Press Release: EPUB 3.3 Becomes a W3C Recommendation

Dear Friends of W3C

The EPUB 3 Working Group has published EPUB 3.3, EPUB Reading Systems 3.3 and EPUB Accessibility 1.1 as W3C Recommendations, as part of the Digital Publishing activity.

EPUB defines a distribution and interchange format for digital publications and documents. The EPUB format provides a means of representing, packaging, and encoding structured and semantically enhanced web content — including HTML, CSS, SVG, and other resources — for distribution in a single-file container.

The content specification, which is what publishers, creators, or authors are really interested in, is now separate from the reading system specification that is of primary interest for implementers only. Accessibility of EPUB publications was an essential part of the group’s activity. As a result, the EPUB Accessibility specification has been updated and, for the first time in the history of EPUB, is now an integral part of the EPUB Standard. Furthermore, the EPUB Accessibility specification is compatible with the European Accessibility Act whose influence will be significant on Digital Publishing in the years to come.

Read our Press Release to learn more about this achievement below as text and online at: 
https://www.w3.org/2023/05/pressrelease-epub33-rec.html.en


Yours sincerely,

Amy van der Hiel
W3C Media Relations Coordinator


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   [1]W3C 

      [1] https://www.w3.org/

                 EPUB 3.3 becomes a W3C Recommendation
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   [2]Translations | [3]W3C Press Release Archive
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      [2] https://www.w3.org/Press/Releases-2023#epub33-rec
      [3] https://www.w3.org/Press/

   [4]Composite showing the epub logo and a diagram of the various
   containers that constitute an epub file

      [4] https://www.w3.org/comm/assets/graphics/epub-composite.png

   [5]https://www.w3.org/ — 25 May 2023 — W3C has just published
   the newest version of EPUB, EPUB 3.3, as a W3C Recommendation
   (an international Web Standard) as part of the Digital
   Publishing activity (established with the [6]merger of IDPF and
   W3C in 2017).

      [5] https://www.w3.org/
      [6] https://www.w3.org/2017/01/pressrelease-idpf-w3c-combination.html.en

   EPUB defines a distribution and interchange format for digital
   publications and documents. The EPUB format provides a means of
   representing, packaging, and encoding structured and
   semantically enhanced web content — including HTML, CSS, SVG,
   and other resources — for distribution in a single-file
   container.

   [7]EPUB 3.3 is backward compatible with the previous version,
   [8]EPUB 3.2, insofar as any EPUB 3.2 document is also valid
   EPUB 3.3. In other words, moving from EPUB 3.2 to EPUB 3.3 does
   not require any changes to current publication workflows.

      [7] https://www.w3.org/TR/2023/REC-epub-33-20230525/
      [8] https://www.w3.org/publishing/epub3/index.html

   The W3C process of standardization entails a thorough review of
   the specifications by Member experts, including checking the
   specification’s impact on implementations for
   internationalization, security, privacy, accessibility, and
   conformity to other Web standards. These reviews led to a
   number of small but important technical changes such as
   additional features to address bidirectional text, and more
   precise specification of security related details for scripts.
   The standard also includes detailed guidelines for implementers
   on the possible privacy and security problems.

   The Working Group has also created a comprehensive [9]test
   suite that systematically tests all normative features of the
   specification. This was done in strong cooperation with the
   developers of [10]EPUBCheck. As a result, the latest version of
   epubcheck ([11]version 5.0.1 has just been released) is fully
   compatible with EPUB 3.3; publishers may use it immediately.

      [9] https://w3c.github.io/epub-tests/index.html
     [10] https://www.w3.org/publishing/epubcheck/
     [11] https://github.com/w3c/epubcheck/releases/tag/v5.0.1

   The EPUB 3.3 documents have also undergone significant
   improvement with editorial changes and reorganizations. The
   content specification, which is what publishers, creators, or
   authors are really interested in, is now separate from the
   [12]reading system specification that is of primary interest
   for implementers only. Editorial changes made the documents
   more readable. Finally, features that had little adoption (such
   as multiple rendition) have been removed from the standard text
   and have been published separately.

     [12] https://www.w3.org/TR/2023/REC-epub-rs-33-20230525/

   Accessibility of EPUB publications was an essential part of the
   group’s activity. As a result, the [13]EPUB Accessibility
   specification has been updated and, for the first time in the
   history of EPUB, is now an integral part of the EPUB Standard.
   Furthermore, the EPUB Accessibility specification is compatible
   with the [14]European Accessibility Act whose influence will be
   significant on Digital Publishing in the years to come.

     [13] https://www.w3.org/TR/2023/REC-epub-a11y-11-20230525/
     [14] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32019L0882

   W3C is committed to maintain the EPUB specification beyond this
   milestone. A planned dedicated Maintenance Working Group will
   consider issues such as a possible submission of EPUB 3.3 to
   ISO to update the [15]current ISO version that is based on
   [16]EPUB 3.0.1, or to consider features that were postponed
   (e.g., standardization of industry practices to use EPUB as a
   standard format for [17]webtoons). No major technical changes
   are envisioned at this time, though.

     [15] https://www.iso.org/standard/53255.html
     [16] http://idpf.org/epub/301/spec/epub-publications-20140626.html
     [17] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webtoon

   Finally, please note that this edition of EPUB is dedicated to
   [18]Garth Conboy, who was one of the original designers of
   EPUB, and an initiator of the [19]W3C Working Group which
   produced these new specifications. He is, and will remain,
   greatly missed.

     [18] https://daisy.org/news-events/articles/memories-of-garth-conboy-a-true-giant-in-digital-publishing/
     [19] https://www.w3.org/publishing/groups/epub-wg/

About the World Wide Web Consortium

   The mission of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is to lead
   the Web to its full potential by creating technical standards
   and guidelines to ensure that the Web remains open, accessible,
   and interoperable for everyone around the globe. W3C well-known
   standards HTML and CSS are the foundational technologies upon
   which websites are built. W3C works on ensuring that all
   foundational Web technologies meet the needs of civil society,
   in areas such as accessibility, internationalization, security,
   and privacy. W3C also provides the standards that undergird the
   infrastructure for modern businesses leveraging the Web, in
   areas such as entertainment, communications, digital
   publishing, and financial services. That work is created in the
   open, provided for free and under the groundbreaking W3C Patent
   Policy.

   W3C's vision for "One Web" brings together thousands of
   dedicated technologists representing more than 400 [20]Member
   organizations and dozens of industry sectors. W3C is a
   public-interest non-profit organization incorporated in the
   United States of America, led by a Board of Directors and
   employing a global staff across the globe. For more information
   see [21]https://www.w3.org/.

     [20] https://www.w3.org/Consortium/Member/List
     [21] https://www.w3.org/

   End Press Release

Media Contact

   Amy van der Hiel, W3C Media Relations Coordinator
   <[22]w3t-pr@w3.org>
  mailto:w3t-pr@w3.org

   +1.617.253.5628 (US, Eastern Time)
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   [23]Translations | [24]W3C Press Release Archive

     [23] https://www.w3.org/Press/Releases-2023#epub33-rec
     [24] https://www.w3.org/Press/

Received on Thursday, 25 May 2023 13:02:56 UTC