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EPUB3 fun #2

By glazou on Monday 6 August 2012, 15:24 - Standards - Permalink

Aaaaah, forward compatibility... Here are two interesting excerpts from the EPUB Publications 3.0 specification.

In section 3.4.14: Authors may include the guide element in the Package Document for EPUB 2 Reading System forwards compatibility purposes

In section 3.4.1: The (version) attribute (of the package element) must have the value 3.0 to indicate compliance with this version of the specification.

Let's look now at two bits coming from the Open Packaging Format (OPF) 2.0.1 specification:

In section 1.4.12: the version attribute of the package element is specified with a value of 2.0

In section 1.3.2: In addition, to be processed as an OPF 2.0 package, a version attribute with a value of 2.0 must be specified on the package element. A package element that omits the version attribute must be processed as an OEBPS 1.2 package

In summary, <package version="3.0"> is absolutely needed for an EPUB to be parsed as EPUB3 and EPUB2 absolutely requires <package version="2.0"> since the absence of the version attribute defaults to OEBPS 1.2!!! Conclusion, "EPUB 2 Reading System forwards compatibility" described in the first quote above is absolutely illusory. Even worse, compatibility can be achieved if and only if EPUB Reading Systems deliberately ignore the version attribute on the package element... Ooops, to say the least.

Comments

1. On Monday 6 August 2012, 16:07 by Paul Flo Williams

You seem to be implying that <package version="3.0"> would force an EPUB 2 reader to treat the package as OEBPS 1.2, which is not how I read the specs at all. version="x" isn't the same as "omitting the version attribute".

2. On Monday 6 August 2012, 16:09 by Daniel Glazman

@Paul: no, I only imply that a EPUB2 conforming Reader cannot accept <package> nor <package version="3.0">. So there is no possible compatibility UNLESS version is ignored.