KF8 and ePub3: new standards for electronic books
Things are about to get interesting for readers, designers, and the e-book publishing business as new formats improve the formatting and interactivity of e-books. Amazon has just announced a new KF8 (Kindle Format 8) format. The KF8 format replaces Amazon’s .mobi format and adds over 150 new formatting capabilities, including fixed layouts, nested tables, callouts, sidebars, and scalable vector graphics. New specifications for the ePub format (used by Apple, Google, and many others) were recently finalized, but hardly mentioned by the publishing media.
The idea that a book is nothing more than a container for text data is anathema to anyone who appreciates the art of typesetting. Graphic design exerts a powerful influence on readability and also on more abstract considerations, such as how the choice of typeface affects the mood of the writing. Today’s e-books sacrifice appearance for flexibility, allowing text to change size and flow from screen to screen without any relation to the original numbered page or typeface design. ePub and .mobi files are little more than bundles of basic HTML pages. They are particularly bad for educational texts where sidebars and multi-column layouts are common. The KF8 and ePub3 standards will greatly improve the aesthetics of e-book design.
KF8 and ePub3 mean more engaging ebooks
The KF8 and ePub3 formats allow book designers to take advantage of powerful formatting technologies like HTML5 and CSS3. Embedded fonts, drop caps, hover elements, text in background images, bulleted and numbered lists, and precise line spacing (leading) control are just a few of the new design features that already improve the look of millions of websites. Now, they will lend their strength to electronic books. Add audio, video, and interactivity to a well-viewed eBook, and you’ll find publishers embracing the premise that eBooks can be better than traditional books (although that premise will be hotly debated).
The potential for a new renaissance in book design is very real, and for designers, the timing is good. Adobe has already seen fit to include powerful HTML5 export capabilities in Adobe Flash. Tools like Adobe Muse make it easy for designers to focus on aesthetics without fiddling with cumbersome code. While print book publishers pack text tightly on the page to save paper and ink, e-book publishers have no such concerns. Once design is no longer constrained by economics, e-books (of all things) will be free to restore the glory of the hot metal type. Will publishers have the vision? We’ll see soon.
KF8, ePub3 and the e-book business
Amazon opted to use a proprietary .mobi format, while its competitors (including Apple) publish e-books using the open ePub standard. The advantage is clear; Amazon’s ability to control their own eBook format positions them to quickly innovate and implement new standards without having to wait for an outside standards body to propose, approve, and develop specifications, making them the first to market “eBooks books” that are delivered as actual e-books rather than mobile apps. Also, because Apple has restricted the use of Adobe Flash on its iOS mobile devices (iPhone operating system), Adobe has a commercial incentive to develop design tools that support the Amazon advantage. However, the ePub3 specifications (also based on HTML5 and CSS) were only recently finalized on October 11, 2001. We can assume that Apple and other ePub eReader developers have been working for some time to integrate the draft standards into their technologies. Toolmakers will find the opportunity to meet the needs of ePub3 publishers.
No one knows how this will play out in the competitive e-book market, but clearly, e-books are changing (and at least when capable designers are involved, they will change for the better). In the coming years, we’ll see a host of new eReader devices incorporating the new standards along with innovations like color eInk displays and many of the features (like cameras, microphones, and web access) that we associate with tablets. devices like the Apple iPad. Adobe InDesign already exports to a variety of mobile formats; it stands to reason that those capabilities will align with current publishing standards.
What’s the trick?
Amazon’s Kindle Publisher Tools does not currently support KF8, but all currently supported content will continue to work. Information on how to update existing titles to take advantage of KF8 capabilities will be available in a future update to the Kindle Publishing Guidelines. Amazon will release KF8 support for the new Kindle Fire eReader scheduled for November 2011. KF8 support will be added to the latest generation Kindle and Kindle software readers in the coming months. Older Kindles will not be updated to support KF8.
When it comes to ePub3, things are less cut and dry. Certainly, the ePub3 format is standardized (ideally, eBooks can be developed to those standards), but there is no standards body that governs the extent to which eReader devices must support those standards. Apple, for example, does not support Adobe Flash in its mobile browser. They probably won’t support Flash content within ebooks, even if the ePub3 standard does. ePub3 supports optional technical additions like javascript; not bad in principle, but building ebooks with features that ebook readers optionally implement makes it difficult to implement one archive for multiple vendors.
The IDPF (in charge of the ePub3 standards) refers to an ePub3 file as a “website in a box”. Therein lies the problem. Despite the fact that an ebook is a completely different kind of animal than a website, there are enough variations from web browser to web browser in the way they render and display HTML, Javascript, CSS, and other “standardized” technologies to suggest that e-book reader devices are likely to each support different subsets of the ePub3 standard. Standards may be compatible but are displayed differently. Please God. don’t let Microsoft get away with an eReader. Many publishers will ignore the poorly supported “special features” of ePub3 and keep their ePub offerings simple, or develop separate ePub3 files that match the supported technologies of different devices.
Strahinja Markovic, the developer of the Sigil ePub editor, highlights some compelling points about ePub3:
I know I’m being cynical, but I can’t help it. The iPad arrived, was declared “the savior of the publishing industry” and now everyone seems to be losing their minds.
Again, “HTML5?” Great for the web. Really amazing for the web. For electronic books? I can’t remember the last time I thought “this book really needs a video”.
The ISBN Factor
If different eReader devices require different versions of ePub files, in theory, each will require its own unique ISBN (International Standard Book Number). Publishers are already chafing at the added costs and inconvenience of assigning unique ISBNs to a growing list of book variants in a publishing world where the requirement to associate e-books with ISBNs is a matter of debate. (Amazon does not require ISBN numbers for e-books, and Google will assign an e-ISBN free of charge upon request.) This will either be a boon to Bowker (the ISBN administrator in the US) or a trigger for a full ISBN e-book. rebellion, especially among small publishers. To what extent will the need to purchase another ISBN number deter small publishers from implementing ePub3 files on various platforms?
So who’s first?
The new ePub3 and KF8 standards represent great advances for book design and the publishing business. Designers will have new opportunities to make books more attractive. The competition is driving innovation as it should. Writers and editors will see your work presented elegantly and professionally in all kinds of media, and of course, readers will benefit more than anyone else.
It remains to be seen how eReader devices, software tools and designers will adopt the new ePub3 standards. ePub3 could be a huge flop if different e-readers and content creation tools support different parts of the general standard. No doubt a great deal of development work will be required for eReader devices to deliver on such a broad set of features. Of course, that will make the current generation of electronic reading devices obsolete. How e-book consumers will react is another unknown factor.
Where all this is heading remains a matter of speculation; there are many variables. Standards have come before the technology that will display them and the tools that create content for them. Ultimately, we may see a true blurring of the lines between mobile apps, websites and e-books, a kind of globalization of online content. Until the new eReader devices and the accompanying hype hit the shelves, Amazon seems to be in the best position to offer a consistent eBook experience, while its competitors pick and choose between subsets of the ePub3 standard. Amazon is free to innovate and support everybody of their own KF8 standards; it’s a safe bet that a Kindle book will display correctly on a Kindle e-reader, and as mentioned in a previous post, Amazon is much less restrictive about the types of content its users can access in their browser than Apple is with its iPad users. If Amazon continues in that spirit with their KF8 books, they’ll have a head start…for the time being.
conclusion
It wasn’t that many years ago when no one wanted their own computer or a mobile phone or an iPod or an eBook reader device. While it would be comforting to settle for a bunch of firm promises, standards, and expectations, e-books are evolving too fast for that. It’s a brave new world. Publishers must keep their eyes on the ball.