Interactive books using HTML5 canvas in association with JavaScript
(Creando libros digitales con EPUB3 y HTML5)
(Creando libros digitales con EPUB3 y HTML5)
Producing interactive digital books with EPUB3 and HTML5 is now an excellent option. EPUB3 is great for doing HTML5 ebook development, especially once EPUB 3.0 specification is formally adopted.
The following basic steps can be useful if you want to produce interactive digital books:
- Download Calibre application and convert your original to epub format. Do not expect a nice result after conversion. It will be just a starting point from which you have to work on
- Learn how to zip/unzip epub files, work with xhtml files inside an epub, and zip it again.
- Add EPUB3 and HTML5 multimedia and interactivity to expand beyond traditional text and graphic books. Just add your HTML5 file to your epub zip as any other HTML content, include the standard XHTML namespace on the <html> tag and get all resources referenced in the OPF <manifest> file.
- Validate your EPUB files with EpubCheck.
- Upload your EPUB to iBookstore (or other online stores, blog, webpages…).
If you are interested in making your ebook available on Amazon’s Kindle platform, EPUB is not an option. Amazon provides a tool called Kindlegen, but results are low performance.
If instead of EPUB, you are interested in making ebook apps, you may want to look into Baker ebook framework or PhoneGap.
If you are brave enough and enthusiastic about digital books, just try it. If not, you may want to contact digital book experts from Publiconsulting Media too.
Enjoy!