E-books: Formats

formats

Introduction

ePub

Apple

Amazon

HTML

PDF

  • Portable Document Format (.pdf)
  • public format (but controlled by Adobe)
  • source issues: reflow text, extract images
  • destination issues: fixed layout & page-size on smaller screens

Other Formats

  • "app" (book embedded): flexibility vs. "standard" navigation (possibly different from eReader apps); less portable across models/devices/versions: developer/author may need to rewrite/retest
  • Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx, .rtf): public format (but controlled by Microsoft); source: for ePub conversion; destination issues: file, user interface (& maybe font) incompatibilities across Word versions/installations; app large, complex & expensive, though free alternatives are available (Open Office, LibreOffice, Google Docs, ...); user ability to modify the "book" could be disadvantage
  • Wolfram CDF: Wolfram launches its own interactive document format 7/21/2011