some part of our outcomes through Readium Initiative.
----------
Finally, this was my first trip to Japan. You can see my pictures here.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
First look at EPUB3-supporting Kobo Touch ereader in Japan
Zen again (and what a place for it!) A friend asked me to pick up a copy of the Manga version of Math Girls, so we went to Bunkyo-do, a large bookstore in Tokyo. (It was remarkably packed with shoppers, and had lovely displays.) And lo and behold, the folks from Kobo/Rakuten were there demoing the new Kobo Touch with Japanese language support (aka EPUB 3). Here's what it looks like:
I haven't seen the Kobo Touch in the US, but I assume it's pretty similar: nice touch screen, customary padded back, Twitter and FB sharing, ability to select, highlight, and annotate, and in this version, look up words in a Japanese dictionary (although only in the flowing examples, not the manga, which still has static text). Most important: excellent support for vertical Japanese text.
I have a lot of notes I want to share about the IDPF EPUB 3 conference on Wednesday, but one of the interesting points was how the need for Japanese (and other non-Roman) language support may push more ebook publishers and retailers to move to EPUB 3. Rakuten/Kobo, for example, announced that all of its Japanese ebooks will be in EPUB 3 format.
Oh yeah, and it comes in four colors. (And costs 7990 yen, about $99.)
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Creating pop-up footnotes in EPUB 3 (and thus in iBooks)
Apple sent around an email today announcing that EPUB 3 is now supported by iBooks and the iBookstore. It also tantalizingly suggested that EPUB 3 supports pop-up footnotes and said you could find information in the EPUB 3 spec on the IDPF website. The first part is true, and the second part is sort of true, but if you like, read on and I'll explain just how to do it.
The IDPF website explains the proper syntax for marking up footnotes semantically, that is, by labeling them as footnotes:
This snippet is from an EPUB 3 version of Moby Dick, coded by Dave Cramer.
And then the EPUB 3 spec goes on to say that a Reading System may associate specialized behaviors with that syntax, and it looks like Apple has associated the pop-up functionality to the combination of
So, to make a pop-up footnote in EPUB 3 (which works in iBooks), you just have to create your footnote marker link as shown above, paying special care to include the
Next, create an
The
Note that the
Another thing that I noticed is that you can enclose your
And that's it. Look! It works!
Here it is in a horizontally-oriented iBooks:
And here it is vertically:
Note that I completely disabled the CSS on this document, to be sure that the pop-up had nothing to do with any CSS effect.
And notice that the font in the pop-up changes to match the font chosen in the Font menu (here I've chosen Seravek):
Again, you can download this and other EPUB 3 examples from the EPUB 3 Samples site and view it in iBooks 2.1.1 (from April!). You can view this particular pop-up footnote on the third page of the Moby Dick book, called "Original Transcriber's Notes" in the table of contents (preface_001.xhtml). Thanks to Dave Cramer who coded the example (in January). And thanks to Apple for adding this functionality... and hinting that it existed so I could figure it out! I love, love, love that Apple totally followed the standard on this one: supporting symantically marked footnotes, and then "associating specialized behaviors" as the spec directs. No extra CSS or Javascript required. Well played, Apple.
OK, there are now two desktop EPUB 3 readers, and iBooks and the iBookstore have officially announced support as well. And there are pop-up footnotes. What are you waiting for to start creating EPUB 3 ebooks?
The IDPF website explains the proper syntax for marking up footnotes semantically, that is, by labeling them as footnotes:
<p>In chapters 24, 89, and 90, we substituted a capital L for the symbol for the British pound, a unit of currency.<a epub:type="noteref" href="#n1">1</a></p>This snippet is from an EPUB 3 version of Moby Dick, coded by Dave Cramer.
And then the EPUB 3 spec goes on to say that a Reading System may associate specialized behaviors with that syntax, and it looks like Apple has associated the pop-up functionality to the combination of
epub:type="noteref" and epub:type="footnote" attribute/value pairs.So, to make a pop-up footnote in EPUB 3 (which works in iBooks), you just have to create your footnote marker link as shown above, paying special care to include the
epub:type="noteref" attribute/value pair. I'll repeat it here for good measure:<a epub:type="noteref" href="#n1">1</a></p>Next, create an
aside element that contains the text that should appear in a pop-up display when the link is pressed. The
aside element must also have the epub:type="footnote" attribute/value pair to mark it as the footnote content as well as an id attribute that matches the value of the href attribute in your link.<aside epub:type="footnote" id="n1">
<p>These have been corrected in this EPUB3 edition.</p>
</aside>Note that the
aside element, which is new to HTML5, is automatically hidden by iBooks. If you put your footnotes in, say, a div element, it would still pop-up when the link was pressed, but it would always be visible as a regular part of the text as well.Another thing that I noticed is that you can enclose your
a element in sup elements so that your footnote markers are raised with respect to the surrounding text, but make sure it's outside the a element or else it will break your pop-up footnote.And that's it. Look! It works!
Here it is in a horizontally-oriented iBooks:
And here it is vertically:
Note that I completely disabled the CSS on this document, to be sure that the pop-up had nothing to do with any CSS effect.
And notice that the font in the pop-up changes to match the font chosen in the Font menu (here I've chosen Seravek):
Again, you can download this and other EPUB 3 examples from the EPUB 3 Samples site and view it in iBooks 2.1.1 (from April!). You can view this particular pop-up footnote on the third page of the Moby Dick book, called "Original Transcriber's Notes" in the table of contents (preface_001.xhtml). Thanks to Dave Cramer who coded the example (in January). And thanks to Apple for adding this functionality... and hinting that it existed so I could figure it out! I love, love, love that Apple totally followed the standard on this one: supporting symantically marked footnotes, and then "associating specialized behaviors" as the spec directs. No extra CSS or Javascript required. Well played, Apple.
OK, there are now two desktop EPUB 3 readers, and iBooks and the iBookstore have officially announced support as well. And there are pop-up footnotes. What are you waiting for to start creating EPUB 3 ebooks?
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Readium displays Fixed Layout EPUB on desktop (compatible with iBooks too)
We have been waiting to view Fixed Layout on a desktop screen for a long time and the IDPF with its Fixed Layout spec and support for Readium has now made it possible. Just look at this!
First, I adapted my Fixed Layout example (from my original miniguide on the subject, which desperately needs updating now) so that it conformed with the new IDPF spec. This required:
• Add
• Add
Still in the content.opf file, we get to the stuff that determines how the fixed layout book is displayed, the so-called "rendition" options. (Thankfully, the CIA is not involved.)
There are three principal
I promise to explain these in more detail in the upcoming new edition of the Fixed Layout miniguide!
Here I've chosen the most basic fixed layout options: that it be fixed layout, that it can be viewed in either a horizontal or vertical orientation, and that it always be displayed with facing pages.
Last but not least, add the
Here's what my toc.xhtml file looks like:
And, of course, don't forget to declare the toc.xhtml file in the content.opf file:
Then, in Google Chrome (it won't work in other browsers), download the very latest version of Readium (released this morning!), it's 0.2.4, kindly fixed and uploaded by Matthew Robertson, and add your book to the library.
And voilà, you can see a fixed layout book on your desktop!!!
What, you say, you don't see facing pages? Click the facing pages button in the Readium pop-up menu that appears when you hover over the bottom-right corner of the screen.
And where are the embedded fonts? I'm not sure yet if that's a problem with this very new software, or if I haven't embedded them properly. It's definitely true that only OTF and WOFF fonts are supported in EPUB3, but I use WOFF in my example, so they *should* be showing.
Ah, but I hear a bigger worry... why should you go to all this trouble to create a format that only works with a fledgling ereader that no-one uses yet? And I could try to convince you about the importance of standards, but hopefully the following screenshot is more powerful: because the IDPF's EPUB 3 Fixed Layout spec works in iBooks!!! Apple and Barnes & Noble (and others) were involved with the IDPF in creating the Fixed Layout standard and Apple already supports it as you can see the same file showed here in iBooks:
This is a great development, and the IDPF should be commended. Hopefully there will soon be a time when we can create a single fixed layout EPUB file and it will work properly in all ereaders—Barnes & Noble also worked closely with the IDPF to develop this spec—and on the desktop. Even in Kindle.
The best way to help make this happen is to start using the new EPUB3 Fixed Layout format right now: create lots of examples, view them in Readium and help contribute to making Readium a more powerful ereader.
You can download my new EPUB3 FXL example here. Feel free to open it up and play with it. I'd love to see any examples you create!
Don't forget: subscribers receive all my blog posts via email, as well as other perks, and help to keep me writing. Thanks to all of you!
First, I adapted my Fixed Layout example (from my original miniguide on the subject, which desperately needs updating now) so that it conformed with the new IDPF spec. This required:
In the content.opf file:
• Addversion="3.0" to the package element.• Add
prefix="rendition: http://www.idpf.org/vocab/rendition/# to the package element as well.• Add
<meta property="dcterms:modified">2012-05-08</meta> to the package element. This is a great, new required element that hopefully will help with caching problems, among other things, as it's supposed to contain the last date the content was modified.Still in the content.opf file, we get to the stuff that determines how the fixed layout book is displayed, the so-called "rendition" options. (Thankfully, the CIA is not involved.)
There are three principal
rendition variables: layout (with values of pre-paginated or reflowable, that is whether you want it fixed or flowing), orientation (with values of landscape, portrait, auto, that is, whether a certain orientation should be forced), and spread (with values of none, landscape, portrait, both, auto, that is, whether the ereader should use facing pages—aka a synthetic spread—in given orientations).I promise to explain these in more detail in the upcoming new edition of the Fixed Layout miniguide!
Here I've chosen the most basic fixed layout options: that it be fixed layout, that it can be viewed in either a horizontal or vertical orientation, and that it always be displayed with facing pages.
In the content itself (the XHTML):
The code is not very different. As with all EPUB3 documents, I've eliminated the DOCTYPE, made sure the xml declaration is present, and used a simpler character set declaration:Last but not least, add the
meta tag for the viewport, as usual:The new TOC
Finally, you have to create on extra file, the new HTML TOC, ornav element. It's not much more than an ordered list, with each of the TOC items in its own list item, along with the all important nav element:<nav xmlns:epub="http://www.idpf.org/2007/ops" epub:type="toc" id="toc"> Here's what my toc.xhtml file looks like:
And, of course, don't forget to declare the toc.xhtml file in the content.opf file:
<manifest>
...
<item id="toc" href="nav.xhtml" properties="nav" media-type="application/xhtml+xml"/>And you're done!
Now, zip it up as usual, and run it by EpubCheck3.0b5 to make sure you did it all right.Then, in Google Chrome (it won't work in other browsers), download the very latest version of Readium (released this morning!), it's 0.2.4, kindly fixed and uploaded by Matthew Robertson, and add your book to the library.
And voilà, you can see a fixed layout book on your desktop!!!
What, you say, you don't see facing pages? Click the facing pages button in the Readium pop-up menu that appears when you hover over the bottom-right corner of the screen.
And where are the embedded fonts? I'm not sure yet if that's a problem with this very new software, or if I haven't embedded them properly. It's definitely true that only OTF and WOFF fonts are supported in EPUB3, but I use WOFF in my example, so they *should* be showing.
Ah, but I hear a bigger worry... why should you go to all this trouble to create a format that only works with a fledgling ereader that no-one uses yet? And I could try to convince you about the importance of standards, but hopefully the following screenshot is more powerful: because the IDPF's EPUB 3 Fixed Layout spec works in iBooks!!! Apple and Barnes & Noble (and others) were involved with the IDPF in creating the Fixed Layout standard and Apple already supports it as you can see the same file showed here in iBooks:
This is a great development, and the IDPF should be commended. Hopefully there will soon be a time when we can create a single fixed layout EPUB file and it will work properly in all ereaders—Barnes & Noble also worked closely with the IDPF to develop this spec—and on the desktop. Even in Kindle.
The best way to help make this happen is to start using the new EPUB3 Fixed Layout format right now: create lots of examples, view them in Readium and help contribute to making Readium a more powerful ereader.
You can download my new EPUB3 FXL example here. Feel free to open it up and play with it. I'd love to see any examples you create!
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Tuesday, February 21, 2012
iBooks can open EPUB 3 files
I almost used a much more provocative title: iBooks supports EPUB 3 but then we would have to have a complicated discussion about “What does ‘support’ mean?” and even, “What does ‘EPUB 3’ mean?”
Keep in mind, for example, that an EPUB 3 file is not required to include anything besides text and simple formatting, and might be nothing more than EPUB 2 content in an EPUB 3 shell. Such a file would be much less difficult to “support”.
And also remember that supporting some aspects of a file format does not necessarily imply support of the entire file format. The EPUB 3 format itself is pretty loose about requiring what conformant systems must support.
But, now with all those caveats out of the way, I'm happy to say that it's true that you can open the EPUB 3 sample files available from the IDPF with iBooks.
And those files aren't particularly complicated, or replete with EPUB 3 features, but I did notice some interesting things.
First, there are three EPUB 3 files to look at so far, Moby-Dick, Wasteland, and Creative Commons - A Shared Culture. Only Wasteland has a toc.ncx file. The Shared book has no table of contents at all. But Moby-Dick (created by Dave Cramer of Hachette) uses the new-fangled XHTML style TOC:
and iBooks displays it beautifully:
This is a big deal if you ask me, as I'm not relishing having to create two separate annoying TOC files, one for new systems and one for legacy ereaders.
The Shared book includes video and audio, and scripts to control them, but it seems like the only scripted enhancement that partially works is the play button (and it works much better in a non-scripted way).
The Moby-Dick book includes media overlays, ostensibly for narrating the text, but they don't seem to work yet.
We're not there yet, but the fact that iBooks supports EPUB 3 in some fashion is at least a beginning. Now we can begin testing what is possible, what is supported, and what we can create.
Note that Readium, the IDPF encouraged extension for Google Chrome, also supports EPUB 3. It's definitely worth downloading and playing with.
Keep in mind, for example, that an EPUB 3 file is not required to include anything besides text and simple formatting, and might be nothing more than EPUB 2 content in an EPUB 3 shell. Such a file would be much less difficult to “support”.
And also remember that supporting some aspects of a file format does not necessarily imply support of the entire file format. The EPUB 3 format itself is pretty loose about requiring what conformant systems must support.
But, now with all those caveats out of the way, I'm happy to say that it's true that you can open the EPUB 3 sample files available from the IDPF with iBooks.
And those files aren't particularly complicated, or replete with EPUB 3 features, but I did notice some interesting things.
First, there are three EPUB 3 files to look at so far, Moby-Dick, Wasteland, and Creative Commons - A Shared Culture. Only Wasteland has a toc.ncx file. The Shared book has no table of contents at all. But Moby-Dick (created by Dave Cramer of Hachette) uses the new-fangled XHTML style TOC:
and iBooks displays it beautifully:
This is a big deal if you ask me, as I'm not relishing having to create two separate annoying TOC files, one for new systems and one for legacy ereaders.
The Shared book includes video and audio, and scripts to control them, but it seems like the only scripted enhancement that partially works is the play button (and it works much better in a non-scripted way).
The Moby-Dick book includes media overlays, ostensibly for narrating the text, but they don't seem to work yet.
We're not there yet, but the fact that iBooks supports EPUB 3 in some fashion is at least a beginning. Now we can begin testing what is possible, what is supported, and what we can create.
Note that Readium, the IDPF encouraged extension for Google Chrome, also supports EPUB 3. It's definitely worth downloading and playing with.
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