National foreword

This Published Document is the UK implementation of ISO/IEC TS 30135‑1:2014.

The user’attention is drawn to the fact that the UK committee voted against this document at the enquiry stage. While considering the specification of EPUB to be technically sound, the committee had a number of concerns with the editorial quality of the specification, specifically the grouping of terms and definitions, the use of cross-references between parts, and the typographic layout of the document. The UK committee were concerned that this could present obstacles to interpretation by any user who had not participated in the development of EPUB and was unfamiliar with assumptions and interpretations made by other users.

The UK participation in its preparation was entrusted to Technical Committee ICT/-/1, Information systems co-ordination.

A list of organizations represented on this committee can be obtained on request to itssecretary.

This publication does not purport to include all the necessary provisions of a contract. Usersare responsible for its correct application.

Compliance with a British Standard cannot confer immunity from legal obligations.

This Published Document was published under the authority of the Standards Policy and StrategyCommittee on 31 January 2015.

Foreword

ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) and IEC (the International Electrotechnical Commission) form the specialized system for worldwide standardization. National bodies that are members of ISO or IEC participate in the development of International Standards through technical committees established by the respective organization to deal with particular fields of technical activity. ISO and IEC technical committees collaborate in fields of mutual interest. Other international organizations, governmental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO and IEC, also take part in the work. In the field of information technology, ISO and IEC have established a joint technical committee, ISO/IEC JTC 1.

International Standards are drafted in accordance with the rules given in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2.

The main task of the joint technical committee is to prepare International Standards. Draft International Standards adopted by the joint technical committee are circulated to national bodies for voting. Publication as an International Standard requires approval by at least 75 % of the national bodies casting a vote.

In other circumstances, particularly when there is an urgent market requirement for such documents, the joint technical committee may decide to publish an ISO/IEC Technical Specification (ISO/IEC TS), which represents an agreement between the members of the joint technical committee and is accepted for publication if it is approved by 2/3 of the members of the committee casting a vote.

An ISO/IEC TS is reviewed after three years in order to decide whether it will be confirmed for a further three years, revised to become an International Standard, or withdrawn. If the ISO/IEC TS is confirmed, it is reviewed again after a further three years, at which time it must either be transformed into an International Standard or be withdrawn.

Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of patent rights. ISO and IEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.

ISO/IEC TS 30135 series were prepared by Korean Agency for Technology and Standards (as KS X 6070 series) with International Digital Publishing Forum and were adopted, under a special “fast-track procedure”, by Joint Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information technology, in parallel with its approval by the national bodies of ISO and IEC.

ISO/IEC TS 30135 consists of the following parts, under the general title Information technology — Document description and processing languages — EPUB 3:

Part 1: Overview
Part 2: Publications
Part 3: Content Documents
Part 4: Open Container Format
Part 5: Media Overlay
Part 6: Canonical Fragment Identifier
Part 7: Fixed-Layout Documents

EPUB 3 Overview

Recommended Specification 11 October 2011

This version

http://www.idpf.org/epub/30/spec/epub30-overview-20111011.html

Latest version

http://www.idpf.org/epub/30/spec/epub30-overview.html

Previous version

http://www.idpf.org/epub/30/spec/epub30-overview-20110908.html

A diff of changes from the previous draft is available at this link.

Copyright © 2010, 2011 International Digital Publishing Forum™

All rights reserved. This work is protected under Title 17 of the United States Code. Reproduction and dissemination of this work with changes is prohibited except with the written permission of the InternationalDigital Publishing Forum (IDPF).

EPUB is a registered trademark of the International Digital Publishing Forum.

Editors

Garth Conboy, Google Inc. Matt Garrish, Invited Expert

Markus Gylling, DAISY Consortium

William McCoy, International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) MURATA Makoto, JEPA EPUB Study Group

Daniel Weck, DAISY Consortium

1 Introduction

1.1 Overview

The EPUB® specification is a distribution and interchange format standard for digital publications and documents. EPUB defines a means of representing, packaging and encoding structured and semantically enhanced Web content — including HTML5, CSS, SVG, images, and other resources — for distribution in a single-file format.

EPUB 3, the third major release of the standard, consists of a set of four specifications, each defining an important component of an overall EPUB Publication:

EPUB Publications 3.0 [Publications30], which defines publication-level semantics and overarching conformance requirements for EPUB Publications.
EPUB Content Documents 3.0 [ContentDocs30], which defines profiles of XHTML, SVG and CSS for use in the context of EPUB Publications.
EPUB Open Container Format (OCF) 3.0 [OCF3], which defines a file format and processing model for encapsulating a set of related resources into a single-file (ZIP) EPUB Container.
EPUB Media Overlays 3.0 [MediaOverlays30], which defines a format and a processing model for synchronization of text and audio.

EPUB has been widely adopted as the formatfor digital books (eBooks), and these new specifications significantly increase the format's capabilities in order to better support a wider range of publication requirements, including complex layouts, rich media and interactivity, and global typography features. The expectation is that EPUB 3 will be utilized for a broad range of content, including books, magazines and educational, professional and scientific publications.

This document provides a starting point for content authors and software developers wishing to understand these specifications. It consists of non-normative overview material, including a roadmap to the four building-block specification documents that compose EPUB 3.

Another non-normative document, EPUB 3 Changes from EPUB 2.0.1 [EPUB3Changes], describes changes in EPUB 3 from the previous version, but is intended primarily for Authors and EPUB ReadingSystem vendors migrating from EPUB 2.0.1 to EPUB 3 and for those who anticipate supporting both versions.

1.2 Roadmap

This section provides an overview of the EPUB3 specifications by explaining in brief thecomponents of a Publication. Links to additional information within this document and to the specifications are included.

An EPUB Publication, at its most basic level, is a bundled collection of resources that can be reliably and predictably ingested by anEPUB Reading System in order to render its contents to a User. Some of these resources facilitate the discovery and processing of the EPUB Publication, while others make up the content of the source publication. The latter, EPUB Content Documents, are described in ContentDocuments and are fully defined in [ContentDocs30].

A Publication's resources are typically bundled for distribution as a ZIP-based archive with the file extension.epub. As conformant ZIP archives, Publications can be unzipped by many software programs, simplifying both their production and consumption. The container format is introduced in Container and defined in [OCF3].

The container format not only provides ameans of determining that the zipped content represents an EPUB Publication (the mimetype file), but also provides a universally-named directory of informative resources (/ META-INF). Key among these is thecontainer.xml file, whichdirects Reading Systems to the root file of the Publication, the Package Document.

The Package Document is itself a kind of information warehouse for the Publication, storing metadata about the specific work contained in the Publication, providing an exhaustive list of resources and defining a default reading order. The Package Document is introduced in Package Document and definedin [Publications30].

The preceding components of an EPUB Publication are not new to EPUB 3, and will be familiar to anyone who has worked with Publications before, although they have been changedand enhanced in this version. A new core addition to EPUB 3, however, is the Media Overlay Document, which defines a means of synchronizing text and audio playback. The Overlay Document is introduced in Multimedia and defined in [MediaOverlays30].

The following example shows theresources a minimal "Hello World" Publication might contain:

While conceptually simple, an EPUB Publication is more than just a collection of HTML pages and dependent assets in a ZIP package as represented in this example. The following sections of this document delve into more detailabout the primaryfeatures and functionality that Publications provideto enhance the reading experience.

2 Features

2.1 Package Document

2.2 Navigation

2.3 Linking

2.4 Metadata

2.5 Content Documents

2.6 Rendering and CSS

2.7 Multimedia

2.8 Fonts

2.9 Scripting

2.10 Text-to-speech

2.11 Container

3 Global Language Support

3.1 Metadata

3.2 Content Documents

3.3 CSS

3.4 Fonts

3.5 Text-to-speech

3.6 Container

4 Accessibility

4.1 Navigation

4.2 Semantic Markup

4.3 Dynamic Layouts

4.4 Aural Renditions and Media Overlays

4.5 Fallbacks

4.6 Scripting

References

PD ISO/IEC TS 30135-1:2014

Information technology. Digital publishing. EPUB3 - EPUB3 Overview

Current

Published:

31 Jan 2015