Threepress Consulting blog » kindle http://blog.threepress.org Threepress creates software for publishers, educators and authors. Mon, 09 Jan 2012 13:02:39 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Quakebook: a community-sourced book benefiting Japan http://blog.threepress.org/2011/04/19/quakebook-a-community-sourced-book-benefiting-japan/ http://blog.threepress.org/2011/04/19/quakebook-a-community-sourced-book-benefiting-japan/#comments Tue, 19 Apr 2011 16:42:34 +0000 Liza Daly http://blog.threepress.org/?p=1904 We were very pleased to be able to work on the ebook version of this innovative project.

Quakebook cover

Quakebook is:

A Twitter-sourced charity book about how the Japanese Earthquake at 2:46 on March 11, 2011 affected us all. All revenues from the QuakeBook Book go to the Japan Red Cross.

Threepress took the print-ready InDesign file and converted it to EPUB (which was then provided to Amazon for conversion to Mobi). It took a ridiculous amount of time given the length of the title — almost 20 man-hours, compressed into just a few calendar hours — typical of InDesign conversions that weren’t EPUB-optimized. InDesign’s output really needs to be more fault-tolerant; it should not be a specialized skill to just create EPUB-friendly InDesign files.

]]> http://blog.threepress.org/2011/04/19/quakebook-a-community-sourced-book-benefiting-japan/feed/ 4 Better single-source Mobi/EPUB files http://blog.threepress.org/2010/11/16/better-single-source-mobiepub-files/ http://blog.threepress.org/2010/11/16/better-single-source-mobiepub-files/#comments Tue, 16 Nov 2010 17:12:46 +0000 Liza Daly http://blog.threepress.org/?p=1708 Edited 3:15pm: Though the current epubcheck considers the sample below to be valid, the approach described in this post is likely not strictly valid according to EPUB 2.0.1. The XHTML TOC is not necessarily meant to be part of the EPUB publication as it is for Kindle consumption only, but it is included in the manifest. Proceed with caution.

Many publishers prefer to create only a single EPUB file that can be distributed both into EPUB reading system channels like iBooks and B&N, but can also be distributed in the Kindle ecosystem after conversion by kindlegen, Calibre or Amazon’s internal systems.

There are a few problems with this. One is that Mobipocket’s primitive HTML support conflicts with the requirement that commercial EPUBs be valid XHTML 1.1. There are some design elements that are difficult to do “right” in Mobipocket while still maintaining compliance with EPUB. Our best recommendation in this case is to optimize the design for EPUB reading systems that are based on browser engines; that is clearly where the next generation of EPUB readers are going, and ebooks should be designed as much for future readers as for the state of the art today. Designers who need fine control over the look of Kindle books should first buy Kindle Formatting by Joshua Tallent, and then be prepared to produce two separate EPUB files: a Mobi-specific one and a valid one for distribution in the other channels.

If exact formatting isn’t critical, then the single-source approach can work, but there’s one other layout issue: Kindle requires both the EPUB NCX Table of Contents as well as a table of contents marked up in XHTML. This requirement is silly — an XHTML TOC should only be included if the creator really wanted custom layout — but there it is.

This leads to content creators including an XHTML TOC in their EPUB, which is unnecessary in EPUB readers, takes up valuable front-matter space, and impedes the flow of reading.

Here’s a quick trick to bundling an XHTML TOC and “hiding” it from an EPUB reader: omit the XHTML TOC from the spine.

Sample OPF:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<package xmlns="http://www.idpf.org/2007/opf" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" unique-identifier="bookid" version="2.0">
  <metadata>
    <dc:title>Test demonstrating mobi TOC that does not appear in an EPUB</dc:title>
    <dc:creator>Threepress Consulting Inc.</dc:creator>
    <dc:description>A demonstration of including a Mobi-friendly XHTML TOC in an EPUB</dc:description>
    <dc:date>2010</dc:date>
    <dc:rights>Public domain</dc:rights>
    <dc:identifier id="bookid">urn:uuid:AB7456FF-DDC7-4DB1-AEFB-153DDDBA9F9B</dc:identifier>
    <dc:language>en</dc:language>
  </metadata>
  <manifest>
    <item id="ncx" href="toc.ncx" media-type="application/x-dtbncx+xml"/>
    <item id="untitled-5" href="Untitled-5.xhtml" media-type="application/xhtml+xml"/>
    <item id="toc" href="toc.xhtml" media-type="application/xhtml+xml"/>
    <item id="css" href="template.css" media-type="text/css"/>
  </manifest>
  <spine toc="ncx">
    <itemref idref="untitled-5"/>
  </spine>
  <guide>
    <reference href="toc.xhtml" type="toc" title="Table of Contents"/>
  </guide>
</package>

In this case, the guide entry tells Kindle where to find the XHTML TOC, but omitting it from the spine means that it is not added to the “linear reading order” of the book. It’s simply not accessible to any EPUB reader.

Thus you have a Kindle-friendly EPUB file that does not burden its EPUB reader cousins with unnecessary cruft.

A complete EPUB sample is attached.

]]> http://blog.threepress.org/2010/11/16/better-single-source-mobiepub-files/feed/ 26 Video posted for ‘Survey of Current E-Readers’ http://blog.threepress.org/2009/04/22/video-posted-for-survey-of-current-e-readers/ http://blog.threepress.org/2009/04/22/video-posted-for-survey-of-current-e-readers/#comments Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:08:27 +0000 Liza Daly http://blog.threepress.org/?p=435 O’Reilly has posted video from my session with Keith Fahlgren on e-reading devices.

Please enjoy my despair at the beginning as all the wireless-enabled readers interfere with the microphone.

It might be useful to follow along with the slides in the latter half of my talk, when the camera doesn’t show them.

]]> http://blog.threepress.org/2009/04/22/video-posted-for-survey-of-current-e-readers/feed/ 2 On the contentious subject of ebook pricing http://blog.threepress.org/2009/02/14/on-the-contentious-subject-of-ebook-pricing/ http://blog.threepress.org/2009/02/14/on-the-contentious-subject-of-ebook-pricing/#comments Sat, 14 Feb 2009 17:45:38 +0000 Liza Daly http://blog.threepress.org/?p=330 I had meant to include this as a slide in my e-reader talk but didn’t have time.

I think we can all agree that this is a don’t.

picture-69

(There’s a free sample though!)

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