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README file for the DocBook XSL Stylesheets
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These are XSL stylesheets for transforming DocBook XML document
instances into .epub format.
.epub is an open standard of the The International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF),
a the trade and standards association for the digital publishing industry.
An alpha-quality reference implementation (dbtoepub) for a DocBook to .epub
converter (written in Ruby) is available under bin/.
From http://idpf.org
What is EPUB, .epub, OPS/OCF & OEB?
".epub" is the file extension of an XML format for reflowable digital
books and publications. ".epub" is composed of three open standards,
the Open Publication Structure (OPS), Open Packaging Format (OPF) and
Open Container Format (OCF), produced by the IDPF. "EPUB" allows
publishers to produce and send a single digital publication file
through distribution and offers consumers interoperability between
software/hardware for unencrypted reflowable digital books and other
publications. The Open eBook Publication Structure or "OEB",
originally produced in 1999, is the precursor to OPS.
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.epub Constraints
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.epub does not support all of the image formats that DocBook supports.
When an image is available in an accepted format, it will be used. The
accepted @formats are: 'GIF','GIF87a','GIF89a','JPEG','JPG','PNG','SVG'
A mime-type for the image will be guessed from the file extension,
which may not work if your file extensions are non-standard.
Non-supported elements:
* <mediaobjectco>
* <inlinegraphic>, <graphic>, <textdata>, <imagedata> with text/XML
@filerefs
* <olink>
* <cmdsynopsis> in lists (generic XHTML rendering inability)
* <footnote><para><programlisting> (just make your programlistings
siblings, rather than descendents of paras)
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dbtoepub Reference Implementation
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An alpha-quality DocBook to .epub conversion program, dbtoepub, is provided
in bin/dbtoepub.
This tool requires:
- 'xsltproc' in your PATH
- 'zip' in your PATH
- Ruby 1.8.4+
Windows compatibility has not been extensively tested; bug reports encouraged.
[See http://www.zlatkovic.com/libxml.en.html and http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/]
$ dbtoepub --help
Usage: dbtoepub [OPTIONS] [DocBook Files]
dbtoepub converts DocBook <book> and <article>s into to .epub files.
.epub is defined by the IDPF at www.idpf.org and is made up of 3 standards:
- Open Publication Structure (OPS)
- Open Packaging Format (OPF)
- Open Container Format (OCF)
Specific options:
-d, --debug Show debugging output.
-h, --help Display usage info
-v, --verbose Make output verbose
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Validation
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The epubcheck project provides limited validation for .epub documents.
See http://code.google.com/p/epubcheck/ for details.
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Copyright information
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See the accompanying file named COPYING.
