EPUB for documentation

I think a very useful case for the EPUB eBook format is for developing documentation. Documentation is more than telling people how to use computers.

PDF is good and useful, but one problem with PDF is that it is limited to a computer or paper and there are plenty of instances where that is less than ideal. For example, an owner's manual for a car. Who wants to carry around a huge book in their car or have to drag their laptop to their front seat to be able to figure out how to program their navigation system. With EPUB you could put your owner's manual in your smart phone in a way that has a table of contents and is searchable.

Adding EPUBs & PDFs to iBooks App for iPhone or iPad

Have the EPUB somewhere on your computer where you can navigate to it. This may require downloading it from an external source.

In iTunes, select the file menu, File > Add to Library

This then opens up the Add To Library navigation box:

Select and Choose the Title you wish to add.

Now be sure the Books > Sync Books setting for your iPhone / iPad is either set to All Books or Selected Books with the title you wish to have on that device selected.

Now, Sync your iPhone / iPad

EPUB vs. PDF on a Mobile Device

Focusing on the iPad and iPhone, EPUB is only one of the two formats Apple's iBooks application supports. The other is Portable Document Format (PDF). PDF is an open standard for document exchange. PDF was created by Adobe Systems in 1993. PDF is used for representing two-dimensional (2D) documents in a manner independent of the application software, hardware, and operating system. Each PDF file encapsulates a complete description of a fixed-layout 2D document that includes the text, fonts, images, and 2D vector graphics, which compose the documents. Lately, 3D drawings can also be embedded in PDF documents.



Image: PDF on an iPhone (Click image to enlarge.)

PDF is designed to reproduce page images. PDF 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 PDAs. Adobe has addressed this by adding a re-flow facility to its Acrobat Reader software, but for this to work the document must be marked for re-flowing at creation, which means that existing PDF documents will not benefit unless they are tagged and resaved.

PDF documents can be read on an iPad. That is great for access to legacy and transitional documents. But, if you are hoping to have your eBook reach a larger audience, consider EPUB.



Image: EPUB on an iPhone (Click image to enlarge.)

A great source for much of this post and recommended reading is Elizabeth Castro's great book, EPUB Straight to the Point: Creating ebooks for the Apple iPad and other ereaders, published by Peachpit Press in both print and electronic editions.

My eBook cookbook for making eBooks

Using Sigil, a free EPUB editor, to make an eBook

What is Sigil?
According to the Sigil Website, "Sigil is a multi-platform WYSIWYG ebook editor. It is designed to edit books in ePub format." Yes, it is all that, and it's free!

Why would you want to make an eBook?
Well, imagine being able to do a course reader, documentation, a family history or that novel you have been wanting to write (and have no publisher for) and being able to distribute it yourself to the world in a format that can be legibly read by almost all computers, tablets, iPads, eBook readers (except Kindle) and smart phones including iPhone, Android and Blackberry.

Why would I make an eBook about how to use a computer to make eBooks?
Because it can be hard use your computer to read an online Website about how to do something with your computer, when you are trying to use that computer to do that something. Now you can use your iPhone, Android or Blackberry, iPad or other device (except Kindle) to read the cookbook.

Here are links to my eBook Cookbook and to some Sigil and EPUB resources:

• My eBook EPUB Sigil Cookbook
• Sigil download Website
• Sigil Tutorial
• Sigil Documentation
• Adobe Digital Editions, free software for reading EPUB documents on your desktop or laptop computer
• Elizabeth Castro's great book, EPUB Straight to the Point: Creating ebooks for the Apple iPad and other ereaders

Comments and corrections are greatly appreciated and can be emailed to me at s_sloan@mac.com or posted here on this blog post.

Installing KompoZer

Click on video to view.

KompoZer is a free, open source, what you see is what you get, HTML editor. KompoZer is maintained as a project on Sourceforge.

KompoZer is a complete web authoring system. KompoZer also provides web file management.

KompoZer is designed for non-technical computer users who want to create an attractive, professional-looking web site without needing to know HTML or web coding.

KompoZer is available for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux.

In this demo we will be showing how to download and install KompoZer on an Apple Macintosh computer running Mac OS X. We will be using the also free Firefox Web browser.

Solutions: Linking Apple and Google Calendars

This video, by Gary Rosenzweig of MacMost.com, shows a free way to link Apple iCal Calendars and Google Calendars so that when you put an event in one it appears in the other. This is a good way to get Google Calendar events to appear on your iPhone, for example. There are other, not free, solutions as well including Spanning Synch. I like Spanning Synch if you have multiple Apple Macs where you will be entering calendar events, or want granular control to link multiple calendars.