Comparison of e-book formats - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The following is a comparison of e-book formats used to create and publish e-book

E-book

An electronic book is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, and produced on, published through, and readable on computers or other electronic devices. Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital...

s.

A writer or publisher has many options when it comes to choosing a format

Document file format

A document file format is a text or binary file format for storing documents on a storage media, especially for use by computers.There currently exist a multitude of incompatible document file formats....

for publication. While the average end-user might arguably simply want to read books, every format has its proponents. The myriad e-book formats are sometimes collectively referred to as the "Tower of eBabel".

The file size for texts without images depends on the file format, but is always relatively small compared with a richly illustrated text.

Amazon Kindle

Format:	Kindle
Published as:	.azw

With the launch of the Kindle

Amazon Kindle

The Amazon Kindle is an e-book reader developed by Amazon.com subsidiary Lab126 which uses wireless connectivity to enable users to shop for, download, browse, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other digital media...

eBook reader, Amazon.com

Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...

created the proprietary format, AZW. It is based on the Mobipocket

Mobipocket

Mobipocket SA is a French company incorporated in March 2000 which produces Mobipocket Reader software, an E-Book reader for some PDAs, phones and desktop operating systems....

standard, with a slightly different serial number scheme (it uses an asterisk

Asterisk

An asterisk is a typographical symbol or glyph. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often pronounce it as star...

instead of a dollar sign

Dollar sign

The dollar or peso sign is a symbol primarily used to indicate the various peso and dollar units of currency around the world.- Origin :...

) and its own DRM

Digital rights management

Digital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...

formatting. Because the eBooks bought on the Kindle are delivered over its wireless system called Whispernet, the user does not see the AZW files during the download process. The Kindle format is now available on a variety of platforms.

Archos Diffusion

Format:	Archos Reader
Published as:	.aeh

The AEH format is an XML-based proprietary format developed by the French firm Archos Diffusion. AEH files use a proprietary DRM and encryption method and are readable only in the Archos Player. It supports various input formats for text, audio or video, such as PDF, WMA, MP3, WMV, and allows multiple interactive functions such as bookmarking, advanced plain-text searching, dynamic text highlighting, etc.

Broadband eBooks (BBeB)

Format:	Sony media
Published as:	.lrf; .lrx

The digital book format used by Sony Corporation. It is a proprietary format, but some reader software for general-purpose computers, particularly under Linux (for example, calibre's

Calibre (software)

calibre is free and open source e-book computer software that organizes, saves and manages e-books, supporting a variety of formats. It also supports e-book syncing with a variety of popular e-book readers and will, within DRM restrictions, convert e-books between differing formats...

internal viewer), have the capability to read it. The LRX file extension represents a DRM encrypted eBook.

Comic Book Archive file

Format:	compressed images
Published as:	.cbr (RAR); .cbz (ZIP); .cb7 (7z); .cbt (TAR); .cba (ACE)

A Comic Book Archive file or ComicBook Reader File consists of a series of image files, typically PNG (lossless compression) or JPEG (lossy compression) files, stored as a single archive file, for the purpose of sequential viewing of images, especially comic books. The idea was made popular by the CDisplay image viewer; since then, many viewers for different platforms have been created. Comic Book Archive files are not a distinct file format; only the file name extension differs from a standard file of the given archive type. Some applications support additional tag information (like artists or story information) in the form of embedded XML files in the archive, or use of the Zip comment function.

Compiled HM

Format:	Microsoft Compiled HTML Help
Published as:	.chm

CHM format is a proprietary format based on HTML. Multiple pages and embedded graphics are distributed along with proprietary metadata

Metadata

The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...

as a single compressed file. In contrast, in HTML, a site consists of multiple HTML files and associated image files in standardized formats.

DAISY - ANSI/NISO Z39.86

Format:	DAISY DAISY Digital Talking Book DAISY is a standard for digital talking books. DAISY books are typically used by people have "print disabilities," including blindness, impaired vision, dyslexia...
Published as:

The Digital Accessible Information SYstem (DAISY) is an XML

XML

Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....

-based open standard maintained by the DAISY Consortium for people with print disabilities. DAISY has wide international support with features for multimedia, navigation and synchronization. A subset of the DAISY format has been adopted by law in the United States as the National Instructional Material Accessibility Standard (NIMAS), and K-12 textbooks and instructional materials are now required to be provided to students with disabilities.

DAISY is already aligned with the EPUB open standard, and is expected to fully converge with its forthcoming EPUB3 revision.

Desktop Author

Format:	DNL Reader
Published as:	.dnl; .exe

Desktop Author is an electronic publishing suite that allows creation of digital web books with virtual turning pages. Digital web books of any publication type can be written in this format, including brochures, e-books, digital photo albums, e-cards, digital diaries, online resumes, quizzes, exams, tests, forms and surveys. DesktopAuthor packages the e-book into a ".dnl" or ".exe" book. Each can be a single, plain stand-alone

Standalone program

A standalone program is a computer program that does not load any external module, library function, or program and that is designed to boot with the bootstrap procedure of the target processor...

executable file which does not require any other programs to view it. DNL files can be viewed inside a web browser or stand-alone via the DNL Reader.

DNL format is an e-Book format, one which replicates the real life alternative, namely page turning Books. The DNL e-Book is developed by DNAML Pty Limited an Australian company established in 1999. A DNL e-Book can be produced using DeskTop Author or DeskTop Communicator.

DjVu

Format:	DjVu
Published as:	.djvu DjVu DjVu is a computer file format designed primarily to store scanned documents, especially those containing a combination of text, line drawings, and photographs. It uses technologies such as image layer separation of text and background/images, progressive loading, arithmetic coding, and lossy...

DjVu is a format specialized for storing scanned documents. It includes advanced compressors optimized for low-color images, such as text documents. Individual files may contain one or more pages. DjVu files cannot be re-flowed.

The contained page images are divided in separate layers (such as multi-color, low-resolution, background layer using lossy compression, and few-colors, high-resolution, tightly-compressed foreground layer), each compressed in the best available method. The format is designed to decompress very quickly, even faster than vector-based formats.

The advantage of DjVu is that it is possible to take a high-resolution scan (300-400 DPI), good enough for both on-screen reading

Screen reading

Screen reading is the act of reading a text on a computer screen, smartphone, e-book reader, etc. It is often contrasted with the act of reading a text on paper, in particular a printed text....

and printing, and store it very efficiently. Several dozens of 300 DPI black-and-white scans can be stored in less than a megabyte.

EPUB

Format:	IDPF/EPUB
Published as:	.epub

The .epub or OEBPS format is an open standard for e-books created by the International Digital Publishing Forum

International Digital Publishing Forum

The International Digital Publishing Forum is a trade and standards association for the digital publishing industry, that has been set up in order to establish a reliable and complete standard for ebook publishing....

(IDPF). It combines three IDPF open standards:

Open Publication Structure (OPS) 2.0, which describes the content markup (either XHTML or Daisy DTBook
DTBook
DTBook or DAISY XML is a XML-based document file format. It is used in EPUB e-books and DAISY Digital Talking Book, as well as other places...

)
Open Packaging Format (OPF) 2.0, which describes the structure of an .epub in XML
OEBPS Container Format (OCF) 1.0, which bundles files together (as a renamed ZIP file)

The EPUB format is rapidly gaining popularity and as of 2011 is the most widely supported vendor-independent XML-based e-book format. The format can be read at least by the Kobo eReader

Kobo eReader

The Kobo eReader is an e-book reader produced by Toronto-based company Kobo Inc. The original version was released in July 2010 and was marketed as a minimalist alternative to the more expensive e-book readers available at the time. , fifty-eight percent of Kobo Inc is owned by Indigo Books & Music...

, Apple's iBooks

IBooks

iBooks is an e-book application by Apple Inc. It was announced in conjunction with the iPad on January 27, 2010, and was released for the iPhone and iPod Touch in mid-2010, as part of the iOS 4 update. At that time, it was described by Apple as being available only in the United States...

app running on iOS devices such as the iPhone

IPhone

The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...

, iPod Touch

IPod Touch

The iPod Touch is a portable media player, personal digital assistant, handheld game console, and Wi-Fi mobile device designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The iPod Touch adds the multi-touch graphical user interface to the iPod line...

and iPad

IPad

The iPad is a line of tablet computers designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc., primarily as a platform for audio-visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music, games, and web content. The iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010 by Apple's then-CEO Steve Jobs. Its size and...

, Barnes and Noble Nook

Nook

Nook may refer to a small corner formed by two walls.Nook may also refer to:*A slang name for a person reading; also known as a "book nook"*"Nook", a science-fiction TV series Lexx episode...

, Sony Reader

Sony Reader

The Sony Reader is a line of e-book readers manufactured by Sony. It uses an electronic paper display developed by E Ink Corporation, is viewable in direct sunlight, requires no power to maintain a static image, and is usable in portrait or landscape orientation.Sony sells e-books for the Reader...

, BeBook, Bookeen Cybook Gen3 (with firmware v. 2 and up)

Cybook Gen3

Cybook Gen3 is a 6 inch e-Reader, specially designed for reading e-Books and e-News, or listening to MP3 music or audio-books. It is produced by the French company Bookeen....

, COOL-ER, Adobe Digital Editions

Adobe Digital Editions

Adobe Digital Editions is ebook reader software from Adobe Systems built using Adobe Flash. It is used for acquiring, managing and reading eBooks, digital newspapers, and other digital publications. The software supports PDF, XHTML , and Flash-based content...

, Lexcycle Stanza

Lexcycle Stanza

Lexcycle Stanza is a freeware program for reading eBooks, digital newspapers, and other digital publications. The software supports the eBook formats EPUB, eReader, MS LIT, Amazon Kindle, Mobipocket, and PalmDoc, as well as general document formats HTML, PDF, MS Word, and Rich Text Format...

, BookGlutton, AZARDI, FBReader

FBReader

FBReader is a free and open source e-book reader for GNU/Linux, Microsoft Windows, and other platforms.It was originally written for the Sharp Zaurus and currently runs on many other mobile devices, like the Nokia Internet Tablets, as well as desktop computers...

, Aldiko

Aldiko

Aldiko is an e-book reader application for the Android operating system. It supports the EPUB format for digital publications and incorporates facilities for browsing online catalogs on thousands of books and downloading them directly into the user's personal library...

, Moon+ Reader and WordPlayer on Android, Freda on Windows Mobile and Windows Phone 7, and the Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. , Firefox is the second most widely used browser, with approximately 25% of worldwide usage share of web browsers...

add-on EPUBReader

EPUBReader

EPUBReader is a freeware Firefox add-on that lets you read the contents of any ePub book right inside Firefox without requiring any special software....

. Several other desktop reader software programs are currently implementing support for the format, such as dotReader, FBReader

FBReader

, Mobipocket

Mobipocket

Mobipocket SA is a French company incorporated in March 2000 which produces Mobipocket Reader software, an E-Book reader for some PDAs, phones and desktop operating systems....

, uBook and Okular

Okular

Okular is the document viewer for KDE SC 4 . It is based on KPDF and it replaced KPDF, KGhostView, KFax, KFaxview and KDVI in KDE 4.Its functionality can be easily embedded in other applications....

.

The only notable device lacking integrated support for the EPUB format is the Amazon Kindle

Amazon Kindle

, although there has recently been speculation that the Kindle will soon support this format.

Adobe Digital Editions

Adobe Digital Editions

uses .epub format for its e-books, with DRM protection provided through their proprietary ADEPT mechanism. The recently developed ADEPT framework and scripts have been reverse-engineered to circumvent this DRM system.

DSLibris, a Sourceforge.net project, is able to decode e-books in .epub and .xht format for reading on Nintendo DS

Nintendo DS

The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...

systems.

eReader

Formerly Palm Digital Media/Peanut Press

Format:	Palm Media
Published as:	.pdb PDB (Palm OS) PDB is a container format for record databases in Palm OS, Garnet OS and Access Linux Platform. Its structure is similar to PRC resource databases...

eReader is a freeware

Freeware

Freeware is computer software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee, but usually with one or more restricted usage rights. Freeware is in contrast to commercial software, which is typically sold for profit, but might be distributed for a business or commercial purpose in the...

program for viewing Palm Digital Media electronic books which use the pdb format used by many Palm applications. Versions are available for iPhone

IPhone

, PalmOS, WebOS, Android, Symbian

Symbian

Symbian is a mobile operating system and computing platform designed for smartphones and currently maintained by Accenture. The Symbian platform is the successor to Symbian OS and Nokia Series 60; unlike Symbian OS, which needed an additional user interface system, Symbian includes a user...

, BlackBerry

BlackBerry

BlackBerry is a line of mobile email and smartphone devices developed and designed by Canadian company Research In Motion since 1999.BlackBerry devices are smartphones, designed to function as personal digital assistants, portable media players, internet browsers, gaming devices, and much more...

, Windows Mobile

Windows Mobile

Windows Mobile is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft that was used in smartphones and Pocket PCs, but by 2011 was rarely supplied on new phones. The last version is "Windows Mobile 6.5.5"; it is superseded by Windows Phone, which does not run Windows Mobile software.Windows Mobile is...

Pocket PC/Smartphone, desktop Windows, and Macintosh

Macintosh

The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...

. The reader shows text one page at a time, as paper books do. eReader supports embedded hyperlinks and images. Additionally, the Stanza

Lexcycle Stanza

application for the iPhone

IPhone

and iPod Touch

IPod Touch

can read both encrypted

Encryption

In cryptography, encryption is the process of transforming information using an algorithm to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing special knowledge, usually referred to as a key. The result of the process is encrypted information...

and unencrypted eReader files.

The program supports features like bookmarks and footnotes, enabling the user to mark any page with a bookmark, and any part of the text with a footnote-like commentary. Footnotes can later be exported as a Memo document.

The company also offers two Windows/MacOS programs for producing e-books: the Dropbook, which is free, and the eBook Studio, which is not. Dropbook is a file-oriented PML-to-PDB

PDB (Palm OS)

PDB is a container format for record databases in Palm OS, Garnet OS and Access Linux Platform. Its structure is similar to PRC resource databases...

converter; eBook Studio incorporates a WYSIWYG

WYSIWYG

WYSIWYG is an acronym for What You See Is What You Get. The term is used in computing to describe a system in which content displayed onscreen during editing appears in a form closely corresponding to its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product...

editor. Both programs are compatible with simple text files.

On July 20, 2009, Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble, Inc. is the largest book retailer in the United States, operating mainly through its Barnes & Noble Booksellers chain of bookstores headquartered at 122 Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron District in Manhattan in New York City. Barnes & Noble also operated the chain of small B. Dalton...

announced that the eReader format will be the method they will use to deliver e-books. Their Nook Reader supports the eReader format, but it is not currently supported on Barnes & Noble's NookColor. eReader format is also supported by the discontinued eSlick, an e-reading device from Foxit Software

Foxit

Foxit Corporation is a California headquartered software corporation with offices in United States, China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. Founded in 2001 and a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, Foxit believes in innovative, standards-based technology and unrivaled customer support, with a deep...

FictionBook (Fb2)

Format:	FictionBook
Published as:	.fb2 FictionBook FictionBook is an open XML-based e-book format, which originated and gained popularity in Russia. The FictionBook files have the .fb2 filename extension....

FictionBook

FictionBook is an open XML-based e-book format, which originated and gained popularity in Russia. The FictionBook files have the .fb2 filename extension....

is a popular XML

XML

-based e-book format, supported by free readers such as FBReader

FBReader

, Bebook, Haali Reader and STDU Viewer

STDU Viewer

STDU Viewer is a compact viewer for PDF, WWF, DjVu, Comic Book Archive , FB2, XPS, TCR, multi-page TIFF, TXT, PalmDoc , EMF, WMF, BMP, GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, PSD, PCX, DCX files...

Founder Electronics

Format:	Apabi Reader
Published as:	.xeb; .ceb

APABI is a format deviced by Founder Electronics. It is a popular format for Chinese e-books. It can be read using the Apabi Reader software, and produced using Apabi Publisher. Both .xeb and .ceb files are encoded binary files. The Iliad e-book device includes an Apabi 'viewer'.

Hypertext Markup Language

Format:	Hypertext
Published as:	.htm; .html

HTML

HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....

is the markup language

Markup language

A markup language is a modern system for annotating a text in a way that is syntactically distinguishable from that text. The idea and terminology evolved from the "marking up" of manuscripts, i.e. the revision instructions by editors, traditionally written with a blue pencil on authors' manuscripts...

used for most web

World Wide Web

The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...

pages. E-books using HTML can be read using a Web browser

Web browser

A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...

. The specifications for the format are available without charge from the W3C.

HTML adds specially marked meta-elements to otherwise plain text encoded using character sets like ASCII

ASCII

The American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a character-encoding scheme based on the ordering of the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that use text...

or UTF-8

UTF-8

UTF-8 is a multibyte character encoding for Unicode. Like UTF-16 and UTF-32, UTF-8 can represent every character in the Unicode character set. Unlike them, it is backward-compatible with ASCII and avoids the complications of endianness and byte order marks...

. As such, suitably formatted files can be, and sometimes are, generated by hand using a plain text editor
Text editor
A text editor is a type of program used for editing plain text files.Text editors are often provided with operating systems or software development packages, and can be used to change configuration files and programming language source code....

or programmer's editor
Source code editor
A source code editor is a text editor program designed specifically for editing source code of computer programs by programmers. It may be a standalone application or it may be built into an integrated development environment ....

. Many HTML generator applications exist to ease this process and often require less intricate knowledge of the format details involved.

HTML on its own is not a particularly efficient format to store information in, requiring more storage space for a given work than many other formats. However, several e-Book formats including the Amazon Kindle, Open eBook, Compressed HM, Mobipocket and EPUB store each book chapter in HTML format, then use ZIP

ZIP (file format)

Zip is a file format used for data compression and archiving. A zip file contains one or more files that have been compressed, to reduce file size, or stored as is...

compression to compress the HTML data, images, metadata and style sheets into a single, significantly smaller, file.

HTML files encompass a wide range of standards and displaying HTML files correctly can be complicated. Additionally many of the features supported, such as forms, are not relevant to e-books.

IEC 62448

Format:	IEC 62448
Published as:

IEC 62448 is an international standard created by International Electrotechnical Commission

International Electrotechnical Commission

The International Electrotechnical Commission is a non-profit, non-governmental international standards organization that prepares and publishes International Standards for all electrical, electronic and related technologies – collectively known as "electrotechnology"...

(IEC)), Technical Committee 100, Technical Area 10 (Multimedia e-publishing and e-book).

The current version of IEC 62448 is an umbrella standard that contains as appendices two concrete formats, XMDF of Sharp and BBeB of Sony. However, BBeB has been discontinued by Sony and the version of XMDF that is in the specification is out of date. The IEC TA10 group is discussing next steps, and has invited the IDPF organization which has standardized EPUB to be a liaison. It is possible that the current version of EPUB and/or the forthcoming EPUB3 revision may be added to IEC 62448. Meanwhile a number of Japanese companies have proposed that IEC standardize a proposed new Japanese-centric file format that is expected to unify DotBook of Voyager Japan and XMDF of Sharp. This new format has not been publicly disclosed as of November, 2010 but it is supposed to cover basic representations for the Japanese language. Technically speaking, this revision is supposed to provide a Japanese minimum set, a Japanese extension set, and a stylesheet language. These issues were discussed in the TC100 meeting held in October 2010 but no decisions were taken besides offering the liaison status to IDPF.

Microsoft LIT

Format:	Microsoft Reader
Published as:	.lit

DRM-protected LIT files are only readable in the proprietary Microsoft Reader

Microsoft Reader

Microsoft Reader is a Microsoft program for the reading of e-books, originally released in August 2000.Microsoft Reader is available for download from Microsoft as a free program for computers running Windows. It can also be used on a Pocket PC, where it has been built into the ROM since Windows CE...

program, as the .LIT format, otherwise similar to Microsoft's CHM format, includes Digital Rights Management

Digital rights management

features. Other third party readers, such as Lexcycle Stanza

Lexcycle Stanza

, can read unprotected LIT files. There are also tools such as Convert Lit, which can convert .lit files to HTML files or OEBPS files.

The Microsoft Reader uses patented ClearType

ClearType

ClearType is a trademark for Microsoft's implementation of subpixel rendering technology. ClearType attempts to improve the appearance of text on certain types of computer display screens by sacrificing color fidelity for additional intensity variation. This trade-off is asserted to work well on...

display technology. In Reader navigation works with a keyboard, mouse, stylus, or through electronic bookmarks. The Catalog Library records reader books in a personalized "home page", and books are displayed with ClearType to improve readability. A user can add annotations and notes to any page, create large-print e-books with a single command, or create free-form drawings on the reader pages. A built-in dictionary allows the user to look up words.

Microsoft announced Microsoft Reader will be discontinued on August 30th 2012.

Mobipocket

Format:	Mobipocket
Published as:	.prc PRC (Palm OS) PRC is a container format for code databases in Palm OS, Garnet OS and Access Linux Platform. Its structure is similar to PDB databases. Usually, a PRC file is a flat representation of a Palm OS application that is stored as forked database on the PDA.... ; .mobi

The Mobipocket

Mobipocket

Mobipocket SA is a French company incorporated in March 2000 which produces Mobipocket Reader software, an E-Book reader for some PDAs, phones and desktop operating systems....

e-book format is based on the Open eBook

Open eBook

Open eBook , or formally, the Open eBook Publication Structure , is a legacy e-book format "based primarily on technology developed by SoftBook Press" and on XML; it has been superseded by the EPUB electronic publication standard.Open eBook is a ZIP file plus a Manifest file...

standard using XHTML

XHTML

XHTML is a family of XML markup languages that mirror or extend versions of the widely-used Hypertext Markup Language , the language in which web pages are written....

and can include JavaScript

JavaScript

JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....

and frames. It also supports native SQL

SQL

SQL is a programming language designed for managing data in relational database management systems ....

queries to be used with embedded databases. There is a corresponding e-book reader.
A free e-book of the German Wikipedia

German Wikipedia

The German Wikipedia is the German-language edition of Wikipedia, a free and mostly publicly editable online encyclopedia.Founded in March 2001, it is the second-oldest and, with over articles, the second-largest edition of Wikipedia, behind the English Wikipedia...

has been published in Mobipocket format.

The Mobipocket

Mobipocket

Mobipocket SA is a French company incorporated in March 2000 which produces Mobipocket Reader software, an E-Book reader for some PDAs, phones and desktop operating systems....

Reader has a home page library. Readers can add blank pages in any part of a book and add free-hand drawings. Annotations — highlights, bookmarks, corrections, notes, and drawings — can be applied, organized, and recalled from a single location. Images are converted to GIF format and have a maximum size of 64K, sufficient for mobile phones with small screens, but rather restrictive for newer gadgets. Mobipocket

Mobipocket

Mobipocket SA is a French company incorporated in March 2000 which produces Mobipocket Reader software, an E-Book reader for some PDAs, phones and desktop operating systems....

Reader has electronic bookmarks, and a built-in dictionary.

The reader has a full screen mode for reading and support for many PDAs

Personal digital assistant

A personal digital assistant , also known as a palmtop computer, or personal data assistant, is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. Current PDAs often have the ability to connect to the Internet...

, Communicators

Personal digital assistant

, and Smartphone

Smartphone

A smartphone is a high-end mobile phone built on a mobile computing platform, with more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary feature phone. The first smartphones were devices that mainly combined the functions of a personal digital assistant and a mobile phone or camera...

s. Mobipocket

Mobipocket

Mobipocket SA is a French company incorporated in March 2000 which produces Mobipocket Reader software, an E-Book reader for some PDAs, phones and desktop operating systems....

products support most Windows, Symbian, BlackBerry and Palm operating systems, but not the Android platform. Using WINE, the reader works under Linux or Mac OS X. Third-party applications like Okular

Okular

Okular is the document viewer for KDE SC 4 . It is based on KPDF and it replaced KPDF, KGhostView, KFax, KFaxview and KDVI in KDE 4.Its functionality can be easily embedded in other applications....

and FBReader

FBReader

can also be used under Linux or Mac OS X, but they work only with unencrypted files.

The Amazon Kindle's AZW format is basically just the Mobipocket format with a slightly different serial number scheme (it uses an asterisk instead of a Dollar sign

Dollar sign

The dollar or peso sign is a symbol primarily used to indicate the various peso and dollar units of currency around the world.- Origin :...

), and .prc publications can be read directly on the Kindle. The Kindle AZW format also lacks some Mobipocket features such as javascript.

Mobipocket

Mobipocket

Mobipocket SA is a French company incorporated in March 2000 which produces Mobipocket Reader software, an E-Book reader for some PDAs, phones and desktop operating systems....

has developed an .epub to .mobi converter called KindleGen (supports IDPF 1.0 and IDPF 2.0 epub format, according to the company).

Notably, Eastern European letters with diacritical marks

Diacritic

A diacritic is a glyph added to a letter, or basic glyph. The term derives from the Greek διακριτικός . Diacritic is both an adjective and a noun, whereas diacritical is only an adjective. Some diacritical marks, such as the acute and grave are often called accents...

are not supported.

Multimedia eBooks

Format:	Eveda
Published as:	.exe or .html

A multimedia ebook is media

Media (communication)

In communications, media are the storage and transmission channels or tools used to store and deliver information or data...

and book

Book

A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...

content

Content (media and publishing)

In media production and publishing, content is information and experiences that may provide value for an end-user/audience in specific contexts. Content may be delivered via any medium such as the internet, television, and audio CDs, as well as live events such as conferences and stage performances...

that utilizes a combination of different book content format

Content format

A content format is an encoded format for converting a specific type of data to displayable information. Content formats are used in recording and transmission to prepare data for observation or interpretation. This includes both analog and digitized content...

s. The term can be used as a noun (a medium with multiple content formats) or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content formats.

The 'multimedia ebook' term is used in contrast to media which only utilize traditional forms of printed or text books. Multimedia ebooks include a combination of text

Written language

A written language is the representation of a language by means of a writing system. Written language is an invention in that it must be taught to children, who will instinctively learn or create spoken or gestural languages....

, audio

Audio file format

An audio file format is a file format for storing digital audio data on a computer system. This data can be stored uncompressed, or compressed to reduce the file size. It can be a raw bitstream, but it is usually a container format or an audio data format with defined storage layer.-Types of...

, image

Image

An image is an artifact, for example a two-dimensional picture, that has a similar appearance to some subject—usually a physical object or a person.-Characteristics:...

s, video

Video

Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...

, and/or interactive content formats. Much like how a traditional book can contain images to help the text tell a story, a multimedia ebook can contain other elements not formerly possible to help tell the story.

With the advent of more widespread tablet-like computers, such as the smartphone

Smartphone

, some publishing houses are planning to make multimedia ebooks, such as Penguin.

Newton eBook

Format:	Newton eBook
Published as:	.pkg

Commonly known as an Apple Newton

Apple Newton

The MessagePad was the first series of personal digital assistant devices developed by Apple for the Newton platform in 1993. Some electronic engineering and the manufacture of Apple's MessagePad devices was done in Japan by the Sharp Corporation...

book; a single Newton package file can contain multiple books (for example, the three books of a trilogy might be packaged together). All systems running the Newton operating system (the most common include the Newton MessagePads, eMates, Siemens Secretary Stations, Motorola Marcos, Digital Ocean Seahorses and Tarpons) have built-in support for viewing Newton books. The Newton package format was released to the public by Newton, Inc. prior to that company's absorption into Apple Computer. The format is thus arguably open and various people have written readers for it (writing a Newton book converter has even been assigned as a university-level class project).

Newton books have no support for DRM or encryption. They do support internal links, potentially multiple tables of contents and indexes, embedded gray scale images, and even some scripting capability (for example, it's possible to make a book in which the reader can influence the outcome). Newton books utilize Unicode

Unicode

Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...

and are thus available in numerous languages. An individual Newton book may actually contain multiple views representing the same content in different ways (such as for different screen resolutions).

Open Electronic Package

Format:	Open eBook
Published as:	.opf

OPF

Open eBook

is an XML

XML

-based e-book format created by E-Book Systems; it has been superseded by the EPUB electronic publication standard.

Portable Document Format

Format:	Adobe Portable Document Format
Published as:	.pdf Portable Document Format Portable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....

A file format created by Adobe Systems

Adobe Systems

Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...

, initially to provide a standard form for storing printable documents containing a set of page images. The format derives from PostScript

PostScript

PostScript is a dynamically typed concatenative programming language created by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in 1982. It is best known for its use as a page description language in the electronic and desktop publishing areas. Adobe PostScript 3 is also the worldwide printing and imaging...

, but without language features like loops, and with added support for features like compression, passwords and DRM. Because PDF documents can easily be viewed and printed by users on a variety of computer platforms

Platform (computing)

A computing platform includes some sort of hardware architecture and a software framework , where the combination allows software, particularly application software, to run...

, they are very common on the World Wide Web

World Wide Web

The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...

. The specification of the format is available without charge from Adobe.

Since the format is designed to reproduce page images, the text traditionally could not be re-flowed to fit the screen width or size. As a result PDF files designed for printing on standard paper sizes are less easily viewed on screens with limited size or resolution, such as those found on mobile phones and e-book readers. Adobe has addressed this drawback by adding a re-flow facility to its Acrobat Reader software, but for it to work the document must be marked for re-flowing at creation — meaning that existing PDF documents won't benefit unless they are tagged and resaved. The Windows Mobile (aka Pocket PC) version of Adobe Acrobat will automatically attempt to tag a PDF for reflow during the synchronization process using an installed plugin to Active Sync. However, this tagging process will not work on most locked or password protected PDF documents. It also doesn't work at present (2009–10) on the Windows Mobile Device Center (the successor to Active Sync) as found in Windows Vista and Windows 7. Thus, automatic tagging support during synchronization is limited to Windows XP/2000.

Multiple products support creating and tagging PDF files, such as Adobe Acrobat, PDFCreator

PDFCreator

PDFCreator is an application for converting documents into Portable Document Format format on Microsoft Windows operating systems. It works by creating a virtual printer that prints to PDF files, and thereby allows practically any application to create PDF files by choosing to print from within...

, OpenOffice.org

OpenOffice.org

OpenOffice.org, commonly known as OOo or OpenOffice, is an open-source application suite whose main components are for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, and databases. OpenOffice is available for a number of different computer operating systems, is distributed as free software...

, iText

IText

iText is a free and open source library for creating and manipulating PDF files in Java. It was written by Bruno Lowagie, Paulo Soares, and others. As of version 5.0.0 it is distributed under the Affero General Public License version 3. Previous versions of iText were distributed under the...

, and FOP, and several programming libraries. Third party viewers such as xpdf

Xpdf

Xpdf is an open-source PDF viewer for the X Window System and Motif.Xpdf runs on practically any Unix-like operating system. Xpdf can decode LZW and read encrypted PDFs. The official version obeys the DRM restrictions of PDF files, which may prevent copying, printing, or converting some PDF files...

are also available. Mac OS X has built-in PDF support, both for creation as part of the printing system and for display using the built-in Preview application.

PDF files are supported on many e-book readers including: Mobipocket

Mobipocket

Mobipocket SA is a French company incorporated in March 2000 which produces Mobipocket Reader software, an E-Book reader for some PDAs, phones and desktop operating systems....

, iRex iLiad

ILiad

The iLiad was an electronic handheld device, or e-Reader, which could be used for document reading and editing. Like the Barnes and Noble nook, Sony Reader or Amazon Kindle, the iLiad made use of an electronic paper display. In 2010, sales of the iLiad ended when its parent company, iRex, filed...

, iRex DR1000

Digital Reader 1000

The Digital Reader 1000 was an e-Book reading device that was produced by iRex in the Netherlands. Production was ceased in 2010 when iRex filed for bankruptcy...

, Sony Reader

Sony Reader

, Bookeen Cybook

Cybook Gen3

Cybook Gen3 is a 6 inch e-Reader, specially designed for reading e-Books and e-News, or listening to MP3 music or audio-books. It is produced by the French company Bookeen....

, Foxit

Foxit Reader

Foxit Reader is a multilingual PDF reader. Both the basic and full version readers can be downloaded for free.Foxit Reader is notable for its short load time and small filesize, and has been compared favorably to Adobe Reader...

eSlick, Amazon Kindle

Amazon Kindle

(2, 3, International & DX), Barnes & Noble Nook

Barnes & Noble Nook

The Barnes & Noble Nook is a brand of electronic-book reader developed by American book retailer Barnes & Noble, based on the Android platform. The original device was announced in the United States in October 2009, and was released the next month...

, the iPad

IPad

, PocketBook Reader

PocketBook Reader

PocketBook is a series of devices primarily for e-reading by PocketBook International, a Hong Kong based multinational company headquartered in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. USA headquarters are located in Overland Park, Kansas ....

, Bebook Neo and the Kobo eReader

Kobo eReader

. Also, pdf files can be read on the iPod Touch using the free Stanza app. On iPad, there are also many readers as Stanza, iBook, FlipReader, ...

Scientific papers and books are often found in PDF format. In this case, the problem of showing tables and equations correctly has been dealt with, when the PDF was created. When trying to reflow such text, ereaders typically obtain very poor results.

Plain text files

Format:	text
Published as:	.txt

E-books in plain text

Text file

A text file is a kind of computer file that is structured as a sequence of lines of electronic text. A text file exists within a computer file system...

exist. The size in bytes is simply the number of characters, including spaces, and with a new line counting for 1 or 2. For example, the Bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

, an 800,000-word book, is about 4 MB. The ASCII standard allows ASCII-only text files to be interchanged and readable on Unix, Macintosh, Microsoft Windows, DOS, and other systems. These differ in their preferred line ending convention and their interpretation of values outside the ASCII range (their character encoding). Conversion of files from one to another line-ending convention is easily possible with free software on all computers.

Plucker

Format:	Plucker
Published as:

Plucker

Plucker is an offline Web and free e-book reader for Palm OS based handheld devices, Windows Mobile devices and other PDAs. Plucker contains POSIX tools, scripts and "conduits" which work on Unix, Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows...

is an Open Source free

Free software

Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...

mobile and desktop e-book reader application with its own associated file format and software to automatically generate Plucker files from text, PDF, HTML, or other document format files, web sites or RSS feeds. The format is public and well-documented. Free readers are available for all kinds of desktop computers and many PDAs.

PostScript

Format:	PostScript
Published as:	.ps PostScript PostScript is a dynamically typed concatenative programming language created by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in 1982. It is best known for its use as a page description language in the electronic and desktop publishing areas. Adobe PostScript 3 is also the worldwide printing and imaging...

PostScript

is a page description language

Page description language

A page description language is a language that describes the appearance of a printed page in a higher level than an actual output bitmap. An overlapping term is printer control language, but it should not be confused as referring solely to Hewlett-Packard's PCL...

used in the electronic and desktop publishing

Desktop publishing

Desktop publishing is the creation of documents using page layout software on a personal computer.The term has been used for publishing at all levels, from small-circulation documents such as local newsletters to books, magazines and newspapers...

areas for defining the contents and layout of a printed page, which can be used by a rendering program to assemble and create the actual output bitmap

Raster graphics

In computer graphics, a raster graphics image, or bitmap, is a data structure representing a generally rectangular grid of pixels, or points of color, viewable via a monitor, paper, or other display medium...

. Many office printers directly support interpreting PostScript and printing the result. As a result, the format also sees wide use in the Unix

Unix

Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...

world.

SSReader

Format:	SSReader
Published as:	.pdg

The digital book format used by a popular digital library company 超星数字图书馆 in China. It is a proprietary raster image compression and binding format, with reading time OCR plug-in modules. The company scanned a huge number of Chinese books in the China National Library and this becomes the major stock of their service. The detailed format is not published. There are also some other commercial e-book formats used in Chinese digital libraries.

TealDoc

Format:	TealDoc
Published as:	.pdb

TealPoint Software's proprietary reader for Palm OS. In addition to its own format, it opens plain text and PalmDoc files. Newer versions of the software include an editor for Palm OS. Embedded images must be converted to TealPoint's proprietary TealPaint format. The format uses HTML like tags for formatting and has been reverse-engineered for 3rd party programs to edit and convert to/from TealDoc format.

Text Encoding Initiative

Format:	TEI Lite TEI Lite TEI Lite is an XML-based file format for exchanging texts. It is a manageable selection from the extensive set of elements available in the full Text Encoding Initiative Guidelines.-External links:*...
Published as:	.xml

TEI Lite

TEI Lite is an XML-based file format for exchanging texts. It is a manageable selection from the extensive set of elements available in the full Text Encoding Initiative Guidelines.-External links:*...

is the most popular of the TEI

Text Encoding Initiative

The Text Encoding Initiative is a text-centric community of practice in the academic field of digital humanities. The community runs a mailing list, meetings and conference series, and maintains a technical standard, a wiki and a toolset....

-based (and thus XML

XML

-based or SGML

Standard Generalized Markup Language

The Standard Generalized Markup Language is an ISO-standard technology for defining generalized markup languages for documents...

-based) electronic text formats.

TomeRaider

Format:	TomeRaider
Published as:	.tr2; .tr3

The TomeRaider

TomeRaider

TomeRaider is an ebook reader and cross-platform reference viewer for handheld devices devices and Microsoft Windows PC. TomeRaider is created by Yadabyte, a UK software and web development company...

e-book format is a proprietary format. There are versions of TomeRaider

TomeRaider

for Windows, Windows Mobile (aka Pocket PC), Palm, Symbian, iPhone and more. Several Wikipedias are available as TomeRaider files with all articles unabridged, some even with nearly all images. Capabilities of the TomeRaider3 e-book reader vary considerably per platform: the Windows and Windows Mobile editions support full HTML

HTML

HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....

and CSS

CSS

-Computing:*Cascading Style Sheets, a language used to describe the style of document presentations in web development*Central Structure Store in the PHIGS 3D API*Closed source software, software that is not distributed with source code...

. The Palm edition supports limited HTML (e.g., no tables, no fonts), and CSS support is missing. For Symbian there is only the older TomeRaider2 format, which does not render images or offer category search facilities. Despite these differences any TomeRaider e-book can be browsed on all supported platforms. The Tomeraider website claims to have over 4000 e-books available, including free versions of the Internet Movie Database

Internet Movie Database

Internet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...

and Wikipedia

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...

Features

Format	Filename extension Filename extension A filename extension is a suffix to the name of a computer file applied to indicate the encoding of its contents or usage....	DRM support	Table support	Sound support	Embedded annotation support	Book- marking	Video support
ArghosReader	.aeh		?		?		?
DjVu DjVu DjVu is a computer file format designed primarily to store scanned documents, especially those containing a combination of text, line drawings, and photographs. It uses technologies such as image layer separation of text and background/images, progressive loading, arithmetic coding, and lossy...	.djvu	?					?
EPUB EPUB EPUB is a free and open e-book standard by the International Digital Publishing Forum... (IDPF)	.epub				Depends of the eReader application	Depends of the eReader application	With ePub 3
FictionBook FictionBook FictionBook is an open XML-based e-book format, which originated and gained popularity in Russia. The FictionBook files have the .fb2 filename extension....	.fb2		Table support added in FictionBook V2.1. Not supported in V2.0			?	?
HTML HTML HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....	.html						With HTML 5
Kindle Amazon Kindle The Amazon Kindle is an e-book reader developed by Amazon.com subsidiary Lab126 which uses wireless connectivity to enable users to shop for, download, browse, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other digital media...	.azw		Supported in all except 1st Generation Kindle. (Support level is as it is in mobipocket)	Supported only in kindle for iPhone, iPod, iPad.			?
Microsoft Reader Microsoft Reader Microsoft Reader is a Microsoft program for the reading of e-books, originally released in August 2000.Microsoft Reader is available for download from Microsoft as a free program for computers running Windows. It can also be used on a Pocket PC, where it has been built into the ROM since Windows CE...	.lit		?		?		?
Mobipocket Mobipocket Mobipocket SA is a French company incorporated in March 2000 which produces Mobipocket Reader software, an E-Book reader for some PDAs, phones and desktop operating systems....	.prc, .mobi						?
Multimedia EBook	.exe		?				?
eReader	.pdb		?				?
Plain text Plain text In computing, plain text is the contents of an ordinary sequential file readable as textual material without much processing, usually opposed to formatted text....	.txt
Plucker Plucker Plucker is an offline Web and free e-book reader for Palm OS based handheld devices, Windows Mobile devices and other PDAs. Plucker contains POSIX tools, scripts and "conduits" which work on Unix, Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows...	.pdb						?
Portable Document Format Portable Document Format Portable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....	.pdf						With Flash Embeded
PostScript PostScript PostScript is a dynamically typed concatenative programming language created by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in 1982. It is best known for its use as a page description language in the electronic and desktop publishing areas. Adobe PostScript 3 is also the worldwide printing and imaging...	.ps		?		?	?	?
Repligo	.rgo	?					?
TealDoc	.pdb		?		?		?
Tome Raider	.tr2, .tr3		?		?	?	?

Supporting Platforms

Reader	ePub	Mobi- Pocket	Fiction- Book (Fb2)	Kindle
Amazon Kindle 1
Amazon Kindle 2, DX
Amazon Kindle Amazon Kindle The Amazon Kindle is an e-book reader developed by Amazon.com subsidiary Lab126 which uses wireless connectivity to enable users to shop for, download, browse, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other digital media... 3	Yes if you use the Duokan alternate Kindle OS(third-party sofware addon).
Amazon Kindle Amazon Kindle The Amazon Kindle is an e-book reader developed by Amazon.com subsidiary Lab126 which uses wireless connectivity to enable users to shop for, download, browse, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other digital media... Fire
Android Devices		Requires latest firmware
Apple iOS Devices
Azbooka WISEreader
Barnes & Noble Nook Barnes & Noble Nook The Barnes & Noble Nook is a brand of electronic-book reader developed by American book retailer Barnes & Noble, based on the Android platform. The original device was announced in the United States in October 2009, and was released the next month...
Barnes & Noble Nook Color
Bookeen Cybook Gen3, Opus	Versions support either ePUB or MobiPocket		Only ePUB version and with FW 2.0+
COOL-ER Classic
Foxit eSlick ESlick The eSlick is an e-book reader, an electronic book reading device developed by Foxit Software. It has a 6 inch E Ink screen, 600x800 pixel resolution with 4-level gray scale and a mass of 180 g. The device supports text and PDF format for reading and includes Foxit's PDF Creator and Reader...
Hanlin e-Reader V3
Hanvon WISEreader
iRex iLiad
Iriver Story
Kobo eReader
Nokia N900
NUUTbook 2
OLPC XO, Sugar
Onyx Boox 60
Mac OS X
Windows				DRM protected publications are supported as of Kindle for PC v1.3.0
Pocketbook 301 Plus, 302, 360°
Sony Reader
Viewsonic VEB612
Windows Phone 7

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Amazon Kindle

Archos Diffusion

Broadband eBooks (BBeB)

Comic Book Archive file

Compiled HM

DAISY - ANSI/NISO Z39.86

Desktop Author

DjVu

EPUB

eReader

FictionBook (Fb2)

Founder Electronics

Hypertext Markup Language

IEC 62448

Microsoft LIT

Mobipocket

Multimedia eBooks

Newton eBook

Open Electronic Package

Portable Document Format

Plain text files

Plucker

PostScript

SSReader

TealDoc

Text Encoding Initiative

TomeRaider

Features

Supporting Platforms

See also

External links