Tag: ePub

New Guide “Digital Publishing with QuarkXPress 2016”

How-to, Learn, QuarkXPress 2016No Comments

Quark release a new manual called “Digital Publishing with QuarkXPress 2016”.

It can be found here and describes how to create app content for native apps, ebooks in the EPUB2 and EPUB3 format (reflow and fixed-layout) and HTML5 Publications:

http://files.quark.com/download/documentation/QuarkXPress/2016/English/Digital_Publishing_with_QXP_2016_EN.pdf

 

Recover Kodak Photo CD Images

Software (other), TipNo Comments

graphicconverter7_1

If you have old Kodak Photo CDs, you may want to consider converting them to a current file format such as TIFF, and one way to do that is with GraphicConverter for Mac OS X ($40).

Few apps other than GraphicConverter support the defunct Photo CD format, and it can convert a long list of other abandoned image formats, too.

Which font for your ePub?

Digital Publishing, Font, Tip3 Comments

Finding fonts for Digital Publications is not very difficult — mostly you’ll be searching for fonts that are display well on screens.

The more difficult task can be licensing, as every font vendor has different licensing schemes, and some do not even allow you to embed their fonts in a PDF…

When creating native apps or other “encapsulated” file formats, where it is hard for the average user to get to the embedded fonts, I would recommend contacting your font vendor of choice and ask about licensing. Of course you could always rasterize a font, but that’s not really a good choice in regards to accessibility, readability and searchability, especially when using a Digital Publishing solution like App Studio, which by default keeps text as text (HTML5).

But what about ePubs? ePubs are basically a ZIP archive that contain the font file in a reusable format once you unzipped it. And I could understand that font vendors might be hesitant to license fonts for ePubs.

My recommendation: Use an OpenSource font for your reflowable ePub.

As ePubs typically are not displaying as designed, but reflow where line breaks do not matter anyhow, you are probably not so much concerned about CI. Otherwise you shouldn’t really create an ePub, a native app would be the better format.

And remember that in most Readers (hardware and software readers) your customer can switch font, so even if you carefully chose one, they might display everything in Times or Helvetica anyway.

So, if you decide for an OpenSource font that reads well on screen, my recommendation is Droid:

DroidFontAtFontSquirrel

You can find Droid here (and other fonts that are free for commerical use): http://www.fontsquirrel.com/foundry/Google-Android

 

Which fonts are pre-installed on the iPad (and iPhone)?

Digital PublishingNo Comments

When creating digital media based on web technology, e.g. HTML5 websites, web apps or ePub3, and which do not have any webfonts embedded or linked, then you rely on the fonts that are pre-installed on devices.

Apple’s iPad (and iPhone) actually have quite an impressive list of fonts pre-installed, for example

  • Arial
  • Avenir (in many faces)
  • Baskerville
  • Futura
  • Gill Sans
  • Helvetica
  • Palatino
  • Snell Roundhand
  • Times New Roman
  • Trebuchet
  • Verdana
  • Zapfino
  • and others

The website iosfonts.com lists all of them and also shows you which version of iOS added them on the iPhone and which on the iPad.