New devices, changing standards and user expectations. As digital publishing continues to evolve, how can publishers make the most of the trends and technologies of today? Presentation originally developed by Apex VP and Principal Consultant Bill Kasdorf for the benefit of an international institutional publishing office in 2014. Learn more at www.apexcovantage.com.

1. Bill Kasdorf
VP and Principal Consultant,Apex Content Solutions
Making the Most of Today’s
Dynamic Digital Landscape
An Introduction to ePublishing

2. New Devices
User Expectations
Changing Standards

3. Scary, isn’t it?

4. New Devices
User Expectations
Changing Standards
More alike under the hood
than you’d think.

5. New Devices
User Expectations
Changing Standards
More alike under the hood
than you’d think.
Getting more aligned
every day.

6. New Devices
User Expectations
Changing Standards
More alike under the hood
than you’d think.
Getting more aligned
every day.
They’re the point
of publishing . . .
and they make us
publish better.

7. User Expectations

8. User Expectations
What is this user looking for?
“How much did ADB lend
in South Asia in 2013?”

9. User Expectations
What is this user looking for?
“How much did ADB lend
in South Asia in 2013?”
They’re looking for an answer,
not a publication.
You publish content.
Publications are just how you deliver it.
Semantics is the key.
Information.
Users expect to be able to query your content
to find what they’re looking for.

10. User Expectations
What is this user looking for?
“How much did ADB lend
in South Asia in 2013?”
“How should Performance Indicator
Descriptions and Output Indicators be
re-written for effective analysis?”

11. User Expectations
What is this user looking for?
“How much did ADB lend
in South Asia in 2013?”
“How should Performance Indicator
Descriptions and Output Indicators be
re-written for effective analysis?”
Educational standards and technologies
are evolving rapidly.
Markup, metadata, assessment, analytics—
interoperability is key.
Instruction.
They need to learn how to do something.

12. User Expectations
What is this user looking for?
“How much did ADB lend
in South Asia in 2013?”
“How should Performance Indicator
Descriptions and Output Indicators be re-
written for effective analysis?”
“What are the most recent publications
that address my specialty?”

13. User Expectations
What is this user looking for?
“How much did ADB lend
in South Asia in 2013?”
“How should Performance Indicator
Descriptions and Output Indicators be re-
written for effective analysis?”
“What are the most recent publications
that address my specialty?”
Your publications are part of a
rich, broad, intellectual ecosystem.
Users need to move fluidly between resources—
metadata, IDs, and linking are key.
Professional development.
They need to learn how to do something.

14. User Expectations
What is this user looking for?
“How much did ADB lend
in South Asia in 2013?”
“How should Performance Indicator
Descriptions and Output Indicators be re-
written for effective analysis?”
“What are the most recent publications
that address my specialty?”
“Show me how drought progressed
in South Asia from 1990–2013.”

15. User Expectations
What is this user looking for?
“How much did ADB lend
in South Asia in 2013?”
“How should Performance Indicator
Descriptions and Output Indicators be re-
written for effective analysis?”
“What are the most recent publications
that address my specialty?”
“Show me how drought progressed
in South Asia from 1990–2013.”
Visualization, interactivity, rich media,
“gamification,” etc. enhance learning
by involving the user.
These can be expensive to create,
and can quickly become outdated.
Open Web Platform standards are key.
Engagement.
They want something dynamic, not static.

16. User Expectations
What is this user looking for?
What format does the user want it in?

17. User Expectations
What is this user looking for?
What format does the user want it in?
Text? Audio? Video? Animation?
Not everything needs to be in every format,
but things need to be in appropriate formats,
and rich media needs fallbacks.
Don’t forget about accessibility!

18. User Expectations
What is this user looking for?
What format does the user want it in?
What platform/device is being used?

19. User Expectations
What is this user looking for?
What format does the user want it in?
What platform/device is being used?
Browser online? Offline?
E-Reader? Tablet? Phone?
Even . . . paper?
OS (Operating System) becomes an issue.
Responsive design enables one file to adapt
to various “viewport” dimensions.
Key standards: Open Web Platform.

20. User Expectations
What is this user looking for?
What format does the user want it in?
What platform/device is being used?
What does the user want to do?

21. User Expectations
What is this user looking for?
What format does the user want it in?
What platform/device is being used?
What does the user want to do?
Immersive reading? Look things up?
Highlight, annotate, bookmark?
Share comments with others?
Currently highlighting, annotating, sharing, etc.
are confined to proprietary platforms/systems/apps.
EPUB and OWP are working to standardize
and make them non-proprietary.

22. This didn’t just all happen overnight.
Digital publishing has been evolving
for as long as there have been computers.

23. The Evolution Digital Publishing
1960s and ’70s
Early digital books on mainframes
Word processing, phototypesetting

24. The Evolution Digital Publishing
1960s and ’70s
Early digital books on mainframes
Word processing, phototypesetting
1980s
Actual products: CD-ROMS
Digital typesetting with proprietary codes
SGML and PostScript

25. The Evolution Digital Publishing
1960s and ’70s
Early digital books on mainframes
Word processing, phototypesetting
1980s
Actual products: CD-ROMS
Digital typesetting with proprietary codes
SGML and PostScript
1990s
The first wave of dedicated e-readers
XML, PDF, and the Web

26. The Evolution Digital Publishing
1960s and ’70s
Early digital books on mainframes
Word processing, phototypesetting
1980s
Actual products: CD-ROMS
Digital typesetting with proprietary codes
SGML and PostScript
1990s
The first wave of dedicated e-readers
XML, PDF, and the Web
Key Dynamics
Analog to digital
“Capturing keystrokes”
Presentational tagging
to generic tagging
Proprietary schemes
to standards

27. The Evolution Digital Publishing
1960s and ’70s
Early digital books on mainframes
Word processing, phototypesetting
1980s
Actual products: CD-ROMS
Digital typesetting with proprietary codes
SGML and PostScript
1990s
The first wave of dedicated e-readers
XML and PDF
Key Dynamics
Analog to digital
“Capturing keystrokes”
Presentational tagging
to generic tagging
Proprietary schemes
to standards
. . . which leads to
“Hey, we don’t even need to
print stuff out—you can read it
right on the screen!”

28. But who would want to
read on a screen?

29. The
1998
Rocket
eBook
Looks pretty
familiar,
doesn’t it?

30. Soon there were lots of e-readers.
And lots of ebook formats.
Remember Microsoft’s .lit?
Remember Sony’s .bbeb?
Oh, yeah, and Mobipocket’s .mobi . . .

31. The turn of the
millennium:
We’re building
a Tower of
Babel.

32. IDPF to the Rescue!
Developing an open standard
with broad industry participation
1999: OEB
(the Open eBook standard)
2007: EPUB
(+ the non-EPUB Kindle . . .)
2010: EPUB 2.0.1
(+ the EPUB-based iPad/iBooks)

33. EPUB 2.0.1
works for books
like this . . .

34. . . . but not for
complex publications
like these

35. October 11, 2011:
EPUB 3.0, E-Book Superhero,
comes to save the day!

36. Remember the complaints about
changing standards?
We’d be in a bad state if they didn’t change.
SGML became XML.
OEB became EPUB.
EPUB 2.0.1 became EPUB 3.
HTML 1.1 became HTML5.
These standards are designed to evolve
as the technology and user needs
change over time.

37. Remember the complaints about
changing standards?
We’d be in a bad state if they didn’t change.
SGML became XML.
OEB became EPUB.
EPUB 2.0.1 became EPUB 3.
HTML 1.1 became HTML5.
These standards are designed to evolve
as the technology and user needs
change over time.
And they’re converging.
EPUB 3 is based on
XHTML5, which is HTML5
conforming to XML rules.

38. File Formats vs. Markup and Metadata
Files are the “containers” for
content—text, images, fonts,
video, audio, scripts, etc.
Markup and metadata are the
“codes” and stored information
that make those files “work.”
It’s important not to confuse the two.
EPUB, for example (a .epub file)
is actually a .zip container with
all that stuff in it.

39. Content
Think of content as the
stuff you can see.

40. Markup
Think of markup as
the engineering that
makes it work
like a well-oiled machine.

41. Metadata
Think of metadata
as the oil.

42. Some Common Text File Formats
Microsoft Word
Used for most authoring and editing
TeX/LaTeX
Common for math, statistics, engineering
InDesign
The leading design/page layout format
XML
The foundation of most modern publishing
HTML
The format of the World Wide Web

43. Some Common Metadata Formats
ONIX
Supply chain metadata for bookselling
PRISM
Suite of metadata standards for magazines
Dublin Core
Widely used generic metadata standard
schema.org
Standardized vocabularies for browsers
Thema
New international subject codes

44. Some Common Image Formats
TIFF (.tif or .tiff)
“Tagged Image File Format”
JPEG (.jpg or .jpeg)
“Joint Photographic Experts Group”
GIF (.gif)
“Graphics Interchange Format”
PNG (.png)
“Portable Network Graphics”
SVG (.svg)
“Scalable Vector Graphics”

45. . . . and Some Common Proprietary Formats
AI (.ai)
Adobe Illustrator
PSD (.psd)
Photoshop
EPS (.eps)
Encapsulated Postscript
PPT (.ppt)
PowerPoint
WMF/EMF
Windows Metafile / Enhanced Metafile
These are used
in production
but don’t belong
in deliverable
products.

46. Audio and Video Formats
HTML5 vs. Proprietary
Best: open formats permitted by HTML5
in the <audio> and <video> elements:
theyworknativelyinbrowsers(andiOSetc.)
Proprietary formats like Flash (.swf) and
QuickTime (.mov, .qt) require plug-ins
Ideal: Formats Recommended by EPUB 3
Audio: MP3 and MP4 AAC LC
Video: H.264 and VP8/WebM
(often both due to browser/RS inconsistency)

47. Scripts
JavaScript
Fundamental to the Open Web Platform
JavaScript Libraries
“Pre-written” scripts to adapt as needed
Most popular: open-source jQuery
Widgets
Interactive features like quizzes, sliders,
“assessments” in educational content,
graphing data from a table, etc.

48. Fonts
OpenType
Primary font format for print
WOFF
Primary font format for web
Licensing
Know what rights you’ve got!
Obfuscating and Embedding
Enable ebook to contain the fonts it needs
UNICODE Fonts
Encoding aligns with Web and XML

49. Stylesheets
Word
A good “styles library” helps add
structure and semantics
InDesign/Quark
Paragraph styles and character styles
ensure consistency, efficiency
Browsers/Ebooks
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)
Adapts rendering for context/device
Enables “responsive design”

50. Deliverable Products
PDF
Preserves look of typeset page
Used for printing, online delivery
Doesn’t “reflow” for different screen sizes
EPUB
International standard format
Non-proprietary, works almost everywhere
Reflowable or fixed layout
KF8
Amazon’s proprietary ebook format

51. Markup & Metadata

52. CONTENT MARKUP
Structure
What are the pieces, and how do they relate?
Semantics
What are the pieces for, what are they about?
Resources
Images, multimedia, scripts, stylesheets, etc.
Associations
Links, references, annotations, indexes, etc.

53. <CN> </CN>
</CT>
</AU>
<INTRO>
</INTRO>
<H1>
<H2>
</H1>
</H2>
<CT>
<AU>
<GLOSS> </GLOSS>
Here’s one possible
markup scheme:
“Chapter number”
“Chapter title”
“Author’s name”
“Introductory
paragraph”
“Level 1 subhead”
“Level 2 subhead”
“Glossary term”
That’s XML markup.
Those are “tags.”

54. <CN> </CN>
</CT>
</AU>
<INTRO>
</INTRO>
<H1>
<H2>
</H1>
</H2>
<CT>
<AU>
<GLOSS> </GLOSS>
Here’s one possible
markup scheme:
“Chapter number”
“Chapter title”
“Author’s name”
“Introductory
paragraph”
“Level 1 subhead”
“Level 2 subhead”
“Glossary term”
That’s XML markup.
Those are “tags.”
XML is the
best form of
markup.
It enables you
to not only
render
the pieces
differently
in different
contexts but
manage
the pieces
independently.

55. XML
XML enables
the separation of
structure and semantics
from
rendering, presentation.

56. XML
XML liberates your content
from any particular page design,
any particular reading system,
any particular workflow.
Print, app, ebook, and online:
all from the same XML document!

57. Semantics
Semantics Supercharge Your Content
Distinguish elements with same tag
that have specific structural functions
Disambiguate text: is “Washington” the
president, the city, the bridge, or the state?
Describe content to enhance discovery,
enable filtering via keywords, controlled
vocabularies, taxonomies

58. METADATA
Identifiers
Unique, unambiguous, machine-processable
Enable precise linking and “chunking”
Subject Codes
Terms + codes facilitate discovery,
enable “recommendation engines”
Supply-Chain Metadata
Essential to retailers, distributors,
aggregators, licensees, etc.

59. Workflow and
Content Management

60. We all know what the stages of the
editorial and production workflow are . . .
Design.
Copyediting.
Typesetting.
Artwork.
Indexing.
Quality Control.
Ebook Creation.
. . . but we need to look deeper
to optimize how they work
in any given organization.

61. They’re usually done in silos.
Which are hard to see into,
and are starting to break down.

62. Who Does What?
Do it in-house?
Outsource it?
Automate it?
You can’t answer these questions properly
without deconstructing the categories.
And the answers differ
from publisher to publisher.

63. Workflow
Workflow is where it all comes together:
A vocabulary that fits your publications.
Markup that makes your content agile.
Metadata that makes it meaningful.
The standards that make it interoperable.
The technologies that fit your capabilities.

64. Don’t start by looking for
a Content Management System.
Start by thinking about
how you need to manage your content.
The point is to . . .

65. . . . get from this . . .

66. Thanks to Jake Zarnegar of Silverchair for the graphics.
. . . to this.

67. Which means managing
your content
not just
your publications.

68. Six Things “Content Management”
Might Mean
1. Web Content Management
2. Digital Asset Management
3. Workflow Management
4. XML Workflow Management
5. XML Repository Management
6. ALL OF THE ABOVE

69. Number of Content Management Systems
that are Magic
They only work
if you work to make them work!
Analyze your workflow, models, products, and plans
so you know what you want the CMS to do.
Implementing a CMS helps you understand,
document, and improve how you do what you do!

70. You can buy
a Content Management System
but you can’t buy
good content management.
You have to do
good content management.

71. Thanks!
Bill Kasdorf
bkasdorf@apexcovantage.com
+1 734 904 6252
@BillKasdorf