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Number of posts in this thread: 11 (In chronological order)

From: Denis Boudreau
Date: Tue, May 11 2010 6:27PM
Subject: PDF and ePub Formats
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Hi folks,

A friend of mine asked me a question I have no answer for. I'm hoping you guys can provide some insights.

If documents were to be published in ePub format instead of PDF, would they have a better potential for "out-of-the-box" accessibility?

I am quite familiar with the potential/limitations and procedure required to make a PDF document accessible. I know what kind of effort it takes, and what we can squeeze out of the format.

However, I have no clue about the accessibility potential of the ePub format which makes it impossible for me to compare. According to what Google says on the matter, ePub is appearently recognized as an accessible format, but what about it? Any thoughts on the subject?

Does it even make sense to try and compare them?

--
Denis Boudreau
www.twitter.com/dboudreau

From: Joshue O Connor
Date: Wed, May 12 2010 10:27AM
Subject: Re: PDF and ePub Formats
← Previous message | Next message →

Hi Denis,

> Does it even make sense to try and compare them?

Interesting question, I wonder if it is comparing apples and oranges a
little, as ePub is a publishing format for the industry IIRC (in an
effort to standardize electronic publishing), while PDFs are a more end
user consumption - though obviously they can be used by the publishing
industry but I hope you know what I am getting at).

It would be good to get other informed opinions on this. I guess to add
to the question a little (if that's ok), has ePub any technical
advantage over PDF for accessible consumption?

Cheers

Josh

********************************************************************
National Council for the Blind of Ireland (NCBI) is a company
limited by guarantee (registered in Ireland No. 26293) .
Our registered office is at Whitworth Road, Drumcondra, Dublin 9.
NCBI is also a registered Charity (chy4626).

NOTICE: The information contained in this email and any attachments
is confidential and may be privileged. If you are not the intended
recipient you should not use, disclose, distribute or copy any of
the content of it or of any attachment; you are requested to notify
the sender immediately of your receipt of the email and then to
delete it and any attachments from your system.

NCBI endeavours to ensure that emails and any attachments generated
by its staff are free from viruses or other contaminants. However,
it cannot accept any responsibility for any such which are
transmitted. We therefore recommend you scan all attachments.

Please note that the statements and views expressed in this email
and any attachments are those of the author and do not necessarily
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********************************************************************

From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Wed, May 12 2010 1:57PM
Subject: Re: PDF and ePub Formats
← Previous message | Next message →

Denis,
There are two ways to answer your question.

Focusing on the format alone, both formats (epub and PDF) provide the semantics necessary to deliver an accessible document. I haven't done a side by side comparison of these to a fine-grain level, but I believe that they both contain the capacity for rich semantic information. So, from this view they both have the same potential for out of the box accessibility.

Focusing on the end-user and assuming that the documents take advantage of the semantics of each format and are authored correctly, I'd be inclined to say that the PDF will be more accessible to more users with the tools that they have. There is increasing support for epub, but in my opinion the support for PDF by assistive technologies is better.

Thanks,
AWK

Andrew Kirkpatrick
Group Product Manager, Accessibility
Adobe Systems

= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
http://twitter.com/awkawk
http://blogs.adobe.com/accessibility


-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Denis Boudreau
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2010 7:28 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: [WebAIM] PDF and ePub Formats

Hi folks,

A friend of mine asked me a question I have no answer for. I'm hoping you guys can provide some insights.

If documents were to be published in ePub format instead of PDF, would they have a better potential for "out-of-the-box" accessibility?

I am quite familiar with the potential/limitations and procedure required to make a PDF document accessible. I know what kind of effort it takes, and what we can squeeze out of the format.

However, I have no clue about the accessibility potential of the ePub format which makes it impossible for me to compare. According to what Google says on the matter, ePub is appearently recognized as an accessible format, but what about it? Any thoughts on the subject?

Does it even make sense to try and compare them?

--
Denis Boudreau
www.twitter.com/dboudreau

From: ckrugman@sbcglobal.net
Date: Wed, May 12 2010 4:54PM
Subject: Re: PDF and ePub Formats
← Previous message | Next message →

another question is how widely Epub is used. I don't recall ever getting a
document in that format so I have no idea how accessible it is.
Chuck
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joshue O Connor" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
To: "WebAIM Discussion List" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2010 8:27 AM
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] PDF and ePub Formats


> Hi Denis,
>
>> Does it even make sense to try and compare them?
>
> Interesting question, I wonder if it is comparing apples and oranges a
> little, as ePub is a publishing format for the industry IIRC (in an
> effort to standardize electronic publishing), while PDFs are a more end
> user consumption - though obviously they can be used by the publishing
> industry but I hope you know what I am getting at).
>
> It would be good to get other informed opinions on this. I guess to add
> to the question a little (if that's ok), has ePub any technical
> advantage over PDF for accessible consumption?
>
> Cheers
>
> Josh
>
> ********************************************************************
> National Council for the Blind of Ireland (NCBI) is a company
> limited by guarantee (registered in Ireland No. 26293) .
> Our registered office is at Whitworth Road, Drumcondra, Dublin 9.
> NCBI is also a registered Charity (chy4626).
>
> NOTICE: The information contained in this email and any attachments
> is confidential and may be privileged. If you are not the intended
> recipient you should not use, disclose, distribute or copy any of
> the content of it or of any attachment; you are requested to notify
> the sender immediately of your receipt of the email and then to
> delete it and any attachments from your system.
>
> NCBI endeavours to ensure that emails and any attachments generated
> by its staff are free from viruses or other contaminants. However,
> it cannot accept any responsibility for any such which are
> transmitted. We therefore recommend you scan all attachments.
>
> Please note that the statements and views expressed in this email
> and any attachments are those of the author and do not necessarily
> represent the views of NCBI
>
>
> ********************************************************************
>
>
>
>
>

From: John E. Brandt
Date: Wed, May 12 2010 8:27PM
Subject: Re: PDF and ePub Formats
← Previous message | Next message →

ePub is relatively new open standard for formatting electronic books. It
basically uses the DAISY standard "to represent the text and structure of
the content document, and a subset of CSS to provide layout and formatting.
XML is used to create the document manifest, table of contents, and EPUB
metadata. Finally, the files are bundled in a zip file as a packaging
format." [see Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPUB]. There are a
number of e-reader packages that can be used to read documents created in
the ePub standard, among them iBooks the reader on the new Apple iPad. A
list can be found on that same Wikipedia page.

ePub files can also contain DRM (Digital Rights Management) layers which
publisher use to protect their copyrights.

As for how widely they are used, I don't know. But according to recent
reports, Apple has sold a million iPads in the last few months, so I suspect
there will be a lot of e-books sold using this standard.

Lastly, I will add some personal observations. The e-book industry is very
dynamic and in tremendous flux. Many of the traditional book publishers are
terrified of what happened with the record industry and file sharing
programs like Napster. They are moving (crawling) very cautiously into the
21st Century. Until they are confident that they can be successful
(financially), I suspect they will continue this crawl. Stay tuned.

John E. Brandt
jebswebs.com
Augusta, ME USA
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
www.jebswebs.com

-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
[mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2010 5:54 PM
To: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ; WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] PDF and ePub Formats

another question is how widely Epub is used. I don't recall ever getting a
document in that format so I have no idea how accessible it is.
Chuck
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joshue O Connor" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
To: "WebAIM Discussion List" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2010 8:27 AM
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] PDF and ePub Formats


> Hi Denis,
>
>> Does it even make sense to try and compare them?
>
> Interesting question, I wonder if it is comparing apples and oranges a
> little, as ePub is a publishing format for the industry IIRC (in an
> effort to standardize electronic publishing), while PDFs are a more end
> user consumption - though obviously they can be used by the publishing
> industry but I hope you know what I am getting at).
>
> It would be good to get other informed opinions on this. I guess to add
> to the question a little (if that's ok), has ePub any technical
> advantage over PDF for accessible consumption?
>
> Cheers
>
> Josh
>
> ********************************************************************
> National Council for the Blind of Ireland (NCBI) is a company
> limited by guarantee (registered in Ireland No. 26293) .
> Our registered office is at Whitworth Road, Drumcondra, Dublin 9.
> NCBI is also a registered Charity (chy4626).
>
> NOTICE: The information contained in this email and any attachments
> is confidential and may be privileged. If you are not the intended
> recipient you should not use, disclose, distribute or copy any of
> the content of it or of any attachment; you are requested to notify
> the sender immediately of your receipt of the email and then to
> delete it and any attachments from your system.
>
> NCBI endeavours to ensure that emails and any attachments generated
> by its staff are free from viruses or other contaminants. However,
> it cannot accept any responsibility for any such which are
> transmitted. We therefore recommend you scan all attachments.
>
> Please note that the statements and views expressed in this email
> and any attachments are those of the author and do not necessarily
> represent the views of NCBI
>
>
> ********************************************************************
>
>
>
>
>

From: Adri Edwards-Johnson
Date: Wed, May 12 2010 8:33PM
Subject: Re: PDF and ePub Formats
← Previous message | Next message →

My library system purchases downloadable ebooks in ePub format - more and
more publishers are making their materials available that way for purchase.
We have a lot of patrons checking them out.
--
Adri
(long time lurker and will probably go back to lurking now)

On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 8:26 PM, John E. Brandt < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> ePub is relatively new open standard for formatting electronic books. It
> basically uses the DAISY standard "to represent the text and structure of
> the content document, and a subset of CSS to provide layout and formatting.
> XML is used to create the document manifest, table of contents, and EPUB
> metadata. Finally, the files are bundled in a zip file as a packaging
> format." [see Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPUB]. There are a
> number of e-reader packages that can be used to read documents created in
> the ePub standard, among them iBooks the reader on the new Apple iPad. A
> list can be found on that same Wikipedia page.
>
> ePub files can also contain DRM (Digital Rights Management) layers which
> publisher use to protect their copyrights.
>
> As for how widely they are used, I don't know. But according to recent
> reports, Apple has sold a million iPads in the last few months, so I
> suspect
> there will be a lot of e-books sold using this standard.
>
> Lastly, I will add some personal observations. The e-book industry is very
> dynamic and in tremendous flux. Many of the traditional book publishers are
> terrified of what happened with the record industry and file sharing
> programs like Napster. They are moving (crawling) very cautiously into the
> 21st Century. Until they are confident that they can be successful
> (financially), I suspect they will continue this crawl. Stay tuned.
>
> John E. Brandt
> jebswebs.com
> Augusta, ME USA
> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> www.jebswebs.com
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of
> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2010 5:54 PM
> To: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ; WebAIM Discussion List
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] PDF and ePub Formats
>
> another question is how widely Epub is used. I don't recall ever getting a
> document in that format so I have no idea how accessible it is.
> Chuck
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Joshue O Connor" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
> To: "WebAIM Discussion List" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
> Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2010 8:27 AM
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] PDF and ePub Formats
>
>
> > Hi Denis,
> >
> >> Does it even make sense to try and compare them?
> >
> > Interesting question, I wonder if it is comparing apples and oranges a
> > little, as ePub is a publishing format for the industry IIRC (in an
> > effort to standardize electronic publishing), while PDFs are a more end
> > user consumption - though obviously they can be used by the publishing
> > industry but I hope you know what I am getting at).
> >
> > It would be good to get other informed opinions on this. I guess to add
> > to the question a little (if that's ok), has ePub any technical
> > advantage over PDF for accessible consumption?
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > Josh
> >
> > ********************************************************************
> > National Council for the Blind of Ireland (NCBI) is a company
> > limited by guarantee (registered in Ireland No. 26293) .
> > Our registered office is at Whitworth Road, Drumcondra, Dublin 9.
> > NCBI is also a registered Charity (chy4626).
> >
> > NOTICE: The information contained in this email and any attachments
> > is confidential and may be privileged. If you are not the intended
> > recipient you should not use, disclose, distribute or copy any of
> > the content of it or of any attachment; you are requested to notify
> > the sender immediately of your receipt of the email and then to
> > delete it and any attachments from your system.
> >
> > NCBI endeavours to ensure that emails and any attachments generated
> > by its staff are free from viruses or other contaminants. However,
> > it cannot accept any responsibility for any such which are
> > transmitted. We therefore recommend you scan all attachments.
> >
> > Please note that the statements and views expressed in this email
> > and any attachments are those of the author and do not necessarily
> > represent the views of NCBI
> >
> >
> > ********************************************************************
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >

From: Joshue O Connor
Date: Thu, May 13 2010 3:18AM
Subject: Re: PDF and ePub Formats
← Previous message | Next message →

Hi y'all,

Denis and I received a response from George Kersher about ePub and I am
forwarding Georges reply to the list as it is informative, (thanks to
Varju for passing it onto George).

George is one of the authors of the EPUB specification and is currently
President
of the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), which maintains the
EPUB standard. He is also one of the authors of the DAISY specifications.

<Georges response>

PDF and EPUB are fundamentally different. EPUB has been designed to be fully
accessible from the beginning. In the latest release of the standard, there
are two allowed formats inside the publication, XHTML or DAISY XML. The
standard has also adopted the DAISY navigation model.

The problem that we have seen is that many of the EPUB documents are
encrypted and only particular reading systems can open the encrypted books.
These reading systems are not accessible. Many of the companies have
promised to make their systems accessible.

Unprotected EPUB can use any conforming reading system. Emerson, which is
open source, EaseReader from Dolphin, will read EPUB publications. Other
DAISY reading systems are moving towards reading EPUB as well.

To take a look inside an unprotected EPUB, you can rename the .epub to .zip
and unzip the container. Inside you would find the HTML or the DAISY XML.

The DAISY standard is currently under a revision. EPUB is about to start a
revision as well. The plan is to move these standards closer together.

</response>

Cheers

Josh



********************************************************************
National Council for the Blind of Ireland (NCBI) is a company
limited by guarantee (registered in Ireland No. 26293) .
Our registered office is at Whitworth Road, Drumcondra, Dublin 9.
NCBI is also a registered Charity (chy4626).

NOTICE: The information contained in this email and any attachments
is confidential and may be privileged. If you are not the intended
recipient you should not use, disclose, distribute or copy any of
the content of it or of any attachment; you are requested to notify
the sender immediately of your receipt of the email and then to
delete it and any attachments from your system.

NCBI endeavours to ensure that emails and any attachments generated
by its staff are free from viruses or other contaminants. However,
it cannot accept any responsibility for any such which are
transmitted. We therefore recommend you scan all attachments.

Please note that the statements and views expressed in this email
and any attachments are those of the author and do not necessarily
represent the views of NCBI


********************************************************************

From: Conyers, Dwayne
Date: Thu, May 13 2010 8:24AM
Subject: Re: PDF and ePub Formats
← Previous message | Next message →

On a related note:

I have been considering moving some of my books into EPUB format for some of the on-line devices such as iPad and Kindle. Have been evaluating tools that make that process easier. Jury still out on which is the de-facto "best" of the bunch.

Have even considered doing the hand-coded XML route... but would still need a compatible viewer to test the output. While Amazon has been open with their Kindle API, have not seen much on the iPad bookstore model.

--
I made magic once. Now the sofa is gone.
http://blog.dwacon.com
http://www.twitter.com/dwacon

From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Thu, May 13 2010 8:27AM
Subject: Re: PDF and ePub Formats
← Previous message | Next message →

For authoring, Adobe InDesign provides this support, and we are in the process of authoring a guide to creating accessible ePub documents with InDesign (and what other tools are needed since InDesign doesn't currently do everything that is needed for this).

You can test epub for visual appearance with Adobe Digital Editions, but this viewing tool is not currently accessible to assistive technology users, although we are planning to release a version by the end of the year that is.

Thanks,
AWK

Andrew Kirkpatrick
Group Product Manager, Accessibility
Adobe Systems

= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
http://twitter.com/awkawk
http://blogs.adobe.com/accessibility


-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Conyers, Dwayne
Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2010 9:20 AM
To: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ; WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] PDF and ePub Formats

On a related note:

I have been considering moving some of my books into EPUB format for some of the on-line devices such as iPad and Kindle. Have been evaluating tools that make that process easier. Jury still out on which is the de-facto "best" of the bunch.

Have even considered doing the hand-coded XML route... but would still need a compatible viewer to test the output. While Amazon has been open with their Kindle API, have not seen much on the iPad bookstore model.

--
I made magic once. Now the sofa is gone.
http://blog.dwacon.com
http://www.twitter.com/dwacon

From: ckrugman@sbcglobal.net
Date: Thu, May 13 2010 9:21AM
Subject: Re: PDF and ePub Formats
← Previous message | Next message →

Problems still exist with Kindle's accessibility for screen reading
software. While there has been lip service to correct the inaccessibility
factors little has actually been done and Kindle is not receiving wide use
by people with vision impairments because of the negative action by the
Authors Guild and Amazon.
Chuck
----- Original Message -----
From: "Conyers, Dwayne" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
To: < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >; "WebAIM Discussion List"
< = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2010 6:20 AM
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] PDF and ePub Formats


> On a related note:
>
> I have been considering moving some of my books into EPUB format for some
> of the on-line devices such as iPad and Kindle. Have been evaluating
> tools that make that process easier. Jury still out on which is the
> de-facto "best" of the bunch.
>
> Have even considered doing the hand-coded XML route... but would still
> need a compatible viewer to test the output. While Amazon has been open
> with their Kindle API, have not seen much on the iPad bookstore model.
>
> --
> I made magic once. Now the sofa is gone.
> http://blog.dwacon.com
> http://www.twitter.com/dwacon
>

From: Denis Boudreau
Date: Thu, May 13 2010 9:48AM
Subject: Re: PDF and ePub Formats
← Previous message | No next message

Thank you all for these valuable inputs.

I have more than enough to go back to my friend now with some sort of answer.

Again, this list has proven it's worth! :)

--
Denis Boudreau
www.twitter.com/dboudreau




On 2010-05-13, at 10:22 AM, < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> Problems still exist with Kindle's accessibility for screen reading
> software. While there has been lip service to correct the inaccessibility
> factors little has actually been done and Kindle is not receiving wide use
> by people with vision impairments because of the negative action by the
> Authors Guild and Amazon.
> Chuck
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Conyers, Dwayne" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
> To: < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >; "WebAIM Discussion List"
> < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
> Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2010 6:20 AM
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] PDF and ePub Formats
>
>
>> On a related note:
>>
>> I have been considering moving some of my books into EPUB format for some
>> of the on-line devices such as iPad and Kindle. Have been evaluating
>> tools that make that process easier. Jury still out on which is the
>> de-facto "best" of the bunch.
>>
>> Have even considered doing the hand-coded XML route... but would still
>> need a compatible viewer to test the output. While Amazon has been open
>> with their Kindle API, have not seen much on the iPad bookstore model.
>>
>> --
>> I made magic once. Now the sofa is gone.
>> http://blog.dwacon.com
>> http://www.twitter.com/dwacon
>>