Filed under: Odds and ends, Books
All about EPUB, the ebook standard for Apple's iBookstore
Overlooked in much of the hype about the iPad announcement earlier in the week was a comment by Steve Jobs in the Keynote presentation where he mentioned that the iBooks app for iPad would take advantage of the popular EPUB format for electronic books. Since we're all going to get a lot more familiar with this format in the near future, we felt it would be a good time to provide our readers with more information about EPUB.EPUB is the same format used by the popular Stanza [free, iTunes link] app for iPhone and iPod touch. It's a free and open standard format created by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), and it's designed for reflowable content that can be optimized to whatever device is being used to read a book file. The IDPF has championed EPUB as a single format that can be used by publishers and conversion houses, as well as for distribution and sale of electronic books.
The format is meant to function as a single format that publishers and conversion houses can use in-house, as well as for distribution and sale. It supports digital rights management, something that's sure to warm the cockles of the hearts of publishers, but there's no DRM scheme that is currently specified as part of the format.
Other ebook readers that currently use the format include the Barnes & Noble Nook, the Sony Reader, iRex Digital Reader, and the iRiver Story.
If you're a budding publisher and want to get your ebook into the iBookstore, you'll need a tool to help you create your document in the EPUB format. Of course, we don't know if just anyone will be able to self-publish for the iBookstore, but Apple does note that they will have books from both "major and independent" publishers available.
For Mac users, the choice of tools is small, but good. First, there's the free Calibre ebook management tool. Calibre converts a number of different file formats to EPUB, so it's a good tool for doing an initial conversion. However, to do a lot of formatting, you'll need a full-powered EPUB editor like Sigil. Sigil is a free open-source editor that runs on a number of platforms including Mac OS X.
Next, there's the inexpensive (US$49.99 for a single license) iStudio Publisher. iStudio Publisher is a full-fledged desktop publishing application that can export text flows in EPUB format -- while that's good to hear, it's unclear if iStudio Publisher EPUB files can include photographs or diagrams.
If you happen to be an Adobe InDesign CS4 (US$699) user, you're in luck. The top-of-the-line tool for design and publishing supports EPUB, and it is possible to create files that will work on Amazon's Kindle as well. Lexcycle, the company that created Stanza, has a complete list of the tools for production and conversion of files here. It wouldn't be surprising to see a future version of Pages develop into a way to create EPUB documents.
While EPUB is a popular format, it's not without criticism. The format is great for text-centric books, but is considered unsuitable for publications that require advanced formatting or detailed layout, such as comic books and technical tomes. That could result in some issues for textbook publishers. The lack of a standard DRM scheme could cause the format to splinter into different factions unless Apple forces the issue by adopting an open scheme.
There are also issues with the lack of detail on links within EPUB books. This makes it impossible or difficult to link ebooks, or even provide links within an EPUB book. It appears from the keynote demonstration that Apple has come up with their own "standard" for linking, as there were very active examples of linking from a table of contents to individual pages within an ebook. The standards for annotating EPUB are also lacking, which means that each company using EPUB is coming up with their own way of handling this.
There's a very good possibility that Apple has created their own in-house standards for DRM, linking, and annotation. If the iPad and iBookstore are the successful products that they can be, Apple could finally force the industry to adopt a more robust EPUB standard.
So, that's it for our roundup of all things EPUB. As TUAW receives more information about how iBook and the iBookstore are going to work, we'll be sure to pass it along.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
alam said 10:54AM on 6-11-2010
ePub is just compressed xhtml + CSS consisting of a manifest of all of your files, a Table of Contents, and then the actual xhtml "chapters". You can link within a document, but the table of contents linking needs to be done by the reader. An old mentor of mine was making a reader for the iPhone - which I think they were told to cease and desist on months ago most likely because of the development of iBooks?? - and he said that the format was limited and contained too much "useless" layout information and not enough meta data, so that his team could layout the content better.
For example, chapter headers would use tags not or something like that.
Until I can buy an ePub from Stanza, use it on a kindle, then give my kindle away to goodwill, and read my same purchase on an iPad or iPhone, ePub + DRM will be limited and disappointing.
I was underwhelmed by iBooks as well.
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digitalsedition said 2:43PM on 1-31-2010
The funny part is that you could do that exact same use case with Amazon's proprietary DRM but not the standard ePUB system. I owned a Kindle 2, had various books purchased for it. Those books flowed fine on the iPhone and on the desktop. I returned the Kindle 2 and those same books will work fine on the iPhone and the iPad. At one point I owned a Sony eReader Touch (which sucked horribly) and still don't have the ability to get those books on another device.
Kinda sad actually.
K said 8:32AM on 1-31-2010
Great summary, Steven :)
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alalala said 8:40AM on 1-31-2010
The comment stripped some html:
they use normal "angle bracket h#" tags when they should use something more informative like "angle bracket chapter header".
Anyhow, apple shouldn't care if there are other readers on their devices if they require use of ibookstore to purchase content and respect the DRM and the app isnt sending out copyrighted material.
Kind of like a choosing a DVD player to play your movie.
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donovan1144 said 8:48AM on 1-31-2010
EPUB is essentially a zipped folder of HTML, CSS, and image files with an XML description file. Rename a non-DRM'd EPUB file from .epub to .zip, unzip it, and you can see it for yourself. Of course linking within books is already handled by HTML. Really, every major ebook format in the past 10 years or so has handled linking within books just fine. I didn't see the iPad keynote, but them showing how selecting an item in a table of contents takes you directly to that item in the book is merely demonstrating a standard feature of ebooks themselves, not anything novel that Apple has done.
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Nathan Adams said 8:59AM on 1-31-2010
So in other words, ePub is great for novels, but almost useless for books that actually require layout.
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bobsawatzki1 said 9:02PM on 3-18-2010
Thanks for the vote of confidence in publishing novels on the i-Pad.
My novel was made on InDesign CS2. It looks like I better upgrade to CS4.
Would be very appreciative of any feedback you have on self-publishing.
http://issuu.com/bobsawatzki/docs/newcover96
Dr. Robert said 9:06AM on 1-31-2010
alalala is correct. The ePub format uses H1, H2, H3 (or whatever) tags instead of using useful information. It's really kind of a dud format. Let's hope Apple does something cool with it.
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Rob said 9:20AM on 1-31-2010
Steven wrote:
"The lack of a standard DRM scheme could cause the format to splinter into different factions unless Apple forces the issue by adopting an open scheme"
Given Apple's track record on DRM, it is VERY unlikely that Apple will use an open DRM scheme. Apple will likely use a proprietary DRM Scheme to LOCK you into Apple products. Apple does NOT want to make it easy for you to switch to a non-Apple e-reader product.
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THJ said 4:09PM on 1-31-2010
You're probably correct - though if it's the same as the old iTunes one (up to 5 devices can be 'registered'), then that won't be an issue for most. Personally, even though the Kindle format is DRM'd, with the plethora of Kindle apps on iPhone/Mac/Windows, I'd be much more comfortable buying my books through the Kindle vs Apple (though if publishers start going buck-wild with photos/maps/graphs etc in iPad books, all bets are off).
I'm getting really excited to see what can be done with historical atlases and stuff - imagine a touchable google earth with a 'year slider' - mmmmm.....I need to get out more....
William Carr said 3:52PM on 2-01-2010
Perhaps you missed it, but Jobs says he hates DRM, and music from iTunes doesn't use it anymore.
Stan-O said 9:32AM on 1-31-2010
There're other ways to create epub, read http://nookdevs.com/Creating_Books for details.
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Rob said 10:21AM on 1-31-2010
If you have PDF you want converted to ePub, there is the free http://www.Epub2Go.com/ service.
Mike said 10:00AM on 1-31-2010
When will companies learn that all text-containing formats are inferior to LaTeX?
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THJ said 7:54PM on 1-31-2010
Support LaTeX, Stop book AIDS and unwanted Phamplets!
Noah Ramon said 10:43PM on 1-31-2010
AHEM.
You're obviously thinking of troff, sonny.
:P
Walter A. said 10:03AM on 1-31-2010
Wow, this brings up a whole new range of concerns that hasn't been discussed yet...
I have never bought an e-book in my life, though I've downloaded a number of books in PDF format. The Kindle never appealed to me at all. But with the iPad's beautiful color screen and touch interface, I could see myself paying for this sort of content.
My assumption, though, was that I'd be able to get a richer reading experience, especially with books having lots of color photography and rich layouts. I was also looking forward to the idea of digital magazine subscriptions.
But if I'm reading this ePub description correctly, it's sounding more and more like it's mainly useful for text-only novels, and may be unsuitable for the type of books I read most frequently. Additionally, if there aren't going to be magazine subscriptions, that easily takes away about 50% of the iPad's appeal for me.
I hope Apple addresses these questions soon...
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William Carr said 3:17PM on 2-01-2010
More to the point, if it's really a form of HTML, will it be compatible with HTML5 and support animation?
I suspect if it isn't, it will be by the time Apple is done with it.
Books with embedded movies, the ability to annotate with audio clips... yeah.
bobsawatzki1 said 9:02PM on 3-18-2010
My novel, Circa '96, is a mash-up of text, graphics, and links.
I made it using Adobe InDesign CS2.
Would appreciate any feedback on it:
http://issuu.com/bobsawatzki/docs/newcover96
The hard part I think is going to be getting legal permissions for use of graphics and links.
RogueFive said 10:32AM on 1-31-2010
The question is: will I be able to bring over my 100s ePubs to the iPad or will it be locked down to iBook only content?
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