Instead of becoming alarmed at the proliferation of ereaders and ebook softwares, designers and publishers should be thinking about the two dominant ePub reading engines: Adobe Reader Mobile SDK and WebKit.
This talk will help ebook producers understand what a reading engine is, and how this framework can greatly simplify ebook crafting, design and testing.
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Bnc Tech Forum 2010: Designing ebooks for ePub reading engines
1. Open source ePub:
Digital Books
Liza Daly
Threepress Consulting Inc.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
2. Thursday, April 1, 2010
This is the collection of ereaders and mobile devices I have at the office. I use them to test
ebooks as well as report on the capabilities of the various hardware readers out there.
3. TextPlus one netbook, two Macs, one Windows laptop,
and an iPad (on order).
Thursday, April 1, 2010
That doesn’t even count the most popular ereading devices today: the multiple computers,
netbooks and tablets.
4. ?
Thursday, April 1, 2010
The challenge: How do book designers and publishers effectively design ebooks for large
screens, small screens, and screen dimensions and platforms that haven’t launched yet?
6. Thinking about devices
Thinking about reading engines
Thursday, April 1, 2010
I’d like to propose that we change the conversation from thinking about specific devices
(which multiply every day) to thinking about “reading engines.”
7. Reading engines
put text on the screen
Thursday, April 1, 2010
A reading engine is the part of the ereading software that actually places text on the screen.
It’s the most basic, primitive component of any ereader.
8. WebKit
Adobe
Reader
Mobile
SDK
Mobi: fail
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Fortunately for ebook producers, there are far fewer reading engines than devices. This talk
will focus on the two most popular reading engines for ePub books: Adobe Reader Mobile
SDK (RMSDK) and WebKit.
9. Adobe Reader Mobile SDK
Software that is licensed to
device-makers and software
partners to provide Adobe’s
EPUB support and DRM.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
10. Adobe Reader Mobile SDK
Thursday, April 1, 2010
RMSDK doesn’t technically power Adobe Digital Editions, but it’s very close in terms of its
behavior.
12. Adobe Reader Mobile SDK
Thursday, April 1, 2010
RMSDK includes both the reading engine and the DRM server. Licensees get both, so in most
cases if a reader supports Adobe EPUB DRM, it uses the RMSDK reading engine.
13. With great power...
• Almost industry- • Limited CSS support
standard DRM
• No support for foreign
• Consistent rendering characters (without font
across devices embedding)
• SVG support • Narrow default margins
• Flash support • Multimedia only via Flash
• More precise pagination • Adobe-only extensions
and layout controls
Thursday, April 1, 2010
There are some advantages and disadvantages to this approach. I’m going to focus on how to
turn the disadvantages into cost savings during ebook production.
14. ...at least the bugs are
consistent
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Once you understand what uses RMSDK, it’s possible to see the same issues across many
different software programs and devices.
15. Readers using the RMSDK:
• Digital Editions • txtr
• Sony Reader • Spring
• Sony desktop reader • PlasticLogic
• Barnes & Noble nook • Kobo Reader (device
• IREX only)
Thursday, April 1, 2010
16. WebKit
Thursday, April 1, 2010
WebKit powers a number of different web browsers and mobile browsers. If you’ve used
Google Chrome, Safari, the iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, Android or Palm Pre/Pixi, you’ve used
WebKit.
17. WebKit
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Though there are other browser engines on the desktop web (IE, Firefox’s Gecko, Opera),
WebKit has quickly dominated the mobile web.
18. WebKit
Thursday, April 1, 2010
and it’s expected to grow as other kinds of mobile devices replace their own browsers with it.
19. Ereaders using WebKit
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Although WebKit isn’t technically a reading engine, because ePub is so similar to web
technologies, it makes an excellent tool for building an ereader. Most mobile ereaders use
WebKit, and any browser-based solution (Bookworm, Ibis Reader) will be using it on the right
browser. iBooks is almost certainly WebKit-based.
20. Ereaders using WebKit
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Some devices are hybrids. The Spring Design Alex ereader uses both RMSDK and WebKit, via
its built-in Android browser.
21. WebKit vs. Mobile SDK
(Barnes & Noble vs. itself)
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Some ecosystems are also hybrids. Kobo also follows this pattern, where they have a custom
WebKit-based software for computers and mobile devices, but RMSDK on hardware devices.
23. Designing for 99 devices
Designing for 2
reading engines
Thursday, April 1, 2010
So thinking about reading engines can really simplify issues around ebook design.
24. Surviving Digital Editions
Avoid Adobe-specific
extensions...
...except to solve Adobe-
specific problems
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Here are some techniques for optimizing for the Adobe ecosystem without affecting the
validity of your ebooks.
25. Mostly harmless
Page templates (XPGT)
control the layout and
flow of pages in ADE-
related reading engines
http://blogs.adobe.com/digitaleditions/template.html
Thursday, April 1, 2010
26. Mostly harmless
XPGT lets you control
page breaks and widths
of columns in RMSDK
software, and still
produce valid ePubs
http://blogs.adobe.com/digitaleditions/template.html
Thursday, April 1, 2010
27. Mostly harmless
Work around RMSDK’s
poor international font
support with embedded
open-source fonts.
http://blog.threepress.org/2009/09/16/how-to-embed-fonts-in-epub-files/
Thursday, April 1, 2010
28. Considered harmful
InDesign font obfuscation
isn’t compatible with
other systems and isn’t in
the ePub spec.
http://blog.threepress.org/2009/09/16/how-to-embed-fonts-in-epub-files/
Thursday, April 1, 2010
29. Considered harmful
ADE will only display the
first dc:author - don’t
work around by adding
multiple authors in a
single field.
That’s bad metadata!
http://blog.threepress.org/2009/11/27/practical-epub-metadata-authorship/
Thursday, April 1, 2010
30. Considered harmful
Adobe’s page-map,
mapping print pages to
ebook “pages,” is not in
the ePub spec and won’t
work anywhere else.
http://blog.threepress.org/2009/11/26/adobe-page-map-versus-ncx-pagelist/
Thursday, April 1, 2010
31. Designing for the future of ePub
Keep markup minimal and semantic.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
32. Designing for the future of ePub
Keep markup minimal and semantic.
Specifying the spacing between a header
and body text is presentational.
Specifying some spacing between a scene
change is semantic.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Some tips that will work well in WebKit and all future ePub implementations include being
thoughtful about what design elements are specified in the book. Try to keep to purely
semantic markup and styling.
33. Designing for the future of ePub
Restrict CSS to inside the content.
Prefer padding to margin.
Use Adobe’s extensions to handle page
breaks and margins; let other readers
decide for “themselves.”
Thursday, April 1, 2010
34. Test and preview in:
RMSDK
Big WebKit
Little WebKit
Thursday, April 1, 2010
My recommended testing paradigm: test in one RMSDK device/software (usually ADE), one
“big WebKit” like a web browser or iPad, and one “small WebKit”, or mobile device or browser.
35. Multimedia?
No HTML5 in ePub...
...but no Flash on the iPad
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Designing for the future of ePub: what about multimedia? Unfortunately Flash is no longer the
easy answer. HTML5 <video> adoption will come to ePub eventually, but for now it will
produce invalid ebooks in most case.
36. These companies are betting HTML5:
and provide significant resources for WebKit
development...
Thursday, April 1, 2010
However, looking ahead, I think the smart money is on what Google and Apple are doing.
37. Designing for the future of ePub
...means designing for WebKit
Thursday, April 1, 2010
This doesn’t mean that you should ignore the Adobe ecosystem! It’s the most significant part
of the marketplace right now. And don’t design two different ebooks -- all these techniques
can be used in the same ePub file successfully. But in my opinion, the future will be browser-
like reading engines.