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Details for: ePub Format

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Summary
Name ePub Format
Version  
Other names  
Identifiers MIME:  application/epub+zip
Library of Congress Format Description Identifier:  fdd000310
PUID:  fmt/483
Family  
Classification Text (Structured)
Disclosure  
Description The EPUB family of standards defines a distribution and interchange format for digital publications and documents. The EPUB format, short for "electronic publications", provides a means of representing, packaging, and encoding structured and semantically enhanced Web content — including HTML, CSS, SVG and other resources — for distribution in a single‐file container. The container file is based on the ZIP format and defined in the Open Container Format (OCF). EPUB is an openly documented standard. It has been developed and maintained under the auspices of a sequence of entities. The version of EPUB is identified in the version attribute of the root <package> element in the .opf file, which can be found when the contents of the .epub file is "unzipped", i.e., extracted from the ZIP archive into its component files. The official way to find the .opf file is through the mandatory META-INF/container.xml file. If the EPUB container has a single EPUB Package, this will often be, by convention rather than requirement, in a directory named "EPUB" or "OEBPS." The version attribute for packages complying with all EPUB 3.x specifications is "3.0" and for EPUB 2.x specifications is "2.0".
Orientation  
Byte order  
Related file formats Has priority over ZIP Format  
Has priority over Hypertext Markup Language (2.0)
Has priority over Hypertext Markup Language (3.2)
Has priority over Hypertext Markup Language (4.0)
Has priority over Hypertext Markup Language (4.01)
Has priority over Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (1.0)
Has priority over Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (1.1)
Has priority over Hypertext Markup Language  
Has priority over Hypertext Markup Language (5)
Technical Environment  
Released  
Supported until  
Format Risk  
Developed by None.
Supported by None.
Source Digital Preservation Department / The National Archives
Source date 18 Dec 2012
Source description This format can be identified via a container signature in DROID version 6 or later. The PRONOM database cannot currently represent container signatures; v.120- New description, fdd library of congress identifier and notes added as part of PRONOM Research Week 2024. Submitted by Library of Congress.
Last updated 03 Jan 2025
Note https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/fdd/fdd000310.shtml; The official ePub spec for version 3 is maintained by https://www.w3.org/publishing/groups/epub-wg/; earlier versions (version 2) through https://idpf.org/epub/201.
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