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Ebook formats are a mess — here's why
Author(s) -
McILROY Thad
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
learned publishing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.06
H-Index - 34
eISSN - 1741-4857
pISSN - 0953-1513
DOI - 10.1087/20120402
Subject(s) - citation , point (geometry) , computer science , world wide web , information retrieval , library science , mathematics , geometry
The challenge for veteran publishers confronting ebook formats is taking a big step backwards in page layout and declaring that it is a step forward while embracing a standard for ebook production so unevenly implemented that there might as well be no standard at all. Ebook production is a huge mess. If you don’t look too deeply you might just see a standard, a standard called EPUB, and assume that the situation was under control. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Publishers find that EPUB comes in two versions, 2.1 and 3.0, but that Amazon, the largest ebook reseller, supports neither, instead using two file formats of its own, Mobi and KF8, each of which is incompatible with the standards. Only in ebooks can a new edition of a book be labelled both ‘updated’ and ‘fixed’ as shown in Figure 1. ‘Fixed’ presumably was a response to customers like ‘pomLord’ who noted ‘Downloaded the book to my Fire, and it was nothing but blank pages.’ I suppose it’s the new variant on ‘reprinted with corrections’.