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An electronic publication (EPUB) is an e-book file format that has the
extension of .epub. Electronic publications can be downloaded and then
read using devices like smartphones, tablets, e-readers and computers.
It is
also a technical standard that is published by the International Digital
Publishing Forum and replaced the former Open eBook standard in September 2007.
The Book Industry Study Group backs EPUB 3 as the official format for the packaging
of content. EPUB is used in several popular software readers such as iBooks for
iOS and Google Books in Android. However, it is still not used for Amazon
Kindle.
Techopedia Explains Electronic Publication
EPUB is a format for
distribution and interchange for documents and digital publications based on web standards. EPUB lays out the method for the representation, packing and
encoding of web content (such as CSS, XHTML, images, SVG) that is structured and
semantically enhanced in order for it to be distributable in a single format. It allows customers the option of interoperability between software and
hardware for unencrypted digital books and publications.
Essentially, EPUB is a ZIP
archive that has, effectively, a website containing HTML files, CSS, images and
metadata. Using HTML5 means that EPUBs can also contain audio, video and
other interactive elements. EPUB offers various features like
reflowable document, inline raster and vector images, bookmarking,
highlighting and note taking, resizing of fonts and changing of text and
background colors.
