Electronic Books

● Lecture 6 Ing. Miloslav Nič Ph.D.letní semestr 2010-2011BI-XML© Miloslav Nič, 2011

Evropský sociální fond Praha & EU: Investujeme do vaší budoucnosti

E-book

● Wikipedia:

An electronic book (also e-book, ebook, digital book) is a text and image-based publication in digital form produced on, published by, and readable on computers or other digital devices.

E-book formats

● TXT● HTML collection● PDF● Kindle (based on Mobipocket)● EPUB● ... and many more basd on similar

principles

EPUB x PDF

● http://www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/

devnet/digitalpublishing/pdfs/EPUB_datasheet.pdf● PDF: a fixed page - the publisher in complete control over

page layout and presentation

● EPUB: text reflow according to screen size

International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF)

● http://idpf.org/● a global trade and standards organization● develops and maintains the EPUB content

publication standard

EPUB

● a distribution and interchange format standard for digital publications and documents

● latest stable version EPUB 2.0.1● EPUB 2 initially standardized in 2007● EPUB 3 in the process of being

standardized (2011?)

Google and EPUB

Project Gutenberg

ePub Readers

● see e.g. http://www.jedisaber.com/eBooks/Readers.asp

● Some examples:

– Bookworm

– Calibre

– FB Reader

– Mobipocket

– Stanza

– ....

ePUB and Kindle

● not direct support at this moment● several converters available

Bookworm.oreilly.com

FBReader

● my favourite reader (both Linux and Android in my case; installers for other versions - e.g. Windows, Mac also exists)

● http://www.fbreader.org/

EPUB Standards

● Open Publication Structure (OPS)– book content in XHTML or DTBook

● Open Packaging Format (OPF)– book structure and metadata

● Open Container Format (OCF)– book file structure and compression to a

single file

Open Publication Structure (OPS)

● XML files● Namespaces:

– XHTML: ● http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml

– DAISY:● http://www.daisy.org/z3986/2005/dtbook/

– OPS:● http://www.idpf.org/2007/ops

XHTML

● XHTML 1.1; only some modules are included

● a selection of supported elements:– html, head, title, body

– abbr, acronym, address, blockquote, br, cite, code, dfn, div, em, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, kbd, p, pre, q, samp, span, strong, var, dl, dt, dd, ol, ul, li, sub, sup

– a, img, caption, col, colgroup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr

CSS

● a subset of CSS 2 supported● must be supplied with the book (not via

web)● E-Book readers are very variable (screen

size, graphic capabilities) – CSS styleshets very usefull

Images

● @alt of <img> required● core media types support of which is

required:– image/gif

– image/jpeg

– image/png

– image/svg+xml

DTBook (Digital Talking Book)

● an XML vocabulary defined in ANSI/NISO Z39.86-2005 Standard (http://www.niso.org/workrooms/daisy/Z39-86-2005.html)

● recommended for more advanced applications (e.g. educatonal books)

● supports footnotes, sidebars, annotations, page numbers, etc.

DTBook features

● hierarchical navigation● sequential reading with choices (e.g. skip

footnotes)● specific reading methods for different

components (e.g. tables)● time synchronization via SMIL

Navigation Control File (NCX)

● http://www.niso.org/workrooms/daisy/Z39-86-2005.html#NCX

● exposes the hierarchical structure of a book

Open Packaging Format (OPF)

● describes and references all components of the electronic publication (e.g. markup files, images, navigation structures)

● provides publication-level metadata

● specifies the linear reading-order of the publication

● provides fallback information to use when unsupported extensions to OPS are employed

● provides a mechanism to specify a declarative global navigation structure (the NCX)

OPF File Structure

● Package:– Metadata

– Manifest

– Spine

– Guide

<package>

● root element of OPF package● Attributes:

– xmlns=”http://www.idpf.org/2007/opf”

– version = “2.0”

– unique-identifier = “an-unique-id”● primary book identifier selected from a

collection of Dublin core identifier elements in <metadata>

● if not world-wide unique it may cause problems in libraries and catalogues

<metadata>

● a required child of <package>● its children either elements from Dublin

core namespace and/or <meta> elements with same syntax as XHTML

<dc:elements>

● Dublin core: http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/

● Elements: contributor, coverage, creator, date, description, format, identifier, language, publisher, relation, rights, source, subject, title, type

● e.g.:– <dc:title>A book</dc:title>

– <dc:identifier>uhf-232-dsds</dc:identifier>

<dc:identifier>

● at least one <identifier> with attribute @id must be present inside <metadata>

● the value of an @id attribute must be equal to the @unique-identifier of <package> element

– content of the <identifier> element with such @id is used to uniquely identify the book in libraries and catalogues

<manifest>

● the next required child of <package>● provides a list of all the files that are part of

the publication (xhtml, css, images, …)● each file listed in a child <item>● each file must be given precisely once but

the order of files is not significant

<item> child of <manifest>● Attributes, all required:

– @id

– @href● relative paths interpreted relative to the

location of OPF file containing the <manifest>

– @media-type

● Optional attribute:

– @fallback ● provides an @id of another item to be

used if this item @media-type is not supported

<spine>

● the next required element● collects “main eBook pages”● contains one or more <itemref> elements

– <itemref idref='anID'>● anID is @id of a <manifest>/<item>

● @toc of <spine>– contains a value of @id of an <item>

which provides a content for eBook, usually in NCX format

Open Container Format (OCF)

● a general-purpose container technology● collects a related set of files into a single-

file container● the required format for a file containing an

EPUB book● a ZIP archive

OCF file structure

● File mimetype

● Directory META-INF with files:

– container.xml (required)

– manifest.xml

– metadata.xml

– signatures.xml

– encryption.xml

– rights.xml

● Directory OEBPS with EPUB files (which may be in subdirectories)

● Other directories, e.g. PDF for alternative book versions

file: mimetype

● in the root of ZIP archive● it must be the first file in the archive● must contain text:

application/epub+zip

● make sure there are no whitespaces around this text

● simplifies automatic recognition of the archive

container.xml

● in directory META-INF● format:

<container version="1.0" xmlns="urn:oasis:names:tc:opendocument:xmlns:container">

<rootfiles>

<rootfile full-path="OEBPS/an_OPF_file.opf"

media-type="application/oebps-package+xml" />

</rootfiles>

</container>

EPUB 3.0

● http://idpf.org/epub/30/spec/epub30-overview.html

● 4 specifications:– EPUB Publications 3.0

– EPUB Content Documents 3.0

– EPUB Open Container Format (OCF) 3.0

– EPUB Media Overlays 3.0

● in draft stage

Some changes from v.2

● http://idpf.org/epub/30/spec/epub30-changes.html

● HTML5 syntax (DTBook no longer an alternative syntax to XHTML)

● NCX superseded by EPUB Navigation Document (uses <nav> from HTML5)

● text-to-speech facilities● multimedia support (via HTML5 <audio>

and <video>)

EPUB Media Overlays 3.0

● defines a usage of SMIL● a simplified subset of SMIL 3.0 that allow

sequencing of clips● <par> + <seq>● @clipBegin, @clipEnd