7 ms·

ePub 3.2

89 points by rahuldottech 7y ago

patrickg 7y ago
Changelog to 3.0.1 here: https://www.w3.org/publishing/epub32/epub-changes.html https://www.w3.org/publishing/epub32/epub-changes.html
Tepix 7y ago
I feel like EPUB is a standard who's features are underutilized. Is there a nice high-level overview of EPUBs capabilities? I found a German text from 2018 that covers EPUB 3.0-3.2 (which was obviously still a draft back then): https://www.dpc-consulting.org/epub-3-3-0-1-3-1-3-2-das-versions-chaos-der-ebook-formate/ https://www.dpc-consulting.org/epub-3-3-0-1-3-1-3-2-das-vers... It links to a long blog post that covers recent EPUB development by Dave Cramer, co-chair of the W3C Community Group: http://epubsecrets.com/why-specs-change-epub-3-2-and-the-evolution-of-the-ebook-ecosystem.php http://epubsecrets.com/why-specs-change-epub-3-2-and-the-evo... EPUBCheck is an open source tool that can check your EPUB files against the EPUB 3.2 spec. https://github.com/w3c/epubcheck https://github.com/w3c/epubcheck
- shakna 7y ago
  The features are underutilised because most readers simply don't support them. There's no point using a feature if it'll just break the book for the vast majority of your audience, and it doesn't look like that situation is going to change anytime soon.
fouc 7y ago
I wish MacOS had a good ePub reader that did not insist on multiple column view and runs as a standalone app. Kind of sad XULRunner got killed or I could run EpubReader as a stand alone app.
- robin_reala 7y ago
  Apple Books? Switching it to single page view is pretty trivial.
  - mikl 7y ago
    True. I wish there was a setting to make single column permanent, but having to press Cmd-1 when opening a book is not too much of a hassle.
  - fouc 7y ago
    iBooks app? You have to fiddle with the size of the window and once you get one column, it ends up with ridiculously huge margins on it.
    - robin_reala 7y ago
      It was renamed to Books in Mojave. Either way, you can just select View / Single page from the menu and it resizes to a single column view with normal margins. That isn’t supported in full screen view tbf.
      - fouc 7y ago
        Yeah I prefer a single column while keeping the window at the full width of the display. It tends to shrink the window to fit it's preconceived notions of "vertical rhythm" as they call it in the text world I guess - or usually trying to keep the width to 70-80 characters. I don't like this though
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  It looks like there was a really nice one around seven years ago, called Bookle. All of the reviews from the time seemed to love it. Unfortunately, it's no longer available for sale. I searched high and low for a copy, and even emailed the developer. Their response made me quite sad: "I'm afraid that I don't know that I even have a build at this point." Who knows if it would even work on modern macOS, but I bet it would, as long as it was 64 bit. macOS's backwards compatibility is better than some seem to imagine.
foo_in_bar 7y ago
It's such a nice standard, I just wish it had better support on E-readers (looking at you Kindle).
- robin_reala 7y ago
  Well, it’s only Kindle that insists on a proprietary format. Everyone else does ePub 2 fine (ePub 3 support is spotty).
  - Mediterraneo10 7y ago
    Kindles can read .mobi files, which is a pretty open format. Calibre can easily convert EPUBs to .mobi (or to the similar .azw3 format) for reading on Kindle. While Amazon has introduced recently a new format with advanced typographic features that is highly proprietary (.kfx), uptake of it among publishers has been slow.
    - robin_reala 7y ago
      Mobipocket has been dead for the last couple of years and I can’t find a spec anyway. The Library of Congress describe it as a “proprietary, partially documented, binary format for ebooks”[1] which doesn’t really meet “open” by my definition. As for KFX, that’s 100% proprietary, yes. Amazon in the US at least has sewn up the ebook market such that they have no interest at least in implementing open standards. The best thing to do in these situations is to vote with your wallet. [1] https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/fdd/fdd000472.shtml https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/fdd/fdd0004...
- karanbhangui 7y ago
  I love my Kobo Clara HD for its native epub support. I prefer the hardware and software over my Kindle Paperwhite too, tho I use the latter when epubs are’t available. I tried the whole Calibre conversion thing for a while, but just find it better/easier to have two ereaders.
reagent_finder 7y ago
I feel like there's a slight lack of grassroots activity with epubs, people tend to work with mature products or random e-readers. I've recently experimented a bit with making epubs by hand (bash+perl) and they tend to break readers more often than not. So I feel we've come to the spot where there's standards, but then there's convention over (a) decade(s) that just trumps standards. Reminds me of DHCP where I've yet to come across three implementations that agree on certain aspects. Also, is 'supports epub x.y' been a selling point in any reader so far? I'm looking through the changes and holy hell, this makes me feel like punching an engineer, and I am one! Everything is buried under three or more layers, requiring at least 3 clicks and a bunch of scrolling and usually just refers to what they've changed compared to the PREVIOUS version. While fine for a standard, this is absolutely awful for anyone who doesn't work with epub files daily (which I'm guessing is a very small minority). If you're interested in changes written for humans, this link is what you're looking for: https://www.w3.org/publishing/epub32/epub-overview.html https://www.w3.org/publishing/epub32/epub-overview.html It doesn't contain motivation for these changes, though, so we'll go with "some engineer thought these would be a good idea" I guess I'd like to ask the working group: #1 How widespread would you consider high/recent version support for epubs to be? #2 How would you sell epub 3.2 support to people developing e-readers or reader applications? #3 Why isn't the first page filled with "Hey guv, you're an engineer who's interested, here's what epub is and does, and here's a link with all the recent changes along with update motivation information" because looking at this site, I could not find a single thing for convincing manager/C-level types to grant 200 product update hours for this.
- m-p-3 7y ago
  > I've recently experimented a bit with making epubs by hand (bash+perl) and they tend to break readers more often than not. Me too, and I wish SVG support was better on most eReader (not a good experience so far), and that there was official support for MathML or something equivalent. It hurts to see so many books using raster pictures to display a formula or a diagram, when it would look crisper and flow better if it was vector-based.
  - Finnucane 7y ago

89 points by rahuldottech 7y ago

Changelog to 3.0.1 here: https://www.w3.org/publishing/epub32/epub-changes.html https://www.w3.org/publishing/epub32/epub-changes.html

Tepix 7y ago

I feel like EPUB is a standard who's features are underutilized. Is there a nice high-level overview of EPUBs capabilities? I found a German text from 2018 that covers EPUB 3.0-3.2 (which was obviously still a draft back then): https://www.dpc-consulting.org/epub-3-3-0-1-3-1-3-2-das-versions-chaos-der-ebook-formate/ https://www.dpc-consulting.org/epub-3-3-0-1-3-1-3-2-das-vers... It links to a long blog post that covers recent EPUB development by Dave Cramer, co-chair of the W3C Community Group: http://epubsecrets.com/why-specs-change-epub-3-2-and-the-evolution-of-the-ebook-ecosystem.php http://epubsecrets.com/why-specs-change-epub-3-2-and-the-evo... EPUBCheck is an open source tool that can check your EPUB files against the EPUB 3.2 spec. https://github.com/w3c/epubcheck https://github.com/w3c/epubcheck

shakna 7y ago
The features are underutilised because most readers simply don't support them. There's no point using a feature if it'll just break the book for the vast majority of your audience, and it doesn't look like that situation is going to change anytime soon.

fouc 7y ago

I wish MacOS had a good ePub reader that did not insist on multiple column view and runs as a standalone app. Kind of sad XULRunner got killed or I could run EpubReader as a stand alone app.

robin_reala 7y ago
Apple Books? Switching it to single page view is pretty trivial.
- mikl 7y ago
  True. I wish there was a setting to make single column permanent, but having to press Cmd-1 when opening a book is not too much of a hassle.
- fouc 7y ago
  iBooks app? You have to fiddle with the size of the window and once you get one column, it ends up with ridiculously huge margins on it.
  - robin_reala 7y ago
    It was renamed to Books in Mojave. Either way, you can just select View / Single page from the menu and it resizes to a single column view with normal margins. That isn’t supported in full screen view tbf.
    - fouc 7y ago
      Yeah I prefer a single column while keeping the window at the full width of the display. It tends to shrink the window to fit it's preconceived notions of "vertical rhythm" as they call it in the text world I guess - or usually trying to keep the width to 70-80 characters. I don't like this though
Wowfunhappy 7y ago
It looks like there was a really nice one around seven years ago, called Bookle. All of the reviews from the time seemed to love it. Unfortunately, it's no longer available for sale. I searched high and low for a copy, and even emailed the developer. Their response made me quite sad: "I'm afraid that I don't know that I even have a build at this point." Who knows if it would even work on modern macOS, but I bet it would, as long as it was 64 bit. macOS's backwards compatibility is better than some seem to imagine.

foo_in_bar 7y ago

It's such a nice standard, I just wish it had better support on E-readers (looking at you Kindle).

robin_reala 7y ago
Well, it’s only Kindle that insists on a proprietary format. Everyone else does ePub 2 fine (ePub 3 support is spotty).
- Mediterraneo10 7y ago
  Kindles can read .mobi files, which is a pretty open format. Calibre can easily convert EPUBs to .mobi (or to the similar .azw3 format) for reading on Kindle. While Amazon has introduced recently a new format with advanced typographic features that is highly proprietary (.kfx), uptake of it among publishers has been slow.
  - robin_reala 7y ago
    Mobipocket has been dead for the last couple of years and I can’t find a spec anyway. The Library of Congress describe it as a “proprietary, partially documented, binary format for ebooks”[1] which doesn’t really meet “open” by my definition. As for KFX, that’s 100% proprietary, yes. Amazon in the US at least has sewn up the ebook market such that they have no interest at least in implementing open standards. The best thing to do in these situations is to vote with your wallet. [1] https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/fdd/fdd000472.shtml https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/fdd/fdd0004...
karanbhangui 7y ago
I love my Kobo Clara HD for its native epub support. I prefer the hardware and software over my Kindle Paperwhite too, tho I use the latter when epubs are’t available. I tried the whole Calibre conversion thing for a while, but just find it better/easier to have two ereaders.

reagent_finder 7y ago

I feel like there's a slight lack of grassroots activity with epubs, people tend to work with mature products or random e-readers. I've recently experimented a bit with making epubs by hand (bash+perl) and they tend to break readers more often than not. So I feel we've come to the spot where there's standards, but then there's convention over (a) decade(s) that just trumps standards. Reminds me of DHCP where I've yet to come across three implementations that agree on certain aspects. Also, is 'supports epub x.y' been a selling point in any reader so far? I'm looking through the changes and holy hell, this makes me feel like punching an engineer, and I am one! Everything is buried under three or more layers, requiring at least 3 clicks and a bunch of scrolling and usually just refers to what they've changed compared to the PREVIOUS version. While fine for a standard, this is absolutely awful for anyone who doesn't work with epub files daily (which I'm guessing is a very small minority). If you're interested in changes written for humans, this link is what you're looking for: https://www.w3.org/publishing/epub32/epub-overview.html https://www.w3.org/publishing/epub32/epub-overview.html It doesn't contain motivation for these changes, though, so we'll go with "some engineer thought these would be a good idea" I guess I'd like to ask the working group: #1 How widespread would you consider high/recent version support for epubs to be? #2 How would you sell epub 3.2 support to people developing e-readers or reader applications? #3 Why isn't the first page filled with "Hey guv, you're an engineer who's interested, here's what epub is and does, and here's a link with all the recent changes along with update motivation information" because looking at this site, I could not find a single thing for convincing manager/C-level types to grant 200 product update hours for this.

m-p-3 7y ago
> I've recently experimented a bit with making epubs by hand (bash+perl) and they tend to break readers more often than not. Me too, and I wish SVG support was better on most eReader (not a good experience so far), and that there was official support for MathML or something equivalent. It hurts to see so many books using raster pictures to display a formula or a diagram, when it would look crisper and flow better if it was vector-based.
- Finnucane 7y ago