Open Source DocBook XSL Experimental EPUB Support Released

Andrew Savikas
June 3, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (3) | Listen

Publishers with content in DocBook XML format can now easily create EPUB files using the open source DocBook XSL package (which already supports output to HTML and to XSL-FO -- a format that can be turned into PDF -- along with several other formats). Here at O'Reilly we've long used DocBook as the format for Safari Books Online, and more recently been using it more for standard book production (rather than converting to XML from a format like FrameMaker).

The 1.74.0 release is experimental, and additional feedback would be a big help for improving the output. From Paul Norton at the Adobe Digital Editions blog:

The ePub target has been tested against a number of files, but I would encourage those of you who use DocBook to try out the new target and to submit any issues you find to the tracking system on the DocBook project site. The only way we'll know if it doesn't work for you is if you tell us. :)

My personal thanks to Keith Fahlgren for driving the development of the ePub target and basically making it happen.

I'll second the thanks to Keith (an engineer here at O'Reilly) for his work on the project, and also extend the thanks to Paul and to Adobe for their contributions.