How to Make an eBook: XML and other mysteries revealed

eBooks Revolution or evolution?

Ink on paper is a book

But so is digital images on screen

Oh no, not again!

The arrival of a new medium

d oes not replace existing media i t only displaces them r elative to each other Theory of Relative Displacement of Media

If the form doesn’t define the book what does?

The content!

Raw content; sometimes in Multiple word files or locked Documents Images format variables and conditions Combine all content Books XML E-PUB Web based POD Content creators Production resource Multi-purposed output

Standard Generalised Mark-up Language

1998 XML eXtensible Mark-up Language 1980s SGML

The separation of logical and physical structures

The availability of grammar-based validation (DTDs) The separation of data and metadata Mixed content The separation of processing from representation The default angle-bracket syntax < >

Working group’s goals:

General-purpose usability SGML compatibility Easy development of processing software Minimization of optional features Legibility Formality Conciseness Ease of authoring Internet usability

What XML is

An environment that allows a clear separation between content, structure and format

Content is what the author delivers to the publisher

Structure is what the editor does to it to make it comprehensible Format is what the typesetter does to make it legible and appealing

DTD (Document Type Definition) or Schema

Describes what the various components of the mark up do and how they relate to each other

opening and closing tags, e.g. <head></head>

the angle-brackets they are encased in entity codes for unusual characters e.g. &oq; for opening quote

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">

<!mimetypeapplication/epub+zipPK META-INF/container.xml<?xml version="1.0"?>

What XML is not

a good database tool a typesetting or formatting platform

What XML does

N othing at all itself E nables things to be done to the file A stable legacy format A robust base for multi-purposing

Software tools

Microsoft Word for input Adobe InDesign for structuring BBedit for GREP Oxygen for error-checking and validation Adobe Digital Editions Apple script Adobe Photoshop E pubcheck Stuffit

Visual inspection

Make sure text is all styled

No missing links Images are grouped with their captions

Visual inspection

Export through filter to rough XML

Clean up via custom script Create file of entity codes Create master file Final clean up Validate against DTD/Schema Generate XML ids Package files

What is ePub?

IDPF standard Free Non-proprietary

Open Publications Structure (OPS) 2.0 for formatting of content

Open Packaging Format (OPF) 2.0 for the structure of the ePub in XML OEBPS Container Format (OCF) 1.0 collects files as a zip archive

Making an ePub from XML

Transform tagging Run tidy-up script Create ePub file structure Create content.opf file Create toc.ncx file

But wait … we’re not finished

Last minute checks

Check spine Page turn Road test Google test

Problems and issues

Keep each file below 100kb Use only free open type fonts Special rules relate to use of macrons Not all readers treat fonts the same Always consider file size issues Hyphenation