Posts Tagged ‘EPUB 3’

ASI 2022 Virtual Conference: EPUB is Essential

Sunday, December 4th, 2022

The American Society for Indexing held its 2022 Virtual Conference, “The Future of Indexing: A Mix of Art and Technology,” on Friday, April 29, 2022 and Saturday, April 30, 2022.  Four sessions were held virtually on Zoom each day.

The final session on Saturday, EPUB is Essential–It’s for more than just trade books, featured keynote speakers, Bill Kasdorf and Caroline Desrosiers, CEO and Founder of Scribely.  Kasdorf discussed EPUB, which has become virtually the universal format for providing trade and scholarly books as ebooks.  The latest version is EPUB3.

A fundamental reason for this shift is that EPUB 3 has become the standard format for accessibility.  It follows the same standards for accessibility that web technologies have, which are designed to enable content to be accessible to people with visual, physical, or cognitive disabilities like blindness, low vision, and dyslexia.  Properly structured and coded EPUBs are “born accessible,”  which are better for everybody.

Proper EPUBs have page break markers in the HTML to mark where each page in the print book begins and which provide the page numbers.  The metadata has a required property for identifying the exact print edition to which the page break markers correspond.  Publishers just need to link the locators in the index to those page break markers, which should become a standard requirement.

EPUBs often lack image descriptions, and alt text, if present, is rarely done properly.  The description isn’t just what an image is a picture of; it needs to convey to a print disabled user what the image conveys to a sighted user.  Indexers would be ideal writers of image descriptions, because it requires analyzing and understanding the content, and then expressing it at a granular level.  Desrosiers discussed the principles of writing good alt text and extended descriptions, with concrete examples.

This concludes the blog series on the ASI 2022 Virtual Conference.  For more information about the services provided by the author of this blog, see the Stellar Searches LLC website, http://www.stellarsearches.com.

 

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Digital Trends Task Force Update

Saturday, June 1st, 2013

During the annual conference for the American Society for Indexing (ASI), held in San Antonio, Texas, on Friday, April 19, 2013, a Digital Trends Task Force (DTTF) Update was given as part of the Plenary Session.  The co-chairs are David Ream and Jan Wright.

The mission of the ASI DTTF is to gather information about changes in digital publishing practices as they affect indexes.  Also, members of the DTTF strive to interface with leading digital publishing companies, e-Reader hardware and software suppliers, standards developers, and industry partners to find solutions to ensure inclusion of usable indexes in nonfiction digital book formats and e-books.  Another mission of the DTTF is to inform ASI members regarding digital trands in a timely manner so that indexers can prepare for and participate in technology-driven and process changes.

Members of the DTTF have been working to develop EPUB 3 Indexing Standards, as covered in the last blog posting.  Noting that functionality for indexes for e-Books was broken, members of the DTTF worked with leading software developers such as Adobe in digital publishing.  The next version of Adobe InDesign, Creative Cloud, currently available by subscription, will offer embedded linked indexes for e-Books.

The DTTF used four keywords to describe the approach to the development of e-Book indexes: monetization, discovery, navigation, and metadata or aboutness.

Future blog postings will cover other sessions at the ASI conference.  For more information about the services provided by the author of this blog, see the Stellar Searches LLC website, http://www.stellarsearches.com

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Indexing in the Age of e-Books

Monday, May 6th, 2013

A Plenary Session, held on Thursday, April 18th at the Hotel Contessa during the annual conference for the American Society for Indexing focused on “Indexing in the Age of e-Books.”  Joshua Tallent, chief e-Book Architect for Firebrand Technologies, gave the presentation.

“Indexes are at a crossroads,” he said. “The worst thing you can do is keep on doing the same thing.  The time is ripe for change, and you are uniquely suited for the challenges ahead.”

As an e-Book Architect, Tallent has developed indexes for e-Books.

He explained how embedded indexes work, describing their HTML structure.  This moves in only one direction, however.  Eventually, we will get to the point where linking does not just move in one direction.

He described EPUB 3 Indexing Specifications, which are gaining prominence.  These are the indexing standards which give the specifications that govern the indexes for e-Books.

He said that that there is no good e-Book development software currently available.  “InDesign ePub export is broken. Word HTML export is broken,” he said.

The index needs to be linked deeper than the page level, to the paragraph.  With InDesign, it is possible to create ID’s for every page by numbering every paragraph in the book.  It is hard to link the index to the exact spot and requires lots of manual labor.  This cannot be completely automated, he said.

He concluded by saying that print books are not dead.  Publishers are selling more print books than e-Books.  There is a lack of support for the functionality of indexes in e-Books.

Other workshops held during the American Society for Indexing Conference will be highlighted in future blog postings.  For more information about the services provided by the author of this blog, see the Stellar Searches LLC website, http://www.stellarsearches.com

 

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