Quote:
Originally Posted by Hadrien
Yes, epub is relatively new and there's still some extra-work to do for both content and software/hardware support.
I've been playing with the format these last few weeks and I must say that what we're generating with our latest test on Feedbooks is much nicer than OEB already. TOCs are a bit too complicated to generate though, and I was wondering about 2 things: - hyphenation: Are soft hyphens supported ? Will some of the software supporting epub use an auto hyphenation ?
- Is there any online ressource to check if an epub file is considered valid or not ?
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I am glad to hear that your .epub experience has been nicer than OEB. I will get back to you on auto-hyphenation, but to your point on validation. As opposed to OEB, OPS (the markup part of .epub) requires valid XHTML. There was a major problem with OEB in that it did not require valid XHTML which left many "flavors" of OEB; not quite the point of a standard. OPS, however, does require valid XHTML and therefore .epub files should all be valid and processed identically by software that implements the specs. Several members of the IDPF are currently developing an .epub validation tool which can run off of the desktop. It is almost finished and, once it is, will be freely available for public use on the idpf website. In the future, there are plans to build a web interface for people to validate (and the opportunity to apply a valid logo to their websites, products etc.) their .epub files.
I'd expect the downloadable validation tool to be available in the next month or two.
-Nick
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Nick Bogaty
Executive Director
International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF)