RE: [xep-support] ePUB

It has been a recent topic of discussion without any specific conclusions
yet. From internal discussions, I can say ...

Point (1) -- RenderX is a vendor that specializes in the "art" of
composition -- meaning, layout of pages and composition of text like
kerning, word and character spacing, calculating line ending and hyphenation
... the core engine of RenderX is used to do this. Consider this our special
"ability".

Point (2) -- ePUB is really not much at all of this. There are some elements
that require analysis like embedding fonts, even restricted, subsetting
fonts into the ePUB zip architecture. But it is designed to allow the device
to flow the document, not create a pre-conceived flow of the document. It
needs to do this to allow it to be viewed on any reader of any size, layout.
In other words, XSL FO already has things that are not appropriate for ePUB
or constructs that (are not or) should not be mapped.

So ...

Some feel that one should go from raw XML to ePUB with alternate mappings
for appearance. There is a DITA module in development for this. There are
google tools for DocBook and other formats ...

http://code.google.com/p/epub-tools/

We usually stay within the world of composition -- we produce PDF (including
PDF/A, PDF/X, PDF Acroforms), PostScript, AFP, XPS and soon PPML. Our other
formats include XHTML and SVG but these are special cases where you wish the
XHTML and the SVG to look exactly like (or as close as possible to) the
printed page.

Of course, RenderX has always been a customer-focused vendor so your
feedback is welcome. How important is this to our customers? Feedback on
here is what we like to see.

Kevin Brown
RenderX

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-xep-support@renderx.com [mailto:owner-xep-support@renderx.com]
On Behalf Of Greg Baryza
Sent: Tuesday, February 16, 2010 12:41 PM
To: xep-support@renderx.com
Subject: [xep-support] ePUB

Does RenderX have any near-term plans to produce ePUB documents from XSL-FO
input?

Thanks.

<G>

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Received on Tue Feb 16 13:49:30 2010