Introduction

In March 2006, the OEBPS Working Group was officially created with an IDPF Board of Director vote to approve the Working Group charter on March 27, 2006.  The group met via teleconference call on a weekly or biweekly basis through June 2006.  The Working Group will meet at a face to face meeting on June 20^th and 21st in New York City to present and select technologies to satisfy the following requirements.  Further details on the Working Group can be found in its charter located at:

http://www.idpf.org/idpf_groups/oebpswg.htm

This document was submitted to the IDPF Board of Directors as an Informational Document as defined by the IDPF’s Policies and Procedures, section 4.6.1.  While Informational Documents do not have an official specification status in the organization, the Working Group felt it important that IDPF members and the public have the opportunity to review the requirements which will form the basis of the specification.  This document was approved by the IDPF Board of Directors as an Informational Document on Monday, June 5^th, 2006 and approved for submission by the Working Group on Thursday, June 1^st, 2006.  The document was posted for public review on the IDPF website at www.idpf.org.

The OEBPS Working Group continues to meet on a biweekly basis and plans to release draft specifications in 2006.

Next Version OEBPS Use Cases

1. Publisher wants to deliver eBooks published in the OEBPS format as its preferred delivery format, thus over time moving away from proprietary delivery formats and gaining digital publication production efficiencies and promoting growth of an eBook/epublishing ecosystem due to multiple vendors supporting the same delivery format. One benefit is fewer formats to archive.
2. Publishers want to use an updated OEBPS format as the single intermediate standard format for pre-production work on eBooks which allows for “single-click conversion” (a task for Reading System vendors) into existing OEBPS/HTML-derivative eBook delivery formats, thus achieving workflow efficiencies. This updated OEBPS format will promote greater compatibility of eBook content entering the digital publishing workflow. (Perhaps one factor leading to greater compatibility would be stricter conformance requirements with the new OEBPS versus the older OEBPS.)
3. Publishers want to leverage an updated OEBPS format within their workflows to achieve more efficient creation of content that addresses accessibility requirements and conforms to future government mandates about accessible file formats.
4. Publishers with to create their eBook content utilizing the greater presentational fidelity that can be achieved when conformant/advanced reading systems support the envisioned next generation of OEBPS.  Desired features such as vector graphics; embedded outline fonts and utilization of modern XML/Web standards will facilitate enhanced content fidelity.

Next Version OEBPS Requirements

The following requirements are required to be met by functional specifications for products that comply with the next version of the OEBPS specification:

1. Must modernize OEBPS for use by content creators and conversion houses as an intermediate format for eBook production workflows that target OEBPS/HTML-derivative eBook delivery formats.
2. Must, as appropriate, update OEBPS based on developments in underlying W3C family of standards including XML namespaces, XHTML & CSS.
3. Must enhance OEBPS in the area of navigation potentially including searching, indexing, hierarchical structures, intra-publication references, and inter-publication links.  These enhancements could be derived from adopting external development (e.g. by DAISY) or by leveraging prior OEBPS work in this area.
4. Must provide a declarative table of contents.
5. Must support the option of embedding outline fonts.
6. Must support the option of embedded vector graphics supporting high-resolution graphical content, i.e. flow charts, pictures, etc.
7. Should provide improvements in the handling of international content where deemed necessary for the specification to better support publishing in world markets. Examples of improvements in this area were improved writing system features, and writing direction improvement.
8. The draft specification is targeted for completion in calendar 2006.  Because of the desired time schedule for deliverables of this tightly constrained next version of OEBPS, the Working Group should not embark upon arbitrary changes (beyond those described herein).
9. Deprecation or removal of OEBPS 1.2 features that are supported in implementations should be avoided.
10. Must optimize OEBPS for use as a final publication delivery format.
11. Should align to optimally utilize new IDPF Unified OEBPS Container Format. Publishers would allow for the sale of content (optionally after DRM-wrapping) into Reading Systems that natively accept and render OEBPS with viable fidelity.
12. Should do nothing in this effort that will prevent the future use of DRM.  Communication of DRM requirements from publishers to distributors and resellers could be accomplished via various mechanisms (note that the standardization of such mechanisms is not within the scope of the OEBPS effort).
13. Should maximize compatibility with OEBPS 1.2, 1.0.1 and 1.0 specifications and existing OEBPS content. Programmatic upgradeability from previous OEBPS versions should be possible if compatibility not fully maintained.
14. Must promote and invite work on the specification from other standards groups and interested organizations, formal or informal. Such organizations may include W3C, OASIS, OpenReader, NewsML, TEI, Daisy and others.  Specifically, the Working Group will address possible endorsement of standards to evolve the specification to gain greater adoption.
15. Must retain the open and patent-unencumbered status of OEBPS.
16. Must have a preference for adopting existing standards rather than creation of new ones in order to facilitate the timely creation, adoption and implementation of the resultant standard.
17. Must contain a statement emphasizing and illustrating the importance of accessible design in e-books. 
18. Must require WCAG 1.0. Must require WCAG 2.0 if completed in time.
19. Should explore alignment with DTBook, NIMAS and CAST standards such that OEBPS can leverage the expected content flow required by recent accessibility regulations.
20. Must have clear Content Conformance requirements and Reading System Conformance requirements.
21. Must support the ability for vendors to provide OEBPS content validation tools and test suites to ensure that the content conforms to the updated OEBPS specification.
22. Should resolve requirements for handling of “out of spine” content.
23. Consider additional metadata support: cover art, content descriptions, thumbnails, etc.
24. Consider support for façade books.

Note: Any comments, questions or suggestions on any of the informational documents can be directed to the IDPF.  They will be forwarded to the appropriate contacts in IDPF Working Groups or SIGs.