Register Guidelines E-Books Today's Posts Search

Go Back   MobileRead Forums > E-Book General > General Discussions

Notices

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Old 03-15-2021, 03:57 AM   #1
what
Enthusiast
what began at the beginning.
 
Posts: 28
Karma: 10
Join Date: Mar 2021
Device: none
Overview of features supported by ebook readers?

Is there some overview like https://caniuse.com/ that shows which ebook reader supports which formats and features?
what is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-15-2021, 08:43 AM   #2
JSWolf
Resident Curmudgeon
JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
JSWolf's Avatar
 
Posts: 79,687
Karma: 145864619
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts
Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3
Quote:
Originally Posted by what View Post
Is there some overview like https://caniuse.com/ that shows which ebook reader supports which formats and features?
If such a list was made, it would need to be changed quite often as things change with new firmware updates. Plus, it's not an easy list to make as you would need to know of all the different Readers from all the different companies and all the features each device has with the latest firmware for that device. It's (IMHO) a huge task that I cannot see ever happening.

The best solution is to list what features you want/need and you can then get recommendations based on your list.

Last edited by JSWolf; 03-15-2021 at 09:15 AM.
JSWolf is offline   Reply With Quote
Advert
Old 03-15-2021, 09:33 AM   #3
Quoth
Still reading
Quoth ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Quoth ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Quoth ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Quoth ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Quoth ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Quoth ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Quoth ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Quoth ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Quoth ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Quoth ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Quoth ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Quoth's Avatar
 
Posts: 13,968
Karma: 103895653
Join Date: Jun 2017
Location: Ireland
Device: All 4 Kinds: epub eink, Kindle, android eink, NxtPaper
Also don't try to be clever. Don't try to duplicate fancy paper editions.

Basically there are two groups of eink:
Old Mobi, like Kindle Keyboard 2, DX, DGX and earlier or a Kindle Keybord 3 that didn't get updated.
Kindles that work with KF8 / azw3 will mostly do the same as older epub2 ereaders or older Adobe Digital Editions. It's when you get fancy with images other than placed as a character, or SMALL CAPS or non-RomanLatin fonts (Scandinavian & other European accents and some modern Greek is OK but Cyrillic might not), or Right to Left etc, then you need to test targets. Tables are an issue partly due to width.

Embedding Fonts can help, but doesn't work for Old Mobi.

Avoid features that need KFX, kepub or epub3. The so called Advanced Typesetting of KFX and kepub is done automatically by Amazon and Kobo. An ordinary epub2 is uploaded.

Amazon can use epub2 to create all their formats, but old mobi only devices will get a reduced feature version. Amazon crafts their download according to the target eInk, Fire, App or program and OS.

If you can't do what you want with a basic reflowable epub2, that is OK on a 4" to 17" screen, then either make a PDF for 10" and larger tablets or an App for iOS and Android. The epub3 spec tries to do the features of multimedia, HTML5 and a PDF, but support is poor and only a subset on some epub based eink. If you need epub3, seriously look at PDF or an app.
Quoth is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-15-2021, 01:24 PM   #4
KevinH
Sigil Developer
KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 8,748
Karma: 5706256
Join Date: Nov 2009
Device: many
No, standard reflowable epub3 that is backwards compatible with guide/ncx will convert and work just fine even for older Kindles. The kindlepreviewer and kindlegen toolchain supports epub3 well and has for quite a while now.
KevinH is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-16-2021, 09:33 AM   #5
Quoth
Still reading
Quoth ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Quoth ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Quoth ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Quoth ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Quoth ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Quoth ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Quoth ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Quoth ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Quoth ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Quoth ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Quoth ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Quoth's Avatar
 
Posts: 13,968
Karma: 103895653
Join Date: Jun 2017
Location: Ireland
Device: All 4 Kinds: epub eink, Kindle, android eink, NxtPaper
It's still pointless compared to epub2. If you REALLY need the features of epub3 then it WON'T fall back gracefully and it gives NOTHING extra on old Kindle and little to nothing extra on new eink Kindles.

Epub3 is a half baked idea for multimedia. The epub2 is for reading fiction books.
Quoth is offline   Reply With Quote
Advert
Old 03-16-2021, 02:29 PM   #6
KevinH
Sigil Developer
KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 8,748
Karma: 5706256
Join Date: Nov 2009
Device: many
You could not be more wrong. Epub3 even without javascript, without media overlays, without video and audio, still allows for improved semantic tagging and better Accessibility markup to help those visually impaired or needing screen readers, allows better international support for rtl and vertical languages. It simply makes for a much improved epub.

Given you can use an epub3 to source for kindlegen and have been able to for years, and given you can make simple fiction based epub3s that are backwards compatible for old epub2 only readers, why on earth would anyone want to create epub2s as source for anything anymore?

Your advice was simply outdated.
KevinH is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-16-2021, 06:46 PM   #7
JSWolf
Resident Curmudgeon
JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
JSWolf's Avatar
 
Posts: 79,687
Karma: 145864619
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts
Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3
But the one problem though is you cannot use some features of ePub3 because they won't work in ePub 2.
JSWolf is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-17-2021, 11:06 AM   #8
KevinH
Sigil Developer
KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 8,748
Karma: 5706256
Join Date: Nov 2009
Device: many
Yes, but it is a better source format for future-proofing and future conversion of your material than epub2 is.


Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf View Post
But the one problem though is you cannot use some features of ePub3 because they won't work in ePub 2.
KevinH is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-17-2021, 11:13 AM   #9
Quoth
Still reading
Quoth ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Quoth ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Quoth ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Quoth ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Quoth ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Quoth ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Quoth ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Quoth ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Quoth ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Quoth ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Quoth ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Quoth's Avatar
 
Posts: 13,968
Karma: 103895653
Join Date: Jun 2017
Location: Ireland
Device: All 4 Kinds: epub eink, Kindle, android eink, NxtPaper
The wordprocessor file is the source. The epub2, epub3, PDF etc are simply target distribution formats. Not source.
Quoth is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-17-2021, 11:59 AM   #10
KevinH
Sigil Developer
KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 8,748
Karma: 5706256
Join Date: Nov 2009
Device: many
KDP now recommends epub over mobi for submissions so it can easily be a source format, but as you said Word is probably best for the actual writing.
KevinH is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-17-2021, 12:04 PM   #11
hobnail
Running with scissors
hobnail ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.hobnail ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.hobnail ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.hobnail ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.hobnail ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.hobnail ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.hobnail ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.hobnail ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.hobnail ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.hobnail ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.hobnail ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 1,586
Karma: 14328510
Join Date: Nov 2019
Device: none
Quote:
Originally Posted by KevinH View Post
You could not be more wrong. Epub3 even without javascript, without media overlays, without video and audio, still allows for improved semantic tagging and better Accessibility markup to help those visually impaired or needing screen readers, allows better international support for rtl and vertical languages. It simply makes for a much improved epub.
I'm glad to hear someone say this; we keep hearing people say that epub3 "doesn't work" with the current ereaders. Whenever I redo a book from PG I always start with a blank epub3. The only epub3 stuff that I may use is some of the newer html tags but even that is minimal. So the html and css is mainly epub2 but the container is epub3. The metadata is epub3 probably; I'm using Sigil.
hobnail is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-17-2021, 03:29 PM   #12
fbrzvnrnd
Fanatic
fbrzvnrnd ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.fbrzvnrnd ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.fbrzvnrnd ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.fbrzvnrnd ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.fbrzvnrnd ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.fbrzvnrnd ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.fbrzvnrnd ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.fbrzvnrnd ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.fbrzvnrnd ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.fbrzvnrnd ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.fbrzvnrnd ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 557
Karma: 400004
Join Date: Feb 2009
Device: ONYX M96
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quoth View Post
The wordprocessor file is the source. The epub2, epub3, PDF etc are simply target distribution formats. Not source.
Wordprocessor? Ok boomer
fbrzvnrnd is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-17-2021, 03:31 PM   #13
JSWolf
Resident Curmudgeon
JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
JSWolf's Avatar
 
Posts: 79,687
Karma: 145864619
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts
Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quoth View Post
The wordprocessor file is the source. The epub2, epub3, PDF etc are simply target distribution formats. Not source.
But once the ePub eBook is created, it makes a much better source format then the word processing file.
JSWolf is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-17-2021, 03:44 PM   #14
JSWolf
Resident Curmudgeon
JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
JSWolf's Avatar
 
Posts: 79,687
Karma: 145864619
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts
Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3
Quote:
Originally Posted by hobnail View Post
I'm glad to hear someone say this; we keep hearing people say that epub3 "doesn't work" with the current ereaders. Whenever I redo a book from PG I always start with a blank epub3. The only epub3 stuff that I may use is some of the newer html tags but even that is minimal. So the html and css is mainly epub2 but the container is epub3. The metadata is epub3 probably; I'm using Sigil.
It's not that ePub3 doesn't work with current Readers. It's that some features do not work in a lot of cases with older software, older Readers, a lot of Android reading software, etc. So you just have to be careful how you code the ePub3 and you have to know what your audience is. You can make a simple ePub3 with accessibility that will work in most cases.
JSWolf is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-17-2021, 04:08 PM   #15
KevinH
Sigil Developer
KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 8,748
Karma: 5706256
Join Date: Nov 2009
Device: many
Old readers will eventually die out, as my Sony e-reader can attest and my old Mobi reader. And bad/old app software can be replaced. There are numerous EPUB3 reading apps out there: Readium variants, Books, Kobo apps, Bluefire Reader, ADE, etc for ios, android, windows, mac, and linux (and not to mention calibre's nice new ereader).

Recommending EPUB2 over EPUB3 just to support old dedicated e-readers that are rapidly dying out is probably not a good choice when new devices and apps support both.

The days of no good free epub3 readers is long gone.
KevinH is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply


Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Do any iOS readers have these features yet? bounce Apple Devices 6 10-29-2019 07:45 PM
The best features of Nook readers jbcohen Barnes & Noble NOOK 27 07-11-2014 08:46 PM
Do we need more or less features in ebook readers? Tacty General Discussions 114 01-04-2013 09:43 AM
PDF features supported by iLiad? (like JavaScript, Jumping ...) Clemenseken iRex 1 07-06-2007 11:10 AM
Overview of CHM readers for Pocket PC Alexander Turcic Reading and Management 0 01-11-2005 01:19 PM


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 03:41 PM.


MobileRead.com is a privately owned, operated and funded community.