Epub or fb2 which is better. EPUB format: what it is and what it is eaten with. EPUB advantages and disadvantages. EPUB facts

Sometimes it seems that deciding on the format is quite difficult, there are so many of them and each has its own advantages. Many authors ask themselves the question: "How to choose a format for an e-book?" We conducted our analysis of formats and found out which is the best format for regular books. We have carefully studied many formats, and considered them both from the point of view of the convenience of the reader, and from the point of view of the convenience of the author. Let's dive into the details a bit and see what influenced our choice.

Why is ePub the best format?

During the development of our services, we studied some technical nuances that affect the appearance and work with an e-book.

Let's start with the simplest thing - managing the display of the book. Those. the ability for the reader to change the font size and page orientation. EPUB adapts perfectly to device screen size or font size. I would like to note that the specification states that in fact the format supports 2 layout modes - the first (reflowable), when you can change these parameters, and the second (fixed-layout), when you can clearly indicate what is where.

Let's consider the layout modes in more detail.

Reflowable markup

You can translate into Russian as fluid, adaptive or floating. Allows you to fit the contents of the book to the device screen, change the color and font size. Ideal for ordinary books with simple text - novels, poems, technical literature. Those. anything where clear image anchoring or complex visual presentation is not required.

This markup is not suitable for visual interactive books and children's books with many illustrations, that is, those that require spatial referencing of graphics, various combinations of pictures and frames. The EPUB format itself allows you to create interactive books, but the responsive design of such books is a real art.

This is what responsive markup looks like

Using this markup is ideal when you don't know exactly where and how your book will be reproduced. Due to the flexibility of the layout, the book will be correctly displayed on almost any device, from a computer to some smart watch. Plus, this markup is perfect for people with disabilities.

Fixed-layout

This type of markup assumes that all elements have a clearly fixed position on the page with a clearly specified size. This markup is in a format that most closely resembles a physical medium, such as a page in a regular paper book. Everything in its place and no adaptation. On devices, adaptation most often looks like scaling with all the ensuing consequences. What looks acceptable on a computer screen is already too small on a tablet, and on a smartphone screen you cannot see it at all. Well, playing with zooming in and out turns into torture for the reader.

An example of displaying fixed markup

This format is suitable when you know for sure that your work will be read on a medium with a specific size, under which your work will be laid out. Initially, it is assumed that this markup was developed for further printing of the work, therefore it indicates the size and format of the future medium. we not We recommend using this markup for e-books, as it limits the reading area of \u200b\u200bbooks to devices with a certain screen size.

The most common digital representation of this markup is PDF, but EPUB also supports it.

We decided to tabulate popular formats and show support for various markup within them.

We sorted out the layout. Now let's take a look at the most exciting moment for authors - copyright.

Support for copyright protection at the level of e-book formats

Typically, authors insist on supporting DRM (Digital Rights Management) or technical copyright protection in e-books. This is one of the most unpleasant topics for both authors and readers, but affects the interests of publishers too. And the main problem is that there is no reliable way to protect against copying. the book is a source of mostly textual information presented in graphic form. You can create an extremely reliable way of delivering content by encrypting the file transfer to a dedicated standalone application or even a dedicated standalone book reader, but this will all be bypassed with a simple camera and subsequent text recognition. So all the most complicated and unpleasant procedures for everyone will be leveled out by the most primitive copying method, which is more than two centuries old. Everything that the human eye sees, the camera will see everything. And then it's a matter of technology.

So, what about DRM support in various formats? We have collected information and placed it in the table

The table shows that ePub, PDF and Mobipocket are excellent formats for copyright protection.

However, as we noted above, DRM no longer creates anything but inconvenience for the user. Many have been in a situation where a book is urgently needed, but it is not available in a format available for your device. As a rule, such a situation often catches a person by surprise or at the most inopportune moment. Usually people solve this in different ways, in most cases they just look for another book on the same topic, but in an accessible format. As a result, the author loses readers and, of course, money.

The main problem of the protection of the field of rights lies in the education of people and their attitude to copyright protection. For example, it never occurs to anyone to steal directly from the store, although everything is lying, just stretch out your hand. It's the same with digital content. There is simply a realization that the work belongs to the author and is the result of his work, which must be paid for. The more people realize this, the fewer books will be stolen.

Providing legal access to books is one of the missions of our library.

Summarizing the above, we again come to the conclusion that ePub is an excellent choice from the point of copyright protection.

What's wrong with the EXE format?

There is a similar format called JAVA which was popular on older smartphones for a while. The essence is the same - a program, but only for a smartphone. Similar camouflage of viruses for smartphones.

About the FictionBook format

Popular under the name FB2. It is popular mainly in Russia and in the post-Soviet space, so you can safely call it a national format.

Nevertheless, this format contains logical markup, the book is divided into sections, which can be poems or prose. However, the format itself is very limited because not only is there no support for complex layout and formulas, but also banal things like bulleted lists.

There is an idea of \u200b\u200bthe FB3 format, an improved FB2, judging by the description, which is a clone of the ePub format. It uses a similar zip archive and separates files into description, text and images. Dmitry Gribov is intensively working on the new format and we hope that he will delight the authors with new opportunities.

This format is well suited for simple fiction written in Russian.

About TXT format

About MOBI format

The MOBI format has several flavors in the form of the AZW family of formats, featuring a higher data compression ratio.

• AZW1 is another name for the topaz format (also called .tpz). This version is designed to store scanned documents and is similar to DJVU. TPZ format - used on WhisperNet. WhisperNet is a dedicated 3G cellular network that was created by Amazon to support Kindle books and sync books, bookmarks, and more.
• AZW3 is another name for KF8. This format first appeared for the Kindle Fire. It is a combined ePub format with a Palm database, Amazon DRM protection, practically copying all the features of the ePub format and providing compatibility with old Kindle readers.
• AZW4 is a special format for textbooks (similar to PDF).
• AZK is a special iOS version of the MOBI format for the Kindle Reader and other Apple products.
• KFX is one of the relatively new formats from Amazon that came along with the Kindle Paperwhite 3. It is the successor to AZK. It added features such as playing sounds and videos, displaying tables on a separate screen, added a new font and JXR image format.
• AZW8 is an extension for KFX, which is another special format currently on Kindle paperwhite 3, Kindle Oasis, and Kindle Voyage. It is currently the most advanced format and is used in modern devices from Amazon.

About PDF

About DJVU format

DJVU is a Lizardtech format that is increasingly used for scientific publications. The main purpose of this format is to store scanned images containing text and relatively simple graphics. Its main characteristics are that the compression ratio is about 10 times better than in .pdf format at the same quality. Nothing beats this currently for black and white text and images. Most likely, you will find in it such magazines as Radio or Modelist-Konstruktor, their old versions are practically unavailable in other formats, because most of the old magazines are ordinary scanned images. In order for the search to work in it, a special invisible text layer is added, obtained using text recognition systems (OCR). This format is completely unsuitable for e-books, since it cannot be adapted for devices with a small screen, and many readers do not support it.

About DOC, DOCX format

These are ordinary text documents created in the Word editor from Microsoft Office. You can edit them, change fonts and design. This format is supported by a very narrow list of devices and programs due to the very high complexity and closed nature of the format, plus very often it cannot be displayed correctly. The format is suitable as a draft for a book, but is not acceptable for distribution.

About EPUB format

The only format of e-books officially recognized by the world community (International Forum for Digital Publishing). Supports almost everything you can dream of: complex formatting, lists, tables, formulas, footnotes, bitmap and vector images, various layout modes and DRM copyright protection.

There are quite a few programs for creating e-books in the above formats, but we have developed a specialized solution specifically for authors.

Rare and outdated formats

We would also like to talk about some rare formats.

• ABW is the file format used by AbiWord. If the file is compressed, it will be in ZABW format.
• ACSM is a file format used for DRM protection in Adobe eBooks PDF and ePUB.
• AEH is the file format used by eBooksWriter.
• BBeB is Sony's proprietary format. Stands for Broadband EBook, also known as LRF due to its file extension.
• CBR / CBZ - Compressed container for images. R means that the pictures are compressed by the RAR archiver, and Z means that they are compressed via ZIP. The internal format can be any of several image formats, and CBR / CBZ readers display them as multiple book pages. The title means a comic book reader, but is used for any book where the content contains mostly photographs.
• CHM is compressed HTML often used for Windows Help files. It has become very popular for distributing texts and other support materials over the Internet.
• DNL is a digital web book format used by the author of Desktop.
• DTB - Digital Talking Books - books for the blind, visually impaired, physically disabled people, students with disabilities or other readers with disabled printing. The DTBook establishes specifications for digital talking books (DTB) as part of DAISY.
• EBA is a proprietary e-book format. Chinese eBook Readers are specially supported.
• EBAML same as EBA 2.0 - Used on Dr. Yi Reader and other products in China.
• -ER.PDB - Palm database format for eReader. ER is used to distinguish this format.
• FUB is Franklin's e-book format.
• GPF - Ganaxa Publishing Format, allowing hotspots and embedded multimedia content.
• GPX is a Ganaxa Protected Document.
• IMP is an e-book format used by eBook Technologies ETI-1 (REB 1200 / Softbook Reader) or ETI-2 (EBookwise-1150 / Gemstar 1150). Some programs convert to it. It is considered a terminal format.
• -IS.PDB - Palm database format for ISilo reader. IS is used to distinguish this format.
• KML is the HieBook e-book format.
• LIT is a Microsoft proprietary format for Microsoft Reader.
• LRC is a special companion format that should be a companion for audiobooks.
• LRF - also: BBeB book. Sony proprietary format. Supported by Sony Librie and Sony Reader.
• LRS - also: BBeB Xylog XML. A source code format for BBeB books that is compiled to LRF for reading on a device.
• LRX is a BBeB protected document. Sony Librie and Sony Reader use incompatible formats.
• MART is a proprietary format used only on the Martview website for distributing books composed of images.
• NP format is the newspaper download format used by NewspaperDirect for their PressDisplay product.
• OEB is an open book format. An e-book format used by EBookwise-1150, MobiPocket, and Microsoft Reader. This standard is the old version of ePUB.
• ODT is an open standard, a document format used by OpenOffice.org, Star Office, and many other text editors.
• OSIS is an XML Schema definition for the Bible and other biblical research texts.
• PKG is the format used by Apple Newton.
• PNPd - Format used by the eReader. It is a popular format (also known as PML).
• PS - Postscript is supported in several reading programs, but is designed to send information to the printer.
• RB - e-book format for Rocket eBook and Gemstar RCA REB 1100.
• RTF - Rich Text Format is a document interchange format supported by some e-book readers as well as many Word processing applications including MS Word and OpenOffice. It is the preferred format for many users who create their own content for Sony Reader.
• SGF is a native format for Sigil, a direct editor for ePUB. (No longer used)
• STK is STAReBOOK's own format.
• TCR is an e-book for EPOC.
• TeBR is a special format for the tiny e-book from Fictionwise.
• TR - Tome Raider format. Their latest format is called TR3. Tome Raider is an e-book format that supports very large books such as reference books, encyclopedias and dictionaries.
• VBK is an e-book format from VitalSource with graphical support. This format is commonly used in textbooks.
• XEB is the format used by Apbi e-books mainly in Chinese.
• XDXF is an XML-based dictionary exchange format.
• WOLF - Proprietary format used by HanLin eBook in their V2B, V3 and V8 eBooks. The .wol extension is commonly used. Also used by JCNIP on their Dr. Yi reader.
• ZTXT is the format used by WeaselReader on Palm devices. It has the extension .pdb.
• ZNO is Zinio's proprietary subscription ezine format. These magazines include multimedia materials such as photos and videos. Rumor has it that the format is based on DJVU.

Perhaps we will end the exotic here. Thank you for attention!

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Devices for reading e-books (so-called readers ) have long been transformed from something very exotic into the same familiar household device as a smartphone. Users very quickly realized what the beauty of readers is: they can upload hundreds (if not thousands) of books in electronic form, their eyes do not deteriorate when reading (electronic ink does not glow), you can adjust any text parameters, including the typeface and its size. the book itself remembers the page where you left off, and so on - it can take a very long time to list all the conveniences compared to using paper books. However, users (especially beginners) have one problem with this: books are circulating on the Web in various formats, of which there are many: FB2, EPUB, MOBI, PDF, RTF, TXT, and so on. It's also good when the site offers a choice of different formats. - for example, on the website Litres.ru, where this choice is very wide.

Types of formats

However, for novice users, all these EPUB, FB2 and other DjVu are a dark forest, so let's figure out what they are, how they differ and in which devices they are used. So, the formats of e-books (documents) .1. FB2 (FictionBook) - format (standard) developed by Dmitry Gribov and a group of enthusiasts. Great for creating structured books, takes up little space, archives well, converts well to other formats. It is an XML file structurally similar to an email message. The main drawback is that since this is actually a Russian development, this format is completely unknown in the world and is almost not supported by any of the branded readers - Sony, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo. The "Liter" says that FB2 is "supported by all Russian readers", but this is not entirely accurate. FB2 is supported by almost all Chinese readers with Ukrainian or Russian software. Also, FB2 can be supported by well-known Western readers (for example, Sony), which have a special Russian firmware installed. (Well, recently, for the latest Sony PRS-T1 reader, an official firmware supporting FB2 was released.) 2. EPUB (Electronic PUBlishing) - the most widespread in the world (and already very widespread in Russia) format of electronic books. It is similar in structure to a website packed in an archive, and if FB2 can be distributed both open and in a ZIP archive (many readers can read FB2 in ZIP), then an EPUB is by definition a book packed by an archiver. EPUB is supported by almost any reader - both Western and Chinese (Russian-Ukrainian). Therefore, this is the preferred format. (With rare exceptions.) 3. MOBI - a specialized format created specifically for the Amazon Kindle reader and, accordingly, supported only by this reader. Moreover, the Kindle does not support any other e-book formats (except PDF and TXT, but this is a special conversation). 4. TXT - the usual format of a text document. Supported by all readers, but reading books in TXT is for complete masochists. No markup, no normal hyphenation, no alignment, but there are line breaks and other delights. Into the furnace! five. PDF (Adobe Portable Document Format) is one of the most common formats for electronic documents (usually not books). PDF is not particularly convenient to read on readers, in addition, it is very cumbersome, so in PDF for readers, as a rule, only documents with all sorts of formulas, illustrations, and other things are written. 6. LRF is a special format for Sony e-books. However, it is already practically supplanted by the EPUB format, which Sony supports. 7. DjVu (pronounced deja vu) is a format for storing densely compressed scanned documents, such as old books. It is used very rarely in readers, because it is almost impossible to read scanned books on a reader due to poor display quality and small screen size. 8. RTF (Rich Text Format) - a universal format for storing text documents. It is used very rarely in readers - so, for compatibility. nine. DOC - Microsoft Office document format. Some readers support it, but usually few people need to read documents on the reader. They are somehow not made for that. True, some books are still circulating on the Internet in DOC, but it's easier to convert them into the same EPUB. There are all sorts of other formats, but this does not bother you - they are unlikely to ever come in handy. For most users, with rare exceptions, EPUB is usually sufficient. It is supported by almost all readers (except Kindle), books in this format are small in size, good structure, allow you to include a table of contents, illustrations, and so on. Many online libraries store books in this format, and huge collections of EPUB books can be found in torrents. What are the conclusions? EPUB is your choice, whether you have a Western reader (Sony, Barnes & Noble, Kobo) or a Sino-Russian-Ukrainian one. But for the Kindle, you will need to search for books in the MOBI format, or, much easier, just convert the same EPUB or FB2 to this format. This procedure is done quickly and easily using a special program. We will consider how this is done in a separate article.

EPUB and FB2 e-book formats are among the most popular. What are the features of each of them?

EPUB facts

ePUB format, has a structure similar to a website with links, but all of its pages are somehow combined into one file, which is actually a special kind of ZIP archive. These pages can be presented in HTML, XHTML, PDF formats, supplemented with graphics, various fonts, styles. However, the EPUB standard uses XML scripts to provide communication between the different types of files that make up the content of an ebook.

The EPUB format is most commonly used by e-book publishers when the work is primarily text - with few graphic elements to complement it. This is due to some difficulties in recognizing large EPUB files (their size is determined by the very presence of graphics) on a number of devices.

At the same time, the EPUB format, developed by Western programmers, is one of the most universal. It is supported by e-readers from most modern manufacturers.

The EPUB format provides DRM protection for digital works from copying. Many e-book stores, as well as private authors selling their literature on the Internet, take advantage of this opportunity. A digital work that is protected by DRM will only open on certain devices - for example, those used by the person who bought the work online.

FB2 facts

The e-book presented in fB2 format, as well as in the form of an EPUB file, is an XML document of a special structure. Each of its elements has its own tags. The book, which is made in the FB2 format, is capable of successfully placing both text and graphics. In the XML-code of the FB2 file, you can also write various metadata - for example, the content of the book, the title of the work, ISBN, information about the author. The corresponding documents are packed in ZIP archives in order to save disk space.

The FB2 format was developed by Russian programmers, so it is not supported by all foreign e-book manufacturers by default. However, there are a large number of reader applications that can recognize this standard. They are available for download from major stores like Google Play.

Comparison

The main difference between EPUB and FB2 is the variety of XML algorithms used to format the text, as well as add graphics and other multimedia components to it. The EPUB standard has traditionally been viewed by experts as more powerful because the XML algorithms it provides can be used to format complex elements such as formulas. However, EPUB files are larger than similar eBooks in the FB2 standard.

Another significant difference between EPUB and FB2 is that the first format allows you to protect a digital work from unauthorized copying. The FB2 standard does not provide such an opportunity.

Having identified what is the difference between EPUB and FB2, we will capture the main conclusions in a small table.

Table

Often on forums and in e-mails I come across the question "What is the EPUB format?" They also ask other questions about this format - how is it good, how it differs from FB2, MOBI and DOC, is it worth buying books in it, or preferring another format. In this article I will answer these and other questions, tell you about the history of the creation and development of EPUB, its main features, as well as the prospects for EPUB and existing alternatives to this format.

History

EPUB format (the name comes from the English phrase " electronic publication) was developed by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). The original version appeared back in 1999 under the name OEB (Open eBook Publication), but the final version was released in September 2007. It was already the EPUB itself.

EPUB very quickly gained popularity in the USA and Europe, where the Mobipocket format (extensions MOBI, PRC, AZW) was popular before. The largest foreign library Gutenberg.com has made epub its standard format for storing e-books. The vast majority of online e-book (content) stores switched to EPUB in 2008-2010.

In 2009 the project

A person who loves books strives to read everywhere and everywhere. This is why reading from readers or mobile phones has become so popular in recent years. Of course, we can talk as much as we want about the delights of the smell of a new paper book, about pleasant moments in a book book, when choosing replenishments for your library, but the fact remains that in the daily bustle of reading e-books is easier than lugging around the usual paper volumes. If you write and want your work to become convenient and accessible to readers, it is not enough to post texts on open resources, it would also be good to attach file versions to them so that people can download your creation and evaluate it at their leisure.

Regardless of whether you are a reader, a writer or "two in one", when downloading or uploading texts with files, you may encounter someone who your phone or reader does not support this format (or your readers complain that the files they cannot read this format). To understand why this is happening, we wrote for you a short explanation about what formats of e-books are, how they differ, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of each of them.

Types of formats:

First, it should be noted that the most common e-book formats are: FB2, EPUB, MOBI, PDF, RTF, TXT, DOC / DOCX and DjVu. Naturally, when an uninitiated person is faced with such a variety, it is difficult to figure out what's what and which format to choose for reading or converting your files.

Microsoft Windows, but, unfortunately, DOC / DOCX are not supported by most readers, and it may not always open on mobile phones, and reading books in TXT is very, very inconvenient.

However, let's talk about everything in order:

FB2 (FictionBook)

Advantages: One of the most common formats in the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet. It is convenient to structure a large document, divide it into chapters, etc. FB2 files take up little space and are easily converted to other formats.

Disadvantages: FB2 is a format developed in Russia. It is not supported by most readers and is unknown worldwide. Opens only on devices with Russian firmware and is alien to brand readers leading all over the world: Sony, Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, etc. Yes, you can bet that it opens on Sony FB2, but the official firmware allows you to open this format on Sony readers, was released only a couple of years ago and is not installed on all models. If we talk about selling our works on Amazon or iTunes, the answer here is unambiguous - FB2 is not suitable for international platforms.

PDF (Adobe Portable Document Format) and DjVu (pronounced "deja vu") - we will not consider each separately and combine them in one paragraph.

Benefits: Both formats are used to store scanned books. You can create very colorful files in PDF. DjVu just compresses files pretty well, making them weigh less.

Disadvantages: PDF files are very bulky. If we are talking about scanning, then in any case, scanned books are inconvenient to read from the screen, since their quality leaves much to be desired, regardless of whether the scan is laid out in PDF or in DjVu.

Advantages: TXT can be opened on any reader. DOC / DOCX formats known to all Microsoft Word.

Disadvantages: Reading books in TXT is terribly inconvenient, since it lacks text formatting (justified alignment, paragraph wrapping, division into chapters, etc.). DOC / DOCX is supported by a very small number of read devices.

RTF (Rich Text Format)

Advantages: Convenient and compact format for storing text files.

Disadvantages: It is extremely rarely supported by readers and mobile phones, tablets, etc.

Benefits: LRF is a special e-book format from Sony. MOBI book format for Amazon Kindle.

Disadvantages: Currently, Sony supports the more popular e-book format, EPUB.

EPUB (Electronic PUBlishing)

Benefits: EPUB is the world's most widely used e-book format. Has no problems with recognition, allows you to create well-structured text with illustrations. This format itself is already an archive, and therefore is compact and does not require additional archivers.

As you can see, each of the formats mentioned above has its own advantages and disadvantages. For example, by far the most "readable" format for e-books will be TXT, but at the same time reading books in this format is practically a mockery of your own eyes. Such text cannot be structured, it lacks paragraphs, chapters, it is impossible to insert illustrations, etc.

The most common and convenient format for reading e-books is EPUB. However, if we are talking about how the author should upload his work online, the most rational solution would be to publish it in several formats at once. For example: EPUB (readable everywhere except Amazon Kindle) + MOBI (readable only on Amazon Kindle) + DOC / DOCX (for those who are used to reading from computers and laptops). Of course, as a bonus, you can upload text in the FB2 format, to which the Russian-speaking audience is so accustomed, however, a file of this format will not open on all devices.

And, of course, at the end of this article and as an advertisement, we want to inform you that recently a new Internet system Booqla has started working in the CIS, designed for convenient and, attention, free conversion of manuscripts into EPUB and MOBI formats. The site offers users from all over the world the conversion of their manuscripts into electronic format and assists in the sale of e-books, but only a free conversion of manuscripts will be available to the Russian-speaking audience.

You can appreciate the simplicity and convenience of the Booqla service yourself by registering on