Adobe Digital Editions

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Adobe Digital Editions, ADE, is a eBook reader for Windows and MacOS X. It can read ePUB documents, PDF documents, and Adobe Flash® SWF.

Contents

[edit] Features

  • Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) is a new, rich Internet application (RIA) built from the ground up for digital publishing. It is a simplified, engaging way to acquire, manage, and consume eBooks and other kinds of digital publications.
  • It focuses on Reading and managing eBooks, unlike Acrobat Reader that is intended to read all kinds of eDocuments, not just eBooks.
  • The Reader is free and requires less that 3 MegaBytes to install.
  • Formats supported include: PDF/A and an OPS (enhanced OEBPS, which is a profile of XHTML 1.1 with OCF packaging) are the two publication-level content types, basically ePUB with limitations.
  • SWF content and common image file types can be referenced within PDF- and XHTML-based publications.
  • Common DRM format called ADEPT for supported file types. This is used by some publishers and in Libraries. Both DRM and non-DRM files are supported by the product.
  • An version is available for developers to use to provide ADE on portable devices.
  • PDF support includes a somewhat limited reflow ability to permit reading large format PDF documents on the smaller screens present on mobile devices.

[edit] ePUB extensions

Adobe has a number of extension to the ePUB standard.

[edit] Page-map

Adobe can add a page-map to provide mapping between the hardcopy book page numbers and the eBook. In the absence of a page-map ADE computes an arbitrary page number for each file in the spine using 1024 unicode characters as the page size. The last page in the file contains whatever overflow is needed.

If a page map is included the TOC entry in the content.opf file is modified to add a reference to the page map file: 

<spine page-map="map" toc="ncx">

The map needs an entry in the manifest section of the content.opf file as well. 

<item href="page-map.xml" id="map" media-type="application/oebps-page-map+xml"/>

A page-map file is an XML file that looks like: 

<page-map xmlns="http://www.idpf.org/2007/opf">
 <page name="" href="cover.html"/>
 <page name="i" href="halftitle.html"/>
 <page name="ii" href="other.html"/>
 <page name="iii" href="title.html"/>
 <page name="iv" href="copyright.html"/>
...
 <page name="1" href="part1.html"/>
 <page name="3" href="chapter1.html"/>
 <page name="4" href="chapter1.html#page_4"/>
 <page name="5" href="chapter1.html#page_5"/>
 <page name="6" href="chapter1.html#page_6"/>
 <page name="7" href="chapter1.html#page_7"/>
...
</page-map>

[edit] Layout Template

Adobe Digital Editions viewer implements several layout extensions to EPUB format which are collectively referred to as an XML page template (XPGT). These include:

  • Page Masters – specify XSL:FO page masters to add headers, footers and sidebars as well as multicolumn layout.
  • Dynamic Page Master Selection – choose the right page master based on the environment.
  • Dynamic Styling – style the document based on the environment (viewing area dimensions, default font size, device resolution, etc.)

These changes are all added to an additional stylsheet that is referenced from the XHTML file like any other stylesheet or import from another stylsheet: 

@import url(template.xpgt);

The XPGT file is also declared in the OPF manifest and assigned media type 

 “application/adobe-page-template+xml”.

XPGT uses XML rather than CSS-like syntax. This is further described in the Adobe ePUB Best Practices guide.

[edit] Device Support

ADE also has a mobile edition. It supports a number of mobile devices. Note that portable devices do not have all of the features of the full PC/Mac version. Typically SWF is not supported. The DRM used on ADE has been adopted by Overdrive for use in its library software to permit Library checkout of ePUB and PDF books.

Currently the devices supported include:

[edit] For more Information

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