2016 iBooks Author Conference. The 2016 iBooks Author Conference took place at the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center on October 6–7, 2016. The keynote was provided by Southwest Airlines, which uses iBooks Author to create their company-wide training curriculum (called 'Southwest Airlines University'). Apple was the largest attendees. Trusted Mac download iBooks Author 2.6.1. Virus-free and 100% clean download. Get iBooks Author alternative downloads.

• Ibooks Author 2.3 Dmg Software
• Ibooks Author 2.3 Dmg Free

The most notable e-book formats are:

• IDPF's EPUB format is a free and open e-book standard used by most e-book readers. The EPUB format has gained some popularity as a vendor-independent XML-based e-book format.
  

• Apple's iBook is a proprietary formatbased on the EPUB standard, with some difference and extentions.
  
• Amazon’s Kindle KF8 is an proprietary e-book file format for the Kindle device.The FF8 file format supports a subset of HTML5 and CSS3 features, with some additional nonstandard features.
• Adoe PDF format. PDF is page-oriented, so are not generally reflowable, but it now supports reflow

A list of exhaustive e-book formats is alvailable.

The following documents aims to compare the technical features and differences between the 3 formats: EPUB3, iBook 2.0 and Kindle KF8.

1.Introduction

The epub format is an open standard for e-books created by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF).
The EPUB format has gained some popularity as a vendor-independent XML-based e-book format. EPUB is designed for reflowable content, that can adapt its presentation to the reader device, although EPUB now also supports fixed-layout content.

• EPUB 2 provides all the formatting and layout capabilities of XHTML 1.1 and CSS2.
• EPUB 3 officially became a standard in late October 2011.The recent EPUB 3 defines profiles of HTML5, SVG, and CSS for use for enhanced Publications.

2. EPUB3 Features

2.1 Packaging

An EPUB Publication is transported as a single file (a 'portable document') that contains:

• a Package Document (OPF file) which specifies all the Publication's constituent content documents and their required resources, defines a reading order and associates Publication-level metadata and navigation information.
  • A metadata element including and/or referencing metadata applicable to the entire Publication and particular resources within it.
  • A manifest element: identifies (via IRI) and describes (via MIME media type) the set of resources that constitute the EPUB Publication.
  • A spine element : defines the default reading order of the Publication. (An ordered list of Publication Resources (EPUB Content Documents).
  • A Bindings element defines a set of custom handlers for media types not supported by EPUB3. If the Reading System cannot support the specific media type, it could use scripting fallback if supported.

• all Content Documents
  
• all other required resources for processing the Publication.
  

The OCF Container is packaged into a physical single ZIP file containing:

• Mime Type file: application/epub+zip.
• META-INF folder (container file which points to the location of the .opf file), signatures, encryption, rights, arexml files
• OEBPS folder stores the book content.(opf, ncx, html, svg, png, css, etc. files)
  

see OCF example

2.2. Navigation

• Reading order: multiple resources that may be navigated and consumed in some specific order (obvious reading order, logical progression). (spine)
  
• Navigation document: a special XHTML Content Document called the EPUB Navigation Document (END), which uses the HTML5 nav element to define navigation information. It replaces the former NCX documents.
  

2.3. Linking

The EPUB Canonical Fragment Identifier (epubcfi) specification defines a standardized method for linking into a publication. It uses fragment identifiers extended with a similar as Shorthand XPointer construct but to a location within an EPUB Publication.

example: book.epub#epubcfi(/6/4[chap01ref]!/4[body01]/10[para05]/3:10)

2.4. Metadata

The Package Document includes a dedicated metadata section for general information about the Publication, allowing titles, authors, identifiers (mainly based on Dublin Core). A meta element also permits refinement by meta element subexpressions.

The Package Document also allows a Unique Identifier to be established for a Publication ( ex: ISBN+date)

signatures file: Contains digital signatures for various assets.

• encryption.xml: Contains information about the encryption of Publication resources. (This file is required if font obfuscation is used.)
• metadata: Used to store metadata about the container.
• rights: Used to store information about digital rights.
• 
  

@@@@ XHTML Content Documents also include the means of annotating document markup with rich metadata, making them more semantically meaningful and useful both for processing and accessibility purposes (Semantic Inflection [ContentDocs30]).

2.5. Content Documents

Content Documents e are XHTML (defined by a profile of HTML5) or SVG documents, etc., that describe the readable content of a Publication and reference associated media resources (e.g., images, audio and video clips).

2.6. Rendering and CSS

Content presentation should adapt to the User rather than the User having to adapt to a particular presentation of content. Reflowable content.

• EPUB 3 defines a profile of CSS based on CSS 2.1, together with capabilities defined by various CSS3 Modules and several additional specific properties.
• CSS3 properties were selected based on their current level of support in Web browsers. It supports both horizontal and vertical layout and both left-to-right and right-to-left writing,
• CSS Profile includes @media and @import rules with media queries as defined in the Media Queries specification.

2.7. Fonts

• support for two font formats: OpenType and WOFF . Also supports both obfuscated and regular font resources to accommodate font licensing restrictions for many commercially-available fonts.

2.8. Multimedia

• support for audio and video embedded in the HTML5 audio and video elements.
• Reading Systems should support at least one of the MP4/H.264 and WebM/VP8 video codecs. For audio .mp3 support required, .mp4 support is recommended
  
• support for Inline raster and vector images embedded in the HTML5 img element (JPEG, PNG, SVG, etc.).
• Allows Media Overlay Documents (pre-recorded narration synchronized with the text of a Content Document.

Ibooks Author 2.3 Dmg Software

• MP4 /H.264 or WebM VP8 Codecs

2.9. Text-to-speech

EPUB 3 provides text-to-speech (TTS) facilities for controlling aspects of speech synthesis, such as pronunciation, prosody and voice characteristics: pronunciation lexicons using the W3C PLS format, Inline SSML Phonemes and CSS Speech Features.

2.10. Scripting

EPUB strives to treat content declaratively, but it supports scripting as defined in HTML5 and SVG (Note:scripting support is optional for Reading Systems and may be disabled for security reasons).

2.11 Internationalisation (Global Language Support)

EPUB 3 offer features for global Language:

• support for content flow direction to be globally specified for all Content Documents language-specific metadata (page-progression-direction)
• support for bidirectional content rendering: (bdi, bdo elements)
• support for new CSS3 modules enableling typography for many different languages and cultures (support for vertical writing)
• support the embedding of fonts for accurate rendering of text content, and ensures specific characters and glyphs are embedded for proper display.
• support for Text-to-speech PLS documents and SSML attributes
• supports UTF-8, allowing for internationalized file.

2.12. Accessibility

A major goal of EPUB3 is to facilitate content accessibility with a variety of features

• Navigation: END provides a mechanism to include a human- and machine-readable global navigation layer in the Publication (nav element) , thereby ensuring increased usability and accessibility
• Semantic Markup: support for a number of HTML5 elements intended to make markup more semantically meaningful (e.g., section, nav, aside) . It also introduces the epub:type attribute, which is meant to be functionally equivalent to the W3C Role Attribute. This attribute allows any element in an XHTML Content Document to include additional information about its purpose and meaning within the work, using controlled vocabularies and terms.
• Dynamic Layouts: dynamic layout content is intended to be formatted on the fly rather than being typeset in a paginated manner in advance (i.e., expecting a particular sized 'page').
• Aural Renditions of content text-to-speech. Media Overlays provide the ability to synchronize the text and audio content. Both are important for accessibility.
• Fallbacks to provide alternate renditions of a Publication
• Scripting: trigger element added to the EPUB HTML5 profile enables image or textual elements to act as controls for audio and video playback (for example, to start, stop and pause playback). This element eliminates the common use of scripting to include similar functionality.
  The switch element provides a means for Authors to tailor the content displayed to Users without having to resort to scripted solutions.
  

3. EPUB3 Relation to main W3C Technologies

3.1. HTML5

The XHTML Content Documents are based on HTML5, and inherits all definitions of semantics, structure and processing behaviors from the HTML5 specification.
EPUB3 adds the following extensions to the HTML5 document model:

• The epub:type attribute inflects semantics on the element on which it appears. It is intended to be functionally equivalent to the W3C Role Attribute but with restrictions.
• The epub:switch element an XML fragment to be conditionally inserted into the content model of an XHTML Content Document. using the case element for alternate representation of the same content.
• The epub:trigger element enables the creation of markup-defined user interfaces for controlling multimedia objects, such as audio and video playback, in both scripted and non-scripted contexts.
• ssml:ph attribute to specifies a phonemic/phonetic pronunciation of the text represented by the element to which the attribute is attached along with the ssml:alphabet attribute specifies which phonemic/phonetic pronunciation alphabet is used in the value of the ssml:ph attribute
• support embedded MathML but limit its usage to a restricted subset of the full MathML markup language.
• support the embedding of SVG 1.1 by reference (from an img or object element) and by inclusion (embedding via direct inclusion of the svg:svg element)

3.2. CSS Style sheets

The EPUB 3 CSS Profile is based on CSS 2.1 with the following exceptions (fixed value of the position property and the direction and unicode-bidi properties -Authors should use appropriate HTML5 markup to express directionality information instead)

EPUB 3 CSS Profile includes:

• @font-face rules and descriptors as defined in the CSS Fonts Module Level 3
• @media and @import rules with media queries as defined in the Media Queries
• @namespace rule defined in CSS Namespaces
  
• all features defined in the CSS Multi-column Layout Module
• all of the features defined in the CSS Writing Modes Module Level 3 (except direction and unicode-bidi properties)
• -epub- prefixed versions of some properties from the CSS3 Speech Module and from the CSS Text Level 3
• -epub-ruby-position from the CSS Ruby Module

EPUB 3 CSS Profile adds new constructs in addition to the standard values defined for the display property of CSS2.1 ( new values oeb-page-head and oeb-page-foot)

3.3. SVG

EPUB3 restricts the content model of SVG 1.1 for Content Documents and SVG embedded in XHTML Content Documents as follows:

• The SVG Animation Elements and Animation event attributes must not occur.

3.4. MathML

MathML markup in XHTML Content Documents must conform to the constraints expressed in the MathML specification with the following restrictions:

• The m:math element must contain only Presentation MathML
• Content MathML may be included within MathML markup in XHTML Content Documents, and, when present, must occur within anm:annotation-xml child element of an m:semantics element.

3.5. Scripting

EPUB Content Documents may contain scripting using the facilities defined for this in the respective underlying specifications HTML5 and SVG

3.6. Media Overlay Document

EPUB 3 allows Media Overlay Documents to describe the timing for the pre-recorded audio narration and how it relates to the EPUB Content Document markup. The file format for Media Overlays is defined as a subset of SMIL.

3.7.Text-to-Speech (TTS)

SSML is the language used for assisting Text-to-Speech (TTS) engines in generating synthetic speech. Although SSML is designed as a standalone document type, it also defines semantics suitable for use within other host languages.EPUB3 recasts the SSML 1.1 phoneme element as two attributes — ssml:ph and ssml:alphabet — and makes them available within EPUB XHTML Content Documents.

3.8 List of W3C Technologies referenced normativaly in Epub3 specifications.

• ASSOCSS Associating Style Sheets with XML documents 1.0 (Second Edition)
• CSS Namespaces CSS Namespaces Module
• CSS2.0 Cascading Style Sheets,level 2 - CSS2 Specification
• CSS2.1 Cascading Style Sheets Level 2 Revision 1 (CSS2.1) Specification
• CSS3Fonts CSS Fonts ModuleLevel 3
• CSS3Fonts-20110324 CSS Fonts ModuleLevel 3 (20110324)
• CSS3Ruby CSS3 Ruby Annotation Module .
• CSS3Speech CSS3 Speech Module
• CSS3Speech-20110818 CSS3 Speech Module (20110818)
• CSS3Text CSS TextLevel 3
• CSS3Text-20110412 CSS TextLevel 3 (20110412)
• CSS3WritingModes CSS Writing Modes ModuleLevel 3
• CSS3WritingModes-20110428 CSS Writing Modes ModuleLevel 3 (20110428)
• CSSMultiCol CSS Multi-column Layout Module
• ContentDocs30 EPUB Content Documents 3.0 .
• GIF GRAPHICS INTERCHANGE FORMAT(sm) Version 89a .
• HTML5 HTML5: A vocabulary and associated APIs for HTML and XHTML .
• JPEG JPEG Standard (JPEG ISO/IEC 10918-1 ITU-T Recommendation T.81) .
• MATHML Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) Version 3.0
• MediaQueries Media Queries .
• PLS]Pronunciation Lexicon Specification 1.0 (PLS)
• PNG Portable Network Graphics (PNG) Specification (Second Edition)
• RDFa10 RDFa in XHTML: Syntax and Processing .
• SMIL SMIL Version 3.0
• SSML Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) Version 1.1
• SVG Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.1 (Second Edition)
• SVG Access Accessibility Features of SVG
• WAI-ARIA Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.0
• WCAG20 Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)2.0
• WOFF WOFF File Format 1.0
• XInclude XML Inclusions (XInclude) Version 1.0 (Second Edition)
• XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Fifth Edition)
• XML DSIG Core XML-Signature Syntax and Processing Version 1.1
  
• XML ENC Core XML Encryption Syntax and Processing Version 1.1
  
• XML SIG Decrypt Decryption Transform for XML Signature
• XML Sec RNG Schemas XML Security RELAX NG Schemas
• XML Events XML Events
• XMLNS Namespaces in XML (Third Edition)

3.9 Validation of EPUB documents

The open-source validator tool for EPUB 2 and EPUB 3 content.: EPUBCheck 3.0 is available at validator.idpf.org

4. New and Potential work

4.1 work in progress at IDPF

• Add dictionaries and indexes support to EPUB3
• Specify CSS Page Template to format content into a sequence of interactive pages, rather than being presented as a single scrolled container (as per the standard CSS formatting process for on-screen display) or as a scrolled container which has been simply split up into a sequence of pages (as per the standard CSS formatting process for printing). Introduction of specific properties, at-rules, and CSS constructs with -epub- prefixes.
• DRM: no agreed uniform DRM system acrss major publishers. Publishers continue to require DRM in their eBook distribution agreements, and eBook retailers have used DRM to promote “lock-in” to their platforms. The lack of a standard DRM has led to fragmentation in the market, where in different retailers use non-interoperable DRM schemes that are tied in with eBook reader devices or apps. Content protection scheme for EPUB outlines what would be a “lightweight” scheme, occupying a middle ground between strong DRM and DRM-free
• @@@s that allow advanced adaptive layout (the ability to have only one EPUB file with multiple CSS stylesheets that can easily change the layoutofthe ebook based on the sizeofthe screen and the position–horizontal and vertical).fixed layout metadata and page template

4.2 Potential work

• Accessible infographics and external descriptions for inaccessible elements
• Packages that are not zipped but are distributed.
• Guidelines for accessible readers (Something similar to the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines).
  

4.3 Issues and need for coordination

EPUB 3 references W3C specifications that are not yet final, and incompatible changes to them may occur in the future that would cause EPUB 3 Content Documents that were previously conformant to no longer be conformant to the latest versions of the referenced specifications.

• The IDPF anticipates revising the EPUB 3 specifications if and when such incompatible changes occur, updating the normative constraints defined herein as necessary and incrementing the minor version number of EPUB 3
• EPUB 3 may have new modules developed to add future functionalities.

CSS and HTML5

The following refecenced specifications are currently W3C Working Drafts:

• CSS Writing Modes Module Level 3, CSS3 Ruby Module , CSS Text Level 3 , CSS Regions Module Level 3 - for page template.
• Concerns about ruby element [to investigate]
  

Accessibility

• Fixed layouts may not allow escaping from it, non-fixed-layout version should be rendered. This is an issue with WCAG guideline (but it seems reflowable version can be packaged along with a fixed layout version) [to investigate]

4.4. Specification Improuvements

Reader systems support is not mandatory for many features in the spec:

• audio and video
  
• javascript
  
• media overlays
  

4.5.Testing

• IDPF does not have a test procedure (like CR) to validate their specification.
• IDPF announced the open source epub-samples project. This EPUB sample document repository is intended to showcase features of the EPUB 3 standard, and to provide evaluation and testing materials for Reading System developers.

4.6 Role of the W3C

• @@@ being out there to advance the use of Web standards and avoid proprietary things ought to be helpful
• @@

5. Implementations

EPUB format can be read at least by the Kobo eReader, Blackberry Playbook, Apple's iBooks app running on iOS devices such as the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, Barnes and Noble Nook, Sony Reader, BeBook, Bookeen Cybook Gen3 (with firmware v. 2 and up), COOL-ER, Adobe Digital Editions, Lexcycle Stanza, BookGlutton, AZARDI, FBReader, Aldiko, Moon+ Reader and WordPlayer on Android, Freda on Windows Mobile and Windows Phone 7, the Mozilla Firefox add-on EPUBReader, and Okular. Several other desktop reader software programs are currently implementing support for the format, such as dotReader, Mobipocket, uBook.

The only notable device lacking integrated support for the EPUB format is the Amazon Kindle, although there has recently been speculation that the Kindle will soon support this format.

Adobe Digital Editions uses .epub format for its e-books, with DRM protection provided through their proprietary ADEPT mechanism.

5.2 EPUB readers and authoring tools

• Readium project is an open source software for handling EPUB 3 publications, it is built on WebKit. Next step would be to get EPUB3 into the browsers.
• A list of EPUB Software reading systems, Editing systems and Hardware reading systems
• Adobe Digital Editions for viewing and testing ePub files
• The Book Industry Study Group (BISG) released recently a grid designed to reference what EPUB3 features are usable on which device, app, and reading system.

Note that BISG, the leading U.S. book trade association for standardized best practices, research, and educatinon, issued a press release endorsing EPUB 3 as the 'accepted and preferred format' for Web Standards-based digital content.

6. References

6.1 EPUB3 specifications

EPUB 3 consists of a set of four specifications:

• EPUB Publications 30, which defines publication-level semantics and overarching conformance requirements for EPUB Publications.
• EPUB ContentDocuments 3.0, which defines profiles of XHTML, SVG and CSS for use in the context of EPUB Publications.
• EPUB Open Container Format (OCF), which defines a file format and processing model for encapsulating a set of related resources into a single-file (ZIP) EPUB Container.
• EPUB MediaOverlays 30, which defines a format and a processing model for synchronization of text and audio.

Additionnal documents:

• EPUB Canonical Fragment Identifier (epubcfi) defines a method for referencing arbitrary content within an EPUB Publication through the use of fragment identifiers.
• EPUB 3 Fixed-Layout Documentsdefines a set of metadata properties to allow declarative expression of intended rendering behaviors of fixed-layout documents in the context of EPUB 3

6.2 IDPF Forum discussion:

iBook 2.0 (release on jan 2012) Apple’s new format is an EPUB-like variant specific to Apple.
iBook 2.0 looks like an EPUB3 format, but it's not an EPUB3 format.
Indeed, Apple as forked the EPB3 specification, with many incompatible design and new features.

Unfortunally iBook format is not documented. Non standard extentions are opaque, making iBook a propratary format which displays only on Apple devices.

2. Differences to epub

The differences between the iBooks 2.0 format and ePub3 seem all but trivial. But when that format is built around non-standard extensions to the CSS rendering model and all of the XHTML and the CSS are built around that extended model, the file is likely to forever be useless and unreadable in other reading systems.The work involved in converting an iBooks 2.0 file to a standard ePub3 is likely to be easy.

2.1 Packaging

Like EPUB, iBook 2.0 is a zipped file of the OCF Container. The structure is similar but iBookuses a different Mimetype:

• Mime Type file: application/x-ibooks+zip.
• META-INF folder (container file which points to the location of the .opf file)
• OPS folder (EPUB2 naming) stores the book content(opf, ncx, html, svg, png, css, etc files). It has valid NCX (EPUB2 format) and OPF files.
  

The change of Mimetype is enough to make conformant EPUB3 readers stall on a *.ibooks package.

2.2 HTML

Like EPUB, all Content Documents XHTML files are all HTML5 (XML serialisation).
But there are difference with EPUB3. For example, to applies stylesheets to these html5 documents, iBooks uses an xml-stylesheet processing instructions.
<?xml-stylesheet href='*' type='text/css' media='*'?>
instead of the more usual link element.as in EPUB.
It uses the proprietary and undocumented. XML namespace
xmlns:ibooks='http://www.apple.com/2011/iBooks

2.3 CSS

iBooks 2.0 format adds CSS extensions that are not part of the W3C standard. Apple uses custom properties to define for example strikethroughs, underlines, margins, and heights in various contexts. Undocumented extensions to the CSS standard, using -ibooks- prefix are for exmple:

Extended underlining is based on an old draft of CSS 3 Text and some of these proposed properties were dropped by the CSS WG.
Apple is also extending the CSS Multi-Column Layout Module, and Template-based layouts based on slots were originally proposed by Jakob Refstrup 10-mar-2011 on behalf of Apple

CSS style sheets also include for example definition for a proprietary namespace
@namespace ibooks 'http://www.apple.com/2011/iBooks
Other issue is for example the use of undefined behaviour of link element with the SVG documents
<link type='text/xml+svg' href='assets/svg/content1.svg' />

for more details on CSS issues, see iBooksAuthor, a nice tool but.. by Glassman
With iBook layout based on a custom / proprietary features, there is no easy way to convert those CSS files into EPUB3 CSS files.
Apple has also introduced it's own extention for Fixed layout The key component of the extension is the addition of the file META-INF/com.apple.ibooks.display-options.xml. This file tells iBooks that the book is the fixed-layout type.
Apple was an active IDPF member, that had come closest to delivering the features and capabilities of EPUB3 with iBooks.
Seems that most of the other EPUB3 features, including Media Overlays are supported.

2.4 Widgets extentions

iBooks Author provides authors with six built-in widgets:

• Gallery.
• Media
• Review.
• Keynote.
• Interactive image.
• 3D.

Apple has implemented these interactive widgets through object element with custom types and data attributes. The type tells iBooks what sort of widget it is and the data attributes give it the parameters. The code to do this are iBooks-only extensions to the webkit rendering engine they are using.
Example
object type='application/x-ibooks+anchored'>
<object type='application/x-ibooks+anchorednormal'>
<object
type='application/x-ibooks+widget'
......
EPUB3 provides a standard method for defining handlers for media types it doesn’t support, through the bindings element.
Apple could have provided handlers for its widgets, written in javascript, so that its books would have been forward compatible with other, future, ePub3 reading systems.
Using data-* attributes instead of PARAM tags specifically prevents the use of ePub3’s bindings element. to point at JS implementations of those widgets in those cases when a native implementation is not available. A compliant ePub3 reading system wouldn’t pass the data-* attributes on to the handler document

Reading Systems

iBooks is an e-book application by Apple Inc. for their iOS operating system and devices. (on iPad, iPhone, iPod touch).

Ibooks Author 2.3 Dmg Free

Authoring tool

iBooks Author (IBA) is Apple editor for ibooks 2.0 format. It does not create EPUB files and it cannot import existing EPUB files. It can't export to any other format.
Therfore authors are lock in iBook format and Apple market.
Note. iBooks Author end-user license agreement (EULA) as a restriction — that iBooks can be sold only in the iBookstore — For more details see The Unprecedented Audacity of the iBooks Author EULA

1. Introduction

Kindle Format 8 (KF8) is the latest generation file format for Amazon Kindle books, replacing Mobi 7.
It is used on the Kindle Fire. It is also supported by fourth-generation Kindle devices running firmware version 4.1.0 or later, by 'Kindle for PC' and by 'Kindle Reader' for the Mac.

Kindle devices do not support the EPUB file format used by many other e-book readers. Instead, they are designed to use Amazon's own e-book formats: AZW, MOBI and, in later devices, KF8.
These formats are intended for reflowable, richly formatted e-book content and support DRM restrictions, but unlike EPUB, they are proprietary formats.

Note: The older mobipocket format was built on HTML and CSS, and like EPUB it uses some Open eBook (OEB) files, such as .opf and .ncx. It was originally intended for low-power mobile devices, like the Palm Pilot,

2- Publishing scenarios

Kindle KF8 being encoded in Amazon's proprietary format, publishers create Kindle books using the following workflow:

• Use a free software program called KindleGen. This is a command line tool for building a Kindle book. KindleGen accepts source content in HTML, XHTML, or EPUB.
• Use Adobe InDesign with addition of a free software program called KindlePlugin for Adobe InDesign.This plug-in allows the publisher to convert content from InDesign into Kindle format KF8.
• Use Amazon’s self-service tools to create Kindle Books and sell them on Amazon: Kindle Direct Publishing Platform (KDP).
  
• Use non Amazon converters tools ( like the open source e-book calibre).
  
• Outsourcing to ProfessionalConversion Services

To publish on Kindle, authors generally write their content in the following formats and convert their file to Kindle’s format after completion

• Word (DOC or DOCX)
• HTML (ZIP, HTM, or HTML)
• ePub (EPUB)
• Adobe PDF (PDF)
• Mobipocket (MOBI or PRC)

Converting from Epub to Kindle.

Creating an KF8 file by compiling a source ePub file using KindleGen, one may meet the following issues:

• The OPF XML file is similarly structured like the EPUB's OPF file. But there are quite a bit of differences and the architecture is closer to the EPUB2 version
  <metadata> defines the metadata for the book using standard Dublin Core elements: title,creator, date, etc.
  <manifest> tells Kindle where things are. For example, you’ll see that it hasreferences to all the files we’re currently reviewing: the cover image, the book HTML file, the table of contents HTML file, thestylesheet, and the NCX file
  <spine> tells Kindle the order of how those HTML files should be read.

• The NCX file tells Kindle where those points are. The <navPoint>elements within the <navMap> tags define those points (EPUB2 version architecture).

• Formatting issues like
  - drop caps may not display correctly
  - in divs with left and top margins, you will lose the top margin
  - may have spacing issues

Therfore the EPUB source files and the container architecture must be adapted before input into KindleGen which converts this source content to a single file which supports both KF8 and Mobi formats

It is unlikelly Amazon will support EPUB3 (they could have done that with KF8). Amazon has valid reasons for using KF8: it has a built-in dictionary index and fixed layout, which EPUB does not really have yet, (but currently under developpement).

Features of KF8 include

• some support for HTML5 (but not the same subset as EPUB 3)
• some support for CSS3 (but not the same subset as EPUB 3)
• image downsampling
• dictionary and index markup (not directly)
• support for fixed layouts - but not the same as epub3(KF8 format supports fixed layout by adding data to the OPF file to define the pages and layout parameters).
• comic books with panel view options
• dual old and new format packaging for backwards compatibility
• Embedded fonts

3. KF8 relation to main W3C Technologies

Unfortunatelly, Amazon hasn't released a complete spec, only the Kindle Publishing Guidelines, which are not very explicit, but more oriented to which KF8 features works on each kindle device and guidelines.

3.1. HTML5

Kindle Format 8 supports most HTML 5.0 features, although the following HTML elements are no supported:
• Canvas
• Command
• Datalist
• Script (reserved for Amazon use only)
• Base
• Form
• Eventsource
• KeyGen
• Input
• Embed (Only SVG is supported for Kindle Fire)
• Object (Only SVG is supported for Kindle Fire)
• Param
• Noscript
• IFrame
Currently, only Kindle for IOS supports audio and video content. Kindle e Ink devices and Kindle Fire do not support Kindle Editions with Audio/Video. Video Codec: H.264 (recommended), MPEG-2, Audio Codec: MP3
See full list of HTML Tags Supported in Kindle Format 8 in appendix 11.1 of the Kindle Publishing Guidelines.or see Listof supported HTML tags in KF8

3.2. CSS Style sheets

• Kindle Format 8 (KF8) includes support for Cascading Style Sheets CSS 2/CSS 3. [No real precision about the subset of CSS 2 and CSS3].
  See full list of CSS Selectors, Attributes, and Properties Supported in Kindle Format 8 in appendix 11.2 of the Kindle Publishing Guidelines or See Listof supported CSS features in KF8
• support for Media Queries (Support for two new media types enables content creators to use specific CSS based on the Mobi or KF8 file format: @media amzn-mobii and @media amzn-kf8.

3.3. SVG

SVG is supported via the img element. NO information available for the profile used and if it is possible to embedded in XHTML Content Documents.

3.4 Non supported W3C technologies (available in Epub)

• No support for Media Overlay
• No support for Text-to-Speech (TTS)
• Limited support for I18N
  • limited support for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean text. (The Kindle Readers for e Ink devices and applications can render horizontal left to right Chinese, Japanese, and Korean text).
  • limited font support for the CJK characters.
  • no support for right to left vertical scripts
  • no support for Japanese Ruby
    

Testing Kindle Books

There are 3 ways to test Kindle book before adding it to the Kindle store:

• Use the Kindle Previewer is a to test EPUB file. It allows to select views that represent the different devices including Kindle, Kindle Fire, Kindle for PC, and Kindle for IOS.
  
• Use Kindle devices and Kindle applications. You can test Mobi 7 content on a Kindle e Ink device and on Kindle applications for PC/Mac/Android. You can text KF8 content on a Kindle Fire.
• Use KindleDirect Publishing (KDP) Platform which accepts a variety of book formats and provides preview capability on the website.
  

How does ePUB3 compare to Amazon's new KF8 format?

• certification :The QED stands for Quality, Excellence, Design. It is the “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval™” for eBooks and enhanced eBooks.