Upload ebooks in HTML format

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Jellby

Better than HTML or doc, upload them in ePUB format. It's standard, it's the future and you can get the text and formatting just as easily (it's already a zipped set XHTML+CSS files).

I'd say if that were a standard, there would have been readers for all platforms. So far, I've not found one reader that can read epub on my PDA (Windows Mobile).

For my own books, I use HTML as my base, and transform it to Mobi to read.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

I'd say if that were a standard, there would have been readers for all platforms. So far, I've not found one reader that can read epub on my PDA (Windows Mobile).

For my own books, I use HTML as my base, and transform it to Mobi to read.

Well the point is that a base can easily be ePUB since you can simply unzip it to retrieve the internal files. The probleml with HTML is it is often not self contained. No images, CSS in a separate file etc. It needs to be zipped to contain it. As a matter of fact some readers such as Hanlin can actually read an eBook inside a zip file, depending on the format inside the zip file.

Dale

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Well the point is that a base can easily be ePUB since you can simply unzip it to retrieve the internal files. The probleml with HTML is it is often not self contained. No images, CSS in a separate file etc. It needs to be zipped to contain it. As a matter of fact some readers such as Hanlin can actually read an eBook inside a zip file, depending on the format inside the zip file.

Dale

yes, and in fact epub is technically just an xhtml file in a zip container ; it can be opened using winzip or winrar, just like a zip file.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

replace [CTRL]+[V] with "ubiquitous"

To me it seems [CTRL]+[V],that you would use the word [CTRL]+[V] to make it more [CTRL]+[V]! At this moment my brains are still processing [CTRL]+[V],and they only got the "[CTRL]" part right. The "+[V]"part will soon fall in place!
It's such a hard word I had to store it in my cache using [CTRL]+[C],in order to write it down([CTRL]+[V])!
I even had to look it up in a dictionary!

Now I feel much more comfortable, and even can say it without errors!
[CTRL]+[V] !
uhm,I meant, "ubiquitous" yes "ubiquitous"(Ctrl+v)!

[Ea]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

yes, and in fact epub is technically just an xhtml file in a zip container ; it can be opened using winzip or winrar, just like a zip file.

That sounds great. I was a little worried at first that it would be yet another format to unwrap (like mobi) if I only wanted the HTML, but now I feel okay with it. And it is better to wrap HTML files - many books would come with multiple files.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Ea

That sounds great. I was a little worried at first that it would be yet another format to unwrap (like mobi) if I only wanted the HTML, but now I feel okay with it. And it is better to wrap HTML files - many books would come with multiple files.

yep.

you might want to take a look at this thread to learn more about epub.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

It certainly is a "standard" in the technical sense of the word. But it is by no means ubiquitous yet, which is what is needed.

BOb

As the saying goes, the nice things about "standards" is that there are so many different ones to choose from .

[Jellby]

When I said it's a "standard" what I really meant was that its specifications are defined and open (no reverse-engineering or hidden features) and that it does not depend on a single corporation. Perhaps support is not widely available yet, but I thought the thread was about formats that could be used for archive and as a source for conversions...

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Jellby

When I said it's a "standard" what I really meant was that its specifications are defined and open (no reverse-engineering or hidden features) and that it does not depend on a single corporation.

that's what i mean when i say standard as well, with the added detail that it has also been adopted officially by the ebook industry as a whole in an attempt to gain some unity of file formats.

Perhaps support is not widely available yet, but I thought the thread was about formats that could be used for archive and as a source for conversions...

epub is already excellent for archive and conversion purposes and more and more devices are supporting it natively as well, so conversion is not always necessary and will be so less and less.

[ProDigit]

so what's the file extension?

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

yes, and in fact epub is technically just an xhtml file in a zip container ; it can be opened using winzip or winrar, just like a zip file.

Hmm, I must go look into that then...

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

so what's the file extension?

.epub usually.

(Actually, the ePub reader widget for Opera needs to have ePub files renamed as .zip, which shows they are just zip files with a particular content).

[busybee]

I agree with ProDigit's initial post and support HTML for archival and source purposes. EPub is a close second, but after converting an illustrated HTML book to EPub, adding ".zip" and unzipping it, I notice only that important elements of my original formatting had been lost, so I am not interested in collecting ebooks in EPub format (in effect converting common HTML into obscure XML). Since some 9,000 of Project Gutenberg's collection (in English) is already in HTML, and since HTML IS ubiquitous/universal (as distinct from EPub's putative should be, can be, will be), I don't see a better alternative at present to zipped HTML.

I'm serious about collecting books in HTML and hope MR is the place this can be done. The only support needed would be to add, to the E-Books Upload section, a forum called, "HTML Books." Is this too much to ask? Along this line, almost all the books posted to the "Other Books" forum are LIT, so it looks like a "LIT Books" section is needed as well.

I'm not interested in collecting books in multiple uneditable formats. I've uploaded some MOBI books, but HTML was the source, and I suspect that the prolific uploaders who post four versions of each book are also working from HTML source. I'd rather upload and download editable HTML source. Who wouldn't?

[ProDigit]

Thanks busybee for your affirmation.
From HTML perspective, once a book is in the library, it can easily be snatched by eg: me, who can convert it to LRF for my Sony reader; and by someone else who perhaps has a Kindle or Iliad, to convert it to their desired format if necessary.

One of the issues we're facing is that upto today almost no electronic book reader can read HTML, and/or compressed HTML (unless they are running some version of Windows CE).

Then there's the issue of different versions of zip and rar,where later versions are incompatible with previous ones.
Last time I used winzip,they where on version 8, and this was around the millennium nearly 9 years ago. Every version had an improved algorythm, compressing better then the version before. I only fear that once a reader would be compatible reading zip or rar archives, that later archives (zip or rar files) will not be compatible with the reader's internal decoder version.

winzip today is on version 12, assuming that's about a new version every 2 years, with 1 new update and 1 new version in 2008.
Winrar is about the same, currently at v3.80 doing a new version about every year.

The issue is newer versions are compatible with older versions, but older Winzip/rar decompressors are not always compatible with newer compressed archives.

Another issue "might" be that winzip or winrar may not be a good format for electronic reading devices; though I am not 100%sure about that.
meaning, in some cases the device will need to decompress the file fully before it's able to display the book compressed in it. Or,may need more computing power. Winzip/rar are much more intense then LRF,or other formats (filesizes can become smaller on winzip/rar)

I yet have to see a device that is capable of reading HTML within a ZIP file directly. That would mean hardware capable on the fly decoding capabilities. It'd probably take more than an ARM 200Mhz processor to be able to do that!

There is no DRM on HTML and archives (YET), but there can be password protected archives.
A simple methode can be incorporated by whenever a book is downloaded from a store, a password will be provided with it. Generating a different encryption on every download.
I hope DRM will not go over to ZIP or RAR!

So those are the negative points; but on a positive note, HTML compressed in an archive, is the best open format to reconvert!

I found it best to convert .doc and .rtf using openoffice writer to HTML.
Then with notepad++ take a 5 minute trim to get the unnecessary html codes removed (like eg:language, div style and some span class/font/..) .
Within 10 minutes you can have a reasonable clean HTML version of a book!
Which a lot of devices running Windows CE will be able to read, be it then when uncompressed.

then again some people will need to take a basic course in HTML encoding, unlike eg: converting a MS word document via calibre, which takes no knowledge of HTML or codes.

[Ea]

Actually, on top of my head I can think of three readers that support HTML; Hanlin (+ clones), CyBook and Irex iLiad - and I'm sure there's more - but, and this is a big one, they only support pretty basic HTML. That would, however, not be a big problem if you could convert easily into clean HTML. And that is not my own experience. I've looking far and wide for a tool for this - Mac or Windows, it's okay - but I have yet to find something that does not require clean up with the connected risk of messing up. So far, I've found Mobipocket Creator to be the best, but the resulting HTML still requires removal of a unecessary markup, just as what you suggest. Not the best solution.

I understand the problems with zipping files - if we could get around that and still keep the HTML files, I think it would be best.