EPUB Format For Electronic Books - The Ebook Standard For iBookstore & iPad

Apple iPad has an e-book reader built-in to the device. The iBooks app displays a bookshelf of all your titles. When you tap a book to read, you can tap on the right or left edge to flip the page or drag the page manually. When looking at your bookshelf, there is also a button to the iBook Store to purchase books.



iBooks is comprised of ebooks using the ePub format, which is an open book format that distinguishes the Apple ebook platform from Amazons offerings.The iBooks app is a great, new way to read and buy books. Just download the app for free from the App Store, and you'll be able to buy everything from classics to bestsellers from the built-in iBookstore.



EPUB is the same format used by the popular Stanza application for the iPhone and iPod touch. It's a free and open standard format built by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), and it's designed for reflowable content that can be optimized to any devic e which is being used to read a book file. The IDPF has championed EPUB as a single world format that can be used by publishers and conversion houses, as well as for distribution and sale of all electronic books. It supports digital rights management (DRM)



Other electronic ebook readers that currently use this format includes the Barnes & Noble Nook, the Sony Reader, iRex Digital Reader, and the iRiver Story.



If you're a enterprising publisher and wish to get your e-book into the iBookstore, you'll need a tool to help you create your document in the EPUB format.



For Mac users, the choice of tools is very small, but ok. Firstly, there is the free Calibre e-book management tool. Calibre converts a number of different file formats to EPUB, so it's a good tool for doing an initial conversion. However, to do a lot of formatting, you will need a full-powered EPUB editor like the Sigil. Sigil is a free open-source edi tor that runs on a number of platforms including Mac OS X.



If you happen to be an Adobe InDesign CS4 user, you're in luck. The top-of-the-line tool for design and publishing supports EPUB, and it is possible to create files that will work on Amazon's Kindle as well. Lexcycle, the company that created Stanza, has a complete list of the tools for production and conversion of files here.



Next, there's the inexpensive iStudio Publisher. iStudio Publisher is a full-fledged desktop publishing application that can export text flows in EPUB format. It's unclear if iStudio Publisher EPUB files can include photographs or diagrams.



While EPUB is a popular format, it's not without criticism. The format is great for text-centric books, but is considered unsuitable for publications that require advanced formatting or detailed layout, such as comic books.



There are also issues with the lack of details on the links within EPUB books. This makes it impossible or difficult to link ebooks, or even provide links within an EPUB book. The standards for annotating EPUB are also lacking, which means that each company using EPUB is coming up with their own way of handling this.



If the iPad and iBookstore are the successful products that they can be, Apple could finally force the industry to adopt a more robust EPUB standard.



Learn more about the Apple iPad for news, info, free apps and guides at http://www.ipadhelpguide.net