[ProDigit]

Hi there!

So, I went the way of fully trying to understand EPuB, by generating a book from Notepad++ (in a way it is a more advanced version of Window's wordpad, or coding text editor), rather than have a program compile my epub.

I have a good few tens of pages to read, before I can start my first epub.
I could do a basic epub, but am studying up on some of the classes, XML and CSS, to see if there's a way how I can simplify the whole ebook generating process.

I have written a book before in HTML0, for SONY readers; but now wanted to do one for my Kobo H20.


Questions so far:
1a- What's the difference between encoding in UTF-8 and UTF-16 (or UTF-32)?
1b- And are there benefits going off the UTF-8 format?
1c- I've seen books omit the encoding type in the container.xml. Recommendable, or not?

2- I've read, but want to confirm, if ZIP is the only compression format allowed? 7z, or RAR would not work, correct?

3- If ZIP is, then what parameters should I use? I know at times it is possible to increase compression in some programs, and wondered if it would affect my ebook reader, in trying to open the file?

4- A few years ago, I remember someone posting a link, to a program where mimetype was fused in a zip container (without it being compressed as well).
The program also claimed it compressed far better than Winzip, because it solely focused on text and picture compression, not audio or video, and thus was able to get higher compression ratios.
Which program was this?

5- What program would you think is best to use to generate an .epub file, knowing that all other files are sorted and available? (meaning mimetype, META-INF folder, and the OEBPS folder are complete)?