Being digital – creating a win-win situation for the visually impaired and publishers

US ebook wholesale rev. (Mio. $)

‚In 2015 Random House US will generate 50 % of turnover with ebooks‘

(Handelsblatt citing RH CEO)

34.000 titles in Braille1.2 mio books

in print

15.000 audio books

1.2 mio books

in print

4.200 titles in large print

1.2 mio books

in print

Common Issues

Formulae

Graphs

Image/text combinations

Complex layouts

Tables

Rethinking the way content is • created• managed• published• delivered

-----------------------------------------------------------------

XML for typesetting

e-book XML (e.g ePub)

Web XML(XHTML)

Manuscript

Artwork

Tagging

Proce

ssin

g

Transfo

rmatio

n

Transformation

Transformation

Print

e-book

Web publication

Graphs

Content DB

Processing

ePUB 3.0: new features

Layout improvements

Rich media and interactivity

Global languages

Accessibility improvements

HTML 5 support

≈

Barriers

Different types of content / delivery platforms

Digital workflows have to be implemented (technical problems, costs)

Digital Rights Management (DRM)

Copyright issues (eg text-to-speech)

Tech capabilities of publishing staff

Accessibility – a win-win-game

Stronger lobbying is needed to convince publishers of the benefits of accessible publishing for ALL readers and their WHOLE business

Digitisation moves visually impaired readers from a niche market to mainstream consumers

Accessibility helps publishers in generating future-proofcontent structures

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