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Pages and EPUB

W

WytRaven

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 19, 2009
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Orbiting Mercury
I suppose we haven't really got the low down on Pages for iPad yet. The iPad Features page now has a bit more info but not a full feature list.

However, that said, I'm surprised there has been no mention yet of EPUB authoring.

I would have expected Pages for iPad (and desktop for that matter) to include templates and an export function for EPUB and for Apple to be harping on about it from the roof tops. Maybe I'm expecting too much too soon or perhaps it's not considered a mainstream enough topic to be marketing worthy at this point.

I am currently playing around with Sigil and although I give 10 points to the guys for providing it for us it really is not an enjoyable experience at all to use (mind you I am using the 0.2.0 beta so that could be half the problem right there).
 
Kindle accepts tect and pdf files and converts them for use on your kindle for a nominal fee.

I would hope apple would do something similar
 
I'm not sure why the avg. consumer would be authoring ePub documents, especially on an iPad. However, given the lousy formating job Pages use to do with HTML when it had that feature, I can understand Apple's reluctance to include complicated formatting options, especially to coincide with the iPad's launch. If every there were a time to keep it simple it would be now.
 
i cannot see this becoming a feature that would be widely used, the ipad will have excellent pdf support so I don't see why people would be converting inside the same system

I would like to see this being added in pages though, nice addition but only because I have a sony prs 505
 
Chupa Chupa said:
I'm not sure why the avg. consumer would be authoring ePub documents, especially on an iPad. However, given the lousy formating job Pages use to do with HTML when it had that feature, I can understand Apple's reluctance to include complicated formatting options, especially to coincide with the iPad's launch. If every there were a time to keep it simple it would be now.
Click to expand...
.epub is primarily for books and books tend to have simple formats. The notion that you don't need epub authoring simply does not scan. If we are going to switch from dead-tree to electronic publishing, then we need tools to facilitate the new paradigm.
 
Calibre. I'm using it to convert my PDF, LIT and a s**tload of MOBI into epub right this minute.
 
MisterMe said:
.epub is primarily for books and books tend to have simple formats. The notion that you don't need epub authoring simply does not scan. If we are going to switch from dead-tree to electronic publishing, then we need tools to facilitate the new paradigm.
Click to expand...

For sure. I too have been searching the internet on some inkling that pages are even considering epub spport, but have come across nothing.

As for pages not being able to save to pdf, I do not think this is correct, as you print and save as pdf easily.
 
what would be the point of this though? You would already be able to view this natively and then when you get back to your computer you can archive into pdf
 
MisterMe said:
.epub is primarily for books and books tend to have simple formats. The notion that you don't need epub authoring simply does not scan. If we are going to switch from dead-tree to electronic publishing, then we need tools to facilitate the new paradigm.
Click to expand...


Right, but who is going to format a book on an iPad? The iPad does PDF just fine and that is what most people use for universal eDocs.

elmo151 said:
but pdf's cannot be read directly on a kindle. and a very large pdf is very handy to have in an ebook format,
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:confused::confused: What does that have to do with the iPad?
 
drummerlondonw3 said:
what would be the point of this though? You would already be able to view this natively and then when you get back to your computer you can archive into pdf
Click to expand...

an example. I downloaded a 200 page pdf of a camera manual.

uploaded it to amazon who sent it back in their ebook format

I can read it on my kindle and do not need to carry a laptop.

can do the sme thing with large text files.

a kindle/iPad ebook is musc easier to page through than a pdf reader and negates the need to carry a laptop.
 
In pages you can view and edit pdf.
 

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Chupa Chupa said:
Right, but who is going to format a book on an iPad?
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I guess I should have been more general and just referred to Pages rather than Pages for iPad specifically.

As for who is going to perform such a task on the iPad? Whoever want's to. That is sort of the point isn't it? Who's going to layout a spreadsheet on an iPad? Who's going to type an essay on an iPad? Same answer...

I actually think authors are going to love the freedom of the iPad. They can take off out into the country side for some peace and tranquility and pen the next chapter of their book sitting on a cliff edge, or hell, climb a tree and sway in the breeze for some inspiration.
 
WytRaven said:
I actually think authors are going to love the freedom of the iPad. They can take off out into the country side for some peace and tranquility and pen the next chapter of their book sitting on a cliff edge, or hell, climb a tree and sway in the breeze for some inspiration.
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wat?
 
WytRaven said:
As for who is going to perform such a task on the iPad? Whoever want's to. That is sort of the point isn't it? Who's going to layout a spreadsheet on an iPad? Who's going to type an essay on an iPad? Same answer...
Click to expand...

Not really. Authors typically do not format their own books. That is left up to the editing dept. And even if the author is "independent," the distributor still usually does the formatting. Lulu, is a good example. The author uploads a regular .doc or .txt file and Lulu converts it and adds in the DRM. Professional firms are not likely to use a basic program like Pages to format their books. ePub uses CSS and HTML, something Pages has never done well and was eventually removed as a feature.
 
Chupa Chupa said:
Not really. Authors typically do not format their own books. That is left up to the editing dept. And even if the author is "independent," the distributor still usually does the formatting. Lulu, is a good example. The author uploads a regular .doc or .txt file and Lulu converts it and adds in the DRM. Professional firms are not likely to use a basic program like Pages to format their books. ePub uses CSS and HTML, something Pages has never done well and was eventually removed as a feature.
Click to expand...

Look, anyway you cut it, apple is pushing the epub format on their ibookstore and it's only logical that a demand to convert and save as epub becomes apparent as the epub format becomes a standard. To say this is not an apparent need and start splitting hairs is unnecessary and backward. It's like saying who needs mp3/aac encoding when you can buy the encoded file itself.

When something becomes a standard it's always useful to have something to actually save in this standard. How can one deny this?
 
well I would say that what you are describing is different actually.

mp3 and aac are NEEDED to get your music onto a player, while epub is not.

the fact that the ipad will be able to read a multitude of file formats puts the NEED of be able to convert low on the list.

If I can read a file as a pdf would I change it and so forth.
 
drummerlondonw3 said:
well I would say that what you are describing is different actually.

mp3 and aac are NEEDED to get your music onto a player, while epub is not.

the fact that the ipad will be able to read a multitude of file formats puts the NEED of be able to convert low on the list.

If I can read a file as a pdf would I change it and so forth.
Click to expand...

Actually what I am saying is exactly the same. The fact that you could get a .wav file extracted that could play in a music player/computer from the cd, didn't mean that they didn't have to offer support for encoding for the mp3/aac to get a more efficient file. So no mp3/aac where not NEEDED, wav could have sufficed.

Same with epub. The fact that the ipad supports pdf viewing doesn't mean that epub is not a superior format for ipads and hence it requires some software support in pages or otherwise by apple to enable users to do their work better. Making epub documents, converting to epub etc. etc. Pdfs are made to be printed, most of them are not reflowable, and even reflowable pdfs dont work that well... That's why epub became the standard in the first place, because pdfs don't work that well in e-readers.
 
I feel I have to weigh in here with a bit of concrete information.

I am an author by profession, and have published numerous books with major publishers in all English-speaking and many foreign language markets. For what it is worth, my last four books were written using Pages. Ditching Microsoft Word was one of the happiest decisions of my working life. Pages is simpler, more straightforward, and works much more happily with OSX.

Having used it for many years prior to moving away from it, I can see no reason whatsoever why anyone would need Word to write a standard, non-technical book. If you have lots of fancy formulae, tables etc, perhaps it would be better, but most books do not require these. The publishing companies all use Word, but I simply save my Pages document as a Word file and they print it out at the other end for the editorial people to work on. I have never had a problem.

On the subject of ePub, I can see absolutely no reason whatsoever why I would need the ability to save documents in this format. My converted Word files are printed out for the editor to work out (I know this will shock the techno-heads, but 95% of editorial work is still done on paper, with a pencil). Changes are taken in by the typesetter and returned to the editor and author in the form of page proofs. (You get two sets, also printed on paper: publishing companies are chary of circulating PDFs for reasons that do not need elaborating.)

I am happy to be proved wrong by those who know better, but the way I see it, even my editor will not need to use ePub file formats. The people who will see to that side of a book's production are the designer and the typesetters.

The only use I can see for ePub is for people who want to self-publish their family history/poetry/local guidebook etc, and even then, I think they will be doing this using another piece of software, not Pages.
 
dragonq said:
The only use I can see for ePub is for people who want to self-publish their family history/poetry/local guidebook etc, and even then, I think they will be doing this using another piece of software, not Pages.
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If not pages then what? There isn't anything robust available for the mac at the moment. And what you describe is certainly not a niche market. Ebooks bring a huge push and potential to self publishing. No one is saying pages should be the only option, but it will be a very welcome addition for it to find some way to work out its html glitches and include epub.

They have included a great aac codec systemwide that enables people to make their own podcasts. There are a lot of people that would like to create their own ebooks too, what are they going to use?

But more than that it's also about interoperability of formats and options for the user. Why wouldn't I want to open and convert a public domain text book to epub to suit my portable reader? Perhaps I might want to convert a nice website article to epub, I don't see a webarchive reader feature in the ipad, and saving it to pdf to read it on the ipad would be less practical and an anachronism.
 
dragonq said:
I feel I have to weigh in here with a bit of concrete information.

I am an author by profession...
Click to expand...

Thanks Dragonq for bring some real world perspective to the discussion. I for one found that rather enlightening.

After reading what has been said here both on Pages as an EPUB authoring platform and on Pages in general it appears to me that the best solution at this point for those of us that have an interest in creating EPUBs for personal use or to self publish would be to use a WYSIWYG web editor with standard tags (h1, h2, h2, p, etc) take the output from that (xhtml + css) and import into to something like Sigil for the "packaging" stage.

applesupergeek said:
If not pages then what? There isn't anything robust available for the mac at the moment. And what you describe is certainly not a niche market. Ebooks bring a huge push and potential to self publishing. No one is saying pages should be the only option, but it will be a very welcome addition for it to find some way to work out its html glitches and include epub.
Click to expand...

That is pretty much in line with my thinking. Unfortunately Sigil, as a WYSIWYG EPUB editor, is just not there yet. In fact that is a serious understatement...it's not even close.
 
elmo151 said:
Kindle accepts tect and pdf files and converts them for use on your kindle for a nominal fee.

I would hope apple would do something similar
Click to expand...

Yeah, except for the conversion and fees parts.

With the iPad, you will be able to copy files over directly yourself, and view them with the built-in preview reader or pages.
 
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