I am reaching out here because we want to hear from people making EPUBs and making tools for EPUBs.
What if, in the future, EPUBs could contain HTML files in addition to XHTML?
As you know, technology is constantly evolving. One such technology, currently central to EPUB files, is XML. More exactly the XML syntax of HTML (XHTML). Use of this syntax is declining outside of publishing. In order to provide for the future of the EPUB ecosystem, we plan to remove the requirement for the XML syntax in the EPUB package.
This change will not affect the document formats currently allowed in an EPUB publication, it would simply remove the restriction to the XML syntax.
We hope to understand how this might affect the community. That way, we can identify potential obstacles and make an easier transition to accepting HTML.
Your input is valuable, and will help shape the future of ebooks.
Please take this brief four-question survey:
https://www.w3.org/wbs/1/epubhtml/
- You do not need a W3C account
- Responses are anonymous
- The survey is in English and Japanese
- You may share this link with anyone you believe could give us a helpful perspective
- Survey closes in September
- The anonymized information we collect will be made public to ensure transparency in our process.
Who We Are
This survey was created by the
Publishing Maintenance Working Group, part of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Our mission is to maintain the Recommendations for EPUB files and ereaders. We work incrementally to improve the Recommendations, provide additional clarity, and grow the Recommendations for the future of Ebooks.