The problems with E-book standards

Interesting. I am interested in E-books for role playing games, but at present the formatting required, tables mostly, just isn't possible or practical for use in this format. [Link]

The internet did not replace television, which did not replace cinema, which did not replace books. E-books aren’t going to replace books either. E-books are books, merely with a different form.

The electronic book is the latest example of how HTML continues to win out over competing, often nonstandardized, formats. E-books aren’t websites, but E-books are distributed electronically. Now the dominant E-book format is XHTML. Web standards take on a new flavor when rendering literature on the screen, and classic assumptions about typography (or “formatting”) have to be adjusted.

HTML isn’t just for the web

It’s for any text distributed online.

Technology predictions can come back to haunt you, but this one I’m sure about: The fate of non-HTML formats has been sealed by HTML5 and the iPad. People are finally noticing what was staring them in the face all along—HTML is great for expressing words. The web is mostly about expressing words, and HTML works well for it. The same holds true for electronic books.

• E-books are usually not “websites.” You can post your book copy as web pages, but the E-book as a logical entity is not a website.
• ePub, the international E-book standard, is HTML (XHTML 1.1 with minor exclusions). Two other formats – certain kinds of “true” XML and DTBook – have equal status in ePub; most developers will use XHTML.
• Every E-reader under the sun except the Amazon Kindle can display ePub electronic books. (A Kindle can show you its own variant, .AZW, of a variant of HTML [Mobipocket]; that’s two steps removed from the real thing. A Kindle can also convert HTML to displayable format, presumably AZW.)

It may be unseemly to dance on graves, but HTML wins again.

HTML doesn’t work for all documents, since it lacks important structural features. (HTML5 addresses some of those deficiencies but won’t help today’s E-books.) HTML does work for huge numbers of documents, many of which we call books. Bet against HTML for online distribution and you’ve backed the wrong horse.