O’Reilly & IDPF | By Bill Kasdorf, VP & Principal Consultant, Apex CoVantage
The first chapter of the leading guide to EPUB 3 published jointly by O’Reilly and IDPF
One of the most common misconceptions about EPUB is that it is a “flavor” of XML. (“Should I use EPUB or DocBook?” or, even worse, “Should I use EPUB or HTML5?” Hint: EPUB (pretty much) = HTML5.) Due partly to the convenient single-file format provided as .epub, people sometimes fail to realize that EPUB is not just, and not mainly, a specification for the markup of content documents. It is a publication format, and as such it specifies and documents a host of things that publications need to include— content documents, style sheets, images, media, scripts, fonts, and more, as discussed in detail in the other chapters of this book. In fact, EPUB is sometimes thought of as “a website in a box,” though it is actually much more than that.
This chapter was included in EPUB 3 Best Practices, by Matt Garrish and Mark Gylling, published by O’Reilly Media / Tools of Change, January 2013, available for purchase on Shop.OReilly.com.