Overview

A writer or publisher has many options when it comes to choosing a format for publication

Every format has its proponents & challenges

Not everyone uses the same software, and there's no universal e-book file format that all market players have adopted

Plain text files

Published as .txt They are in plain text The size in bytes is simply the

number of characters, including spaces

E.g. the Bible, an 800,000-word book, is about 4 MB in this format

Portable Document Format (PDF) Published as .pdf The most common ebook format today It has the advantage that it can be read

on any platform PDF documents can be created by a

number of freely available software converters (give examples)

There are also free PDF viewers for Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Unix , handheld computers (PDA)

Familiarity with the PDF is another advantage of this format

Epub Published as .epub an e-book specific format engineered

by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF)

It is based on XHTML and XML intended to replace the Open

eBook (OEB) standard includes optional support for DRM

MobiPocket Published as .mobi or .pcr based on the Open eBook standard

using XHTML It can include JavaScript and frames It also supports native SQL queries to

be used with embedded databases

HTML Format Published as .htm or .html HTML is the markup language used for

most web pages It can be read by anyone with a web browser Many softwares can be used to create files in such

format, e.g. free software like Nvu & KompoZer or commercial editors like Dreamweaver 

If there are multiple pages, there will be need to distribute the ebook in some sort of archive format, like a zip file, and give instructions to readers how they can unpack the file, and which file to click on to start reading

HTML on its own is not a particularly efficient format to store information, since it requires more storage space for a given work than many other formats. 

Windows Executable File Published as .exe To use this format, one needs an ebook

"compiler" that converts the document into a Windows program

When a reader runs the file, a built-in viewer displays the book for him/her to read.

The format has some disadvantages Firstly, with viruses and adware on the Internet,

many visitors are suspicious of running run an executable file just to read a document

Secondly, the audience is restricted to Windows users

This format has advantage of imposing some sort of protection for ebooks, commonly called "DRM“ using serials and passwords

Amazon Kindle

Published as .azw file format used by the Amazon

Kindle e-reader Is DRM protected Kindle also supports TXT, PDF, MP3,

unprotected MOBI and (through conversion) HTML and DOC

OpenDocument Format

Published as .odf is an XML-based file format used to

represent spreadsheets, presentations, word processing documents, and more

Comparison Table

FormatFilename extension

DRM supportImage

supportTable

supportSound

supportInteractivity

supportWord

wrapsupportOpen

standard

Embedded annotation

support

Book- marking

Plain text .txt No No No No No Yes Yes No No

HTML .html No Yes Yes No No Yes Yes No No

PostScript .ps No Yes  ? No No No Yes  ?  ?

Portable Document Format

.pdf Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes

DjVu .djvu  ? Yes Yes No No No Yes Yes Yes

EPUB (IDPF) .epub Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

FictionBook .fb2 Yes Yes  ? No No Yes Yes Yes  ?

Mobipocket .prc, .mobi Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes[citation needed] Yes Yes

Kindle .azw Yes Yes Yes[f 1][19] Yes[f 2][20] No Yes No Yes Yes

eReader .pdb Yes Yes  ? No No Yes No Yes Yes

TealDoc .pdb Yes Yes  ? No No Yes Yes  ? Yes

Broadband eBook

.lrf, .lrx Yes Yes  ? No No Yes No  ?  ?

WOLF[

disambiguation neede

d

]

.wol Yes Yes  ? No No No No  ?  ?

Tome Raider .tr2, .tr3 Yes Yes  ? No No Yes No  ?  ?

ArghosReader

.aeh Yes Yes  ? No No Yes No  ? Yes

Microsoft Reader

.lit Yes Yes  ? No No Yes No  ? Yes

Multimedia EBook

.exe Yes Yes  ? Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes

Repligo .rgo  ? Yes Yes No No Yes No No No