[Hitch]

Hey, guys:

I recently had an upgrade to my PM system, (Project Management) which allows me to put PDFs into a browser and allow the users to make annotations, for edits, comments and the like. As you all remember (sure, you do!), we have very non-tecchie customers and they struggle horribly with even relatively simple stuff, like putting comments into a PDF using Adobe Reader. I've had many customers that could never figure out how to even download Adobe Reader, so...well.

What I would dearly love would be an ePUB-equivalent functionality. I'd LOVe to be able to put an ePUB into our "proofing section," which would also open in a browser (no software installation by the customer required, woo woo...) and allow them to make annotations, and comments that the bookmaker could then see, use, make changes, etc.

Now, I've looked around. Calibre has an annotation capability, but when you export it, you're stuck using Calibre's reader AND the annotations to find where they are. Others, like Books Reader (Mac and iOS) allows notes, of course, but bupkus for a usable export; ADE has nada, and on and on and on.

I know that apparently, BOOKARI has something that may work, but the licensing terms for that are pretty rough. Plus it's licensed per user, which means I would spend my days adding new licenses, closing them and so on. Or the alternative, go broke NOT removing licenses, lol.

Does ANYBODY HERE know of a usable, viable ePUB, browser-based eReader that has viable annotation capabilities that could be easily exported into a usable form? Something that an eBookmaker could and would actually use? If you try to export Calibre's annotations, to markdown or anything else, you'll see what I mean when I say it's not really viable (for the bookmaker to use).

I looked at Thorium, but can't tell if it has any annotation abilities; their focus seems to be all accessibility, all the time, rather than annotation. Readium, we all know, has gone or is going the way of the Dodo; Azardi doesn't have them, (at least, I don't believe so). Edge lost its ePUB reader (from MSFT) and so on and so forth. (sigh). Most of the others I've seen and tried are too primitive.

It really needs to be browser-based, so that I could integrate it with our Proofing system in the PM environment, but at this point, I might be happy just getting something that works (that they would, sob, have to install). Even that would be better than what I deal with now. Those of you in the biz, YOU know what it's like.

Ideas? I'm asking you guys because my brain has given up on this topic. It just flat out refuses to address this any further; it's gone on strike. Thoughts, anybody? This isn't a biggie for those customers that are doing both print and eBooks with us--but we still have a sizable customer base that only does ePUBs with us and it's for these customers that I could use this.

???

Hitch