Contents
- About This FAQ
- About the OEBF and OEBPS
- Open Standards in the OEBPS
- OEBPS-Specific Definitions
- Creating OEBPS Publications
- Creating OEBPS Documents
- Can OEBPS Documents handle special characters? Tables? Equations?
- How does coding Basic OEBPS Documents differ from coding HTML for a web page?
- How can I convert from my word-processing or page-layout program to an OEBPS Document?
- What does it mean when a Basic OEBPS tag or attribute in the OEBPS is "deprecated"?
- Why should I use Extended OEBPS Documents at all? Can’t I just stick with basic OEBPS Documents?
- Why is a DTD important? Can’t an Extended OEBPS Document be coded without one?
- Making eBooks from OEBPS Publications
- What does it mean when an eBook platform says it supports the OEBPS?
- Are OEBPS Publications cross-platform?
- What are all these other formats? .lit, .imp, .rb, and so on? How do they fit with the OEBPS?
- How do I turn the multiple files of an OEBPS Publication into a single file for download into a reading system?
- Archiving and Outsourcing Issues
- What parts of an OEBPS Publication should I archive? What kind of documentation should I have about an OEBPS Publication?
- What should I find out from a vendor offering to convert to XML or an OEBPS Publication for me?
- What kind of design spec can I create for an OEBPS Publication?
- Can I give an OEBPS Publication to a vendor that typesets SGML or XML, in order to typeset a print book?
- Can I typeset from an OEBPS Publication myself?
- Additional Resources
About This FAQ
Intended audience
This FAQ is primarily intended for those who create eBook content and need a quick and relatively painless introduction to the Open eBook Publication Structure and the technologies underlying it. It is not intended for hardcore developers, though some sections may be useful to them. It is not intended for people who read but do not produce eBooks, though they may find it of interest.
To reduce the burden of FAQ maintenance, this FAQ avoids mention of specific software and hardware whenever possible. This unfortunately reduces its usefulness to those trying to integrate OEB Publications into publishing workflows, but the danger of obsolescence has been judged greater than the benefit of the additional information.
Copyright
Copyright © 2001–2002 Dorothea Salo. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts.
Officiality (or lack thereof)
This FAQ is neither endorsed nor ratified in any way by the Open eBook Forum or any of its member organizations or participants. All errors, infelicities, and unpopular opinions are the sole responsibility of Dorothea Salo. Dorothea is not a lawyer; nothing in this FAQ represents legal advice. Anyone with intellectual-property or other legal concerns is strongly advised to contact a competent attorney.
(Brief first-person statement: Errors of fact will be cheerfully corrected when brought to my attention. I make no apology for the statements of opinion sprinkled throughout this FAQ, nor will I remove them on mere grounds that they anger someone, though I welcome discussion of anything I say that proves controversial.)
This FAQ is not intended as a substitute for reading the Open eBook Publication Structure. Many features this FAQ mentions are more fully explained there.
History
- First published: December 2001
- Major update: February 2002
- Discussion of character entities added to section on Basic vs. Extended OEB.
- FAQ split into several pages and redesigned, for ease of navigation.
- OEBPS-Tech mailing list added to resources section.
- Minor style refinements and corrections.
(Last updated February 8, 2002)