2018. E-book formats evolution

The whitepaper “E-book formats evolution. The state of art and future of digital publications” is distributed thanks to the collaboration of  Fondazione LIA, Fundación Germán Sánchez Ruipérez and Internation Publishing Distribution Association (IPDA).

Introduction

From 2017 onwards, the field of digital publishing standards is experiencing a new phase; while the arrival of EPUB 3 gave the impression of having reached its peak in terms of the possibilities offered by the digital world for publications, the move from the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) gave new impetus to inventiveness in this area with the design of Web Publications: publications that can be used online and offline, natively in the browser.
What we are trying to find is the Holy Grail of publishing: a unique format for any type of publication. As we work on the specifications of new formats we must not forget that there is an important player in terms of numbers, Amazon, which uses its own digital format (.mobi) with its own rules, which inevitably affects the perception of the final consumer with respect to digital publishing.
In this paper we will try to describe the state of the art of digital publishing and the future scenarios that may arise, trying not to forget the role of Amazon.

Gregorio Pellegrino, author of this whitepaper, is Chief Accessibility Officer di Fondazione LIA. He is involved in international working-group devoted to accessibility of publications and standard formats.

Download the paper HERE.