20

By Jon Noring

Picture of a red leather-bound bookA few weeks ago on The eBook Community, in three lengthy articles (1, 2, and 3), I outlined some thoughts and requirements for an open standards/open source e-book mastering system intended to be used by smaller ebook publishers. This article is a progress update. We are actually working on the system!

To summarize, the e-book authoring system is envisioned to enable “almost push button” conversion of a single and fairly simple master XML document into most, if not all, ebook formats in use today and tomorrow. Example formats of interest include OpenReader, OEBPS, native dotReader, Mobipocket, LIT, PDF, Plucker, Palm Reader, XHTML, etc.

The master XML document itself would be authorable in applications which smaller publishers and even individual authors will hopefully find comfortable and foolproof to use.

Since that first series of articles, we’ve made great progress on the design of the mastering format — the core of the system — and this blog article is an update of where things currently stand.

Designing this system, notably the “mastering format,” is not a simple matter as noted in the prior articles. Several competing requirements have to be met thus necessitating compromises — as a result it can’t be all things to all people.

Thus, the system will only be able to handle the simpler types of books, such as fiction. However, I believe it will meet the “80-20” or even “90-10” rule for most smaller publishers, who tend to publish mostly fiction and simpler non-fiction, and thus prove useful to them.

Now to get a little more technical.

The core of the system is what’s termed the mastering “vocabulary” — the elements and attributes used in the XML master document. We’ve been working on the vocabulary (and the associated grammar) the last few weeks, trying to reconcile the requirements, and finally have something to show. A precursor to this latest vocabulary has already been successfully “field tested” with an independent ebook publisher (using epcEdit as the authoring tool) showing the current approach just may work.

Now to get real technical. For those who are knowledgeable of XML, the current draft DTD of the “SimpleBook” vocabulary is available (note that this DTD will change often, so be sure to work with the latest version.)

In addition, for those who use the latest version of Opera (version 9), a demonstration (and silly) XML master document along with a CSS style sheet (with silly styling to assist with document visualization) is viewable. (The latest Firefox renders this demo XML document pretty well except that we haven’t figured out how to get CSS to number lists. Forget using Internet Explorer, even version 7, since it has insufficient CSS support, particularly with selectors.)

We seek your help. Here’s the areas we need help on:

  1. Finish the master vocabulary. No doubt it can be improved, so your feedback is appreciated!

  2. Work on adapting the master vocabulary to existing authoring applications. Some applications of interest include Word 2003/2007 (most publishers use Word), Vex (an open source WYSIWYM XML editor of great promise), and epcEdit (fairly expensive tool, but worked wonderfully — it has a 60 day free use period.)

    Of course, the more technically savvy small publishers will be able to master using a simple UTF-8 capable text editor (such as EditPad Pro, BabelPad or even Windows Notepad.) Over time some publishers may find using a text editor will be the easiest way to author the master documents. I do. But for the time being we have to meet the small publishers on their turf, and that turf is rooted in word processors.

  3. Start working on scripts to convert the master into other formats, such as a standardized XHTML 1.1 which in turn can form the basis for other formats such as OpenReader, OEBPS, LIT, Mobipocket, etc.

  4. Start work on a library of CSS style sheets (for the master format as well as the equivalent standardized XHTML 1.1.)

    Note that the master vocabulary is being designed so tightly (non-extensible and fully structural) that it will allow developing an open library of style sheets so publishers need not have to hand-author their own CSS, but rather can use and/or adapt others.

  5. We need to rename the system and vocabulary from “SimpleBook” to something else since the name “SimpleBook” is already taken by another company for a totally different product. Any ideas?

Let me know by email how you’d like to help. We will start a dedicated discussion group if there’s enough interest.

 
20