Accessible Ebooks for Education

At the web accessibility for education workshop at Canberra Institute of Technology yesterday, the topic of making ebooks accessible for those with a disability came up. As I briefly explained, many of the ebook and e-learning module formats used for education are based on the HTML format as used for web pages. Most of the ebook formats are essentially  of web pages zipped into a file for offline use (you can unzip many ebooks with a standard archive tool and examine their source code). As a result the same web accessibility techniques can be applied to ebooks as to web pages.

However, ebook readers have limited hardware (most kindles cannot display colour for example) and the versions of HTML used are limited compared to those on a desktop computer or even a tablet computer. This has its good points and bad points. On the one had some accessibility techniques cannot be used with ebooks and other hand some are not applicable and so need not be worried about.

The approach I suggest, if you are producing basic text based notes, perhaps with some illustrations, is to create  your content using the minimum of standard formatting. The document can be created in a word processor or a HTML editor. Use the standard headings, fonts, lists and the like. The content should then easily convert to most ebook formats. Depending on the ebook format used, you will be able to add colours and styles to make the content look prettier, but at least it will be readable on most devices. As an example see my "Demonstration of Using Moodle for Postgraduate Professional Education with eBooks and Smart phones".

If you have audio or video content I suggest not packaging it in the ebook, unless you are sure the student has broadband and a device which can view the video. Adding video can make the ebook file ten times larger (video can instead be supplied separately). As an example, Box Hill Institute of TAFE's excellent ebook for "Hand make timber joints" is 284 Mbytes. If the video is deleted from the ebook, the file reduces to 16 Mbytes, less than one tenth the size.

Ebook formats

1. Moodle Book Module: Moodle has its own simple ebook format called "Moodle Book Module". This uses the Moodle WYSIWYG HTML editor to create web p[ages which are book chapters. Moodle will convert the content to IMS Content Packages and also allow the student to export the content chaper or whole book as a web page. If you are creating content for Moodle this is a simple choice.
2. IMS Content Package and SCORM: The, IMS Content Packages and the closely related SCORM packages consist of a zipped file containing HTML, CSS and other web format documents. SCORM is popular for vocational education.
3. EPUB: Apple iPads have popularised the EPUB eBook format. If you are producing an ebook for a wide readership, this is the format you are likely to use.
4. Tagged PDF:  The version of  "Tagged PDF" provides some accessibility features, implemented using XML. It might be useful for those committed to PDF, but for others, one of the HTML based ebook formats would be better.
5. Kindle Format: Amazon Kindle ebooks use HTML  (newer files use HTML5). This is the format you would use for publishing via Amazon.com. But t\note that Kindle devices can read PDF files as well and ordinary web pages (but not EPUB).

Word Processing an eBook

Previously I tried creating an ePub eBook from a word Processing document using LuLu's new conversion utility. There were a few problems with this as I had used exactly the same word processing file I had used to create the paperback book. So I took a copy of the paper-book and started editing it to make the eBook version.

The image I had on the title page did not show up on the eBook. I had an image in the background on the page, but you can only have simple in-line images in ePub. So I changed the image to in-line. At the same time I sued a lower resolution version fot he image, as the eBook readers have much lower resolution than a printed page. Using the high resoolution imaqge just wasted space (this one image took as much file space as all the text of the book).

The Lulu software generates a table of contents for the book, so the one I ha for the printed version was redundant (and refereed to no-existent page numbers as eBooks don't have pages. So I dented the table of contents.

I found if I set the WP document to B6 size (4.92 x 6.93 inches), with margins of 0.43 inches and text at 12 point, the WP document looked about the same as the resulting eBook. The page sizes in the word processing document are ignored by the conversion process, as eBooks do not have fixed size pages, but it helps to have the document you are working on look roughly like the final result will be.

Ebook readers do not do a good job of fully justified text, so I changed the format to left justified and the Lulu converter does not support hyphenation, so I made the text left justified.

The converter turns each level 2 heading into a new chapter, whereas my book had heading 1 for chapters. I thought this was a side effect of conversion of the content from the Moodle Learning Management System. But I found I had incorrectly entered the headings in Moodle. So I went back and manually changed all the level 1 headings to level 2, level 2 to level 3 and so on.

The copyright page of the book had run on under the title page, as the copyright page has no heading (and the conversion process ignores page breaks, eBooks having no fixed pages). It was not clear what to do with the copyright page. In theory this information is contained in a separate file in the eBook, but the reader may never think to look there. So I created what is in effect the first chapter of the book called "About the Book" and put the copyright information there.

With all that done the eBook looks reasonable. But eBooks using the current ePub standard (and the Kindle format using by Amazon), look like very dull web pages, without advanced formatting. In that way they mimic black and white paperback books, but it would be difficult to produce something like a children's story book this way. The new version of ePub based on HTML 5 may fix this, but backward compatibility with low cost eBook readers will be a problem.

Creating an ePub eBook from a Word Processing Document

Print on demand service Lulu announced a new eBook EPUB Converter and eBook Publishing Tools, I thought I would try it out. Previously I have used LuLu to distribute an ePub version of a book on the Apple iTunes store, but the process of converting my content to the ePub format was not easy.

Lulu also offer a EPUB Creator Guide which is full of tips which would be of use to those producing a paper book, as well as eBooks. I skimmed through the guide and Launce into a new book project. The first few steps are the same as for a paperback, you enter the title and author for the book and Lulu issues you an ISBN (or you supply your own). You then upload the word processing file with the book content in it.

At this point you have the choice of supplying PDF, in which case your eBook is only distributed by Lulu, or a file which can be converted to ePub (so it can be distributed by iBooks and others). I had the book both in the form of a set of one web page per chapter (for use in a Learning Management System) and as one word processing master document (used to create the PDF for the printed book). Conventional wisdom would say the web original would be better for ePub as that is a web based format. But I wanted to try Lulu's converter which works with word processing files.

One problem is that Lulu does not accept master documents (with separate files for chapters). So I have to save the book as one file. At this point I assumed I would have to use a Microsoft Word DOC file, but later discovered I could use the LibreOffice ODT format. So I tried both formats.

After uploading the file Lulu took less than a minute to convert to ePub. It reported some changes it made:

In order to create your EPUB, we had to make a few changes to your document:

• Your file "ict_sustainability.doc" uses optional hyphens, which is currently not supported. We have converted the file anyway, but it may contain formatting errors, Please review the result.
• We removed multiple blank lines found in succession to prevent unwanted page breaks.
• We adjusted all image formatting to be set inline. To create an EPUB, images must be centered inline in the document.
• We have stripped all headers and/or footers in your document. Headers and footers are not supported in the EPUB format.

The book has only one image and the DOC file is only 642 kbytes (for 132 pages). After conversion it was 251 kbytes of EPUB, which was worrying as I thought something must have been lost in the conversion.

On opening the ebook with Calibre, I found all my chapters there in the table of contents. The title page was not correctly formatted, my image missing and the table of contents generated by the word processor was present but is superfluous for an eBook.

The metadata for the book (title, auditor, publisher, description, ISBN and the lie) was correctly formatted in the epub document. This is an impressive feature, in that the Author does not need to do any work to have this information inserted in the ebook. They author simply enters the information where promoted by Lulu's forms and this is inserted.

One surprise was that the Sigil e-book editor reported dozens of errors in the epub code generated by Lulu. One errors was that the Language element is missing (Lulu is only supporting books in English at present, but even so the books should indicate they are in English). All the other errors are "attribute 'target" is not declared for element 'a'". While these do not seem serious errors, it is worrying that Lulu generates them as ebook distributors and ebook readers are much less tolerant of errors than web servers and browsers.

While the layout of the print book was reproduced, the word and line spacing was not correct. Some paragraphs had lines of text touching, others had too much white space. Also the text is displayed fully justified, which does not work well with the poor layout algorithms of the ebook readers.

However, given the minimal effort required, this was a reasonable first attempt. I then realized I could use the native ODT file format of LibreOffice (and Open Office). That produced a ODT file of only 92 kbytes and eboup of 202 kbytes. At that point I assumed there must be a mistake, but the content appeared to be all there (apart from the image).

The formatting of the eBook from ODT looked much better than from DOC (not surprisingly as ODT is a native format for the word processor I am using). The title page, chapter and section headings where in the correct font and color. The paragraph text was not overlapping. The fully justified text still did not look quite right as the Lulu conversion process (as it warned) had removed the hyphenated text.

Obviously reading the tips in the Lulu guide would help remove the extraneous print book formatting to get the eBook to look right. One issue is that as the book had started out as a set of web pages, with one chapter per page, the major headings were marked as "level 2:" (H2 in HTML). The ebook treats each of these as a new book chapter, resulting in the book being overly fragmented. It appears I will need to reformat the book with the H2 replaced with H3 (H3 with H4 and so on).

It would be useful if Lulu added some more features to the converter and the guide, so that the author could create one source document for the print and eBook editions. This is just about possible with the print and PDF versions.

Obviously it is possible to use the same book chapter content and use them in two differently formatted master documents. But I did this previously for the book "Green Technology Strategies" and the process gets very complicated very quickly. It would be good to have an option where it was possible, for example, to include the table of contents for the printed edition, but have the epub conversion process omit it. The conversion process could also ignore requests for fully justified text.

While I will need to fix up my book contents for the ebook, I thought I might was well step through the rest of the Lulu punishing process to see if there are any changes from the print version. The next step was to create a "marketing image". This is much the same as the front cover for a paperback book (an ebook has no equivalent to a back cover). One difference is the aspect ratio, with the ebook image being much squarer than a typical paperback (apparently it is for a 3x4 computer screen). The description enterer for the book (keywords and the like) are the same as for a paperback. There is an extra step for Digital Rights Management (DRM) where for 25 cents a copy

Adobe Digital Editions stops the book being copied (I don't use this).

Lulu suggested a price of $8.99 (most ebooks are less than $10), with my revenue being $7.20 for sales on Lulu and $5.66 elsewhere. One surprise is with the book price was the that discount option has been removed. With a paperback book it is common to have a retail price and a discount, but Lulu argue that people buying ebooks see the discount as an indication the book is overpriced. It occurs to me that this might be because people realize ebooks cost little to manufacture and distribute. In any case Lulu point out that a low price of $.99 to $2.99 is likely to attract more sales.

There appears to be a curious anomaly in the Lulu pricing model. At prices above $3.31, my share of revenue on a book sale via Lulu is higher than when the book sold elsewhere. This makes sense as both Lulu and the book retailer have to receive a share of the revenue. But at $3.31, the revenue is the same from both and at prices below $3.31, the retinue via Lulu is lower than for elsewhere sales.

My inclination is to accept Lulu's suggestion and set the price at $2.99

eBook Publishing Tools from LuLu

Print on demand service Lulu have announced a new eBook EPUB Converter and eBook Publishing Tools. Previously I have used LuLu to distribute an ePub version of a book on the Apple iTunes store. Lulu took care of the distribution and sales, but the process of converting my content to the ePub format was not easy. Also it was confusing that the Lulu system treated the ePub version as a separate work, whereas the PDF ebook is managed alongside the print edition.

Lulu claim their new "Lulu EPUB Converter" will automatically fix minor errors, such as fonts and spacing.

Lulu also offer a EPUB Creator Guide. Curiously they do not offer this on the web, just downloaded in EPUB, PDF, and Ms Word format. It covers topics such as:

1. Settting up your document's EPUB Table of Contents
2. Prepare Word to create your document
3. Prepare your document for Lulu's EPUB Converter
4. Title, Copyright, and ToC in your document
5. Styling your document's paragraphs
6. Fonts/Text in your document
7. Images in your document
8. Hyperlinks in your document
9. Using Styles in your document
10. Using Indexes, Endnotes, and Footnotes in your document
11. Troubleshooting Your EPUB Conversion

Jutoh e-book software

I downloaded the demo version Jutoh to try for creating ePub/Kindle e-book publishing. This also required me to download Amazon's KindleGen software for creating Kindle e-books (although I have found Amazon's on-line tools work okay).

After installing the Linux version of Jutoh, I pointed it at a folder containing the file from an IMS Content Package generated by Moodle, containing the chapters of my book in XHTML format. Jutoh extracted the HTML and created an e-book in a few seconds. The chapters were not in the correct order (the ISM table of contents is an XML file which Jutoh seems to have simply ignored). There were 22 errors with the HTML reported. This was disappointing as I assumed the application would fix the HTML.

Also I tried using my LibreOffice file as a source document. But Jutoh did not recognize the ODM master document format. So then I tried the HTML print file generated by Moodle. This had the problem that Moodle does not using a HTML heading tag to identify chapters, but a class. I could not see any way to get Jutoh to recognise this and one of my attempts too more than ten minutes to process.

It seems that the software is designed to create an e-book in only one format. So while you can use the same source documents, you need to compile the book separately for each format (ePUB, Kindle and the like). After generating the EPUB, I tried switching to Mobi, but this seemed to confuse the software.

So over a few minutes trying Jutoh, I concluded it does not work significantly better than the other tools I have tried. Given Jutoh costs money and the other tools don't, I did not think it worth persisting with.

Firedocs eLML Editor for Ebooks and e-Learning Packages

It is the start of second semester at ANU and my colleagues are putting the finishing touches to their course materials (I am revising my green ICT course for next semester). This has prompted much discussion of suitable tools and formats for e-documents for learning. LaTex is a popular typesetting package with computer scientists (having been written by one). This can produce not only documents for printing, but also well formatted web pages and slides. It occurred to me that there may be some Latex to ePub or IMS Content Package tools. I did not find any of those but did find the Firedocs eLML Editor.

The eLesson Markup Language (eLML) is an XML based format originally developed for a Geographic Information Systems learning project. What got my attention was that the editor for eLML was integrated with the Firefox web browser and the output could be converted ePub eBook format and the IMS Content Package format used by Learning Management Systems, such as Moodle.

Installing the Firedocs editor was simple, but I found I could not actually edit anything. What was not clear was if I also needed to install eLML and/or Eclipse (for version control and file management).

More than PDF needed for accessibility

Gian Wild talked about "PDFs and accessibility - AGIMO review" at the Web Standards Group meeting in Canberra, today. At the previous WSG Meeting, an AGIMO representative expressed the view that it was not feasible to make PDF, RTF or MS Word files accessible and so agencies should provide information as accessible web pages. This would not be a great change from the current formal AGMIO advice: "Agencies are reminded that it is still a requirement to publish an alternative to all PDF documents (preferably in HTML)." The formal release of the AGIMO PDF Accessibility Review, was due in mid-2010 (and is now four months late).

My view is that while in theory PDF could be made accessible, but in practice this is so hard to do it is not worth the trouble. It is simpler to create an accessible web page with HTML. Ideally a good quality HTML page can replace PDF.

Gian started with an introduction to web accessibility issues. She pointed out that WCAG 2 guidelines do not cover cognitive disabilities (including dyslexia, aphasia). Also colour blindness is common. Few people are completely blind (that is not being able to see any light). Many use magnifiers to make the text larger. Also "screen readers" do not cope well with Flash and JavaScript. She showed an example of text transposed to demonstrate what a person with dyslexia is faced with. She pointed out that physical disabilities have difficulties with keyboards and/or mice.

Gian pointed out that Youtube now has automated text captioning. The creator uploads a file of the text and Youtube automatically matches this to the audio.

Gian the went on to discuss the Disability Discrimination ACT and the precedent set by the SOCOG case I was an expert witness for. The Australian Human Rights Commission recommends WCAG version 1 (version 2 to follow). Federal agencies are required to comply with WCAG version 1 now with version 2 to follow. The Australian Human Rights Commission gets more complaints about PDF than any other format.

There were 40 submissions to the AGIMO PDF review. Vision Australia found tagged PDF difficult to use and lacking in support from assistive technology. AGMIO looked at best practice advice from Adobe. Assistive technology vendors advised they were reluctant to support tagged PDF as so people use it. As a result AGIMO will not define as accessible and will require an alternative format.

However, tagging is useful, as for example for text to speech. What Gian seemed to be saying was that a simple text PDF document was easier to navigate than a complicated web site with lots of menus. However, a simple web page might be even better.

Gian demonstrated to use of a text to speech system (in this case BrowseAloud.com). She pointed out that these systems can be useful for people who have a physical disability as they can place the pointer over some text to be read without having to click. One feature of the software is a dictionary. It occurs to me that some of these features and guidelines could be of value to students, particularly with those learning in a second language.

Gian suggested that AGIMO and other governments should fund an accessibility toolkit for WCAG 2, to translate the esoteric language of the guideline into something web designers can understand and use. Gian also pointed out that many simple accessibility tips (such as "use simple language") in WCAG 1 was removed from WCAG 2. These sort of useful tips could be included in a government sponsored cookbook.

One interesting option I suggest is the use of e-book formats. These could provide a useful alternative to PDF for large government reports. The EPUB e-book format is based on HTML. It should therefore be possbible to create an e-book which looks good online, prints like a conventiaonal report and could be easily also provided as an accessible web site. This would remove the need for PDF and web versions.

ps: The meeting was at the Geoscience Austrlaia building in Symonston. This is worth a visit just for the display on geology in the foyer, the library, map shop and cafe.

PDFs and accessibility of government information

Gian Wild will talk about "PDFs and accessibility - AGIMO review" at the Web Standards Group meeting in Canberra, 16 November, 2010.

At the previous WSG Meeting, an AGIMO representative expressed the view that it was not feasible to make PDF, RTF or MS Word files accessible and so agencies should provide information as accessible web pages. That statement (which I support) appears to have pre-empted the formal release of the AGIMO PDF Accessibility Review, which was due to report in mid-2010 (and is now four months late). This would not be a great change from the current formal AGMIO advice: "Agencies are reminded that it is still a requirement to publish an alternative to all PDF documents (preferably in HTML)."

My suggestion would be to make corporate reports available in EPUB e-book format and the same content as ordinary web pages. Corporate types would see "e-book" as being a trendy new thing they could read on their iPads. Most people would read the same content as ordinary web pages.

November 2010 Canberra WSG meeting

Date: Tuesday 16 November, 2010

Time: 3.00pm - 4.30pm ...

Cost: Free

Follow @wsgcanberra on twitter

Topic 1: PDFs and accessibility - AGIMO review

PDFs have always been an issue when it comes to accessibility. With the advent of WCAG2, it becomes the decision of policy-makers such as AGIMO and the Australian Human Rights Commission (formerly HREOC) as to whether PDFs are deemed an 'accessible technology' and whether they can be on a site without an accessible alternative. AGIMO is currently undertaking a review of PDFs and their capacity to be made accessible. This seminar talks about the review and its likely outcomes.

About the presenter

Gian Wild has worked in the accessibility industry since 1998 and consulted on the development of the first Level AAA accessible web site in Australia (Disability Information Victoria). She ran the accessibility consultancy PurpleTop from 2000 to 2005 and built the accessibility tool, PurpleCop. Amongst other sites, Gian has worked as the Accessibility Consultant for the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games and was responsible for training Microsoft developers in accessibility. She also wrote the original and updated version of the Victorian eGovernment Resource Centre Web Accessibility Toolkit. Gian was a Member of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group from May 2000 to August 2006.

Creating an ebook with eCub

One of the tools suggested by LuLu to create an Epub eBook was eCub (also for MobiPocket books, which are similar to the Amazon kindle format). I was able to install eCub on my Ubuntu netbook and run it. I also tried the more sophisticated Calibre tool but was unable to install it (and caused problems with my Linux configuration in the process).

I like the eCub approach which is that while it has a graphical user interface, it is a simple batch program working on a directory of files underneath. You place the content you want converted to ePub in a folder and then run eCub, which creates the ePub file. You can't preview or edit the document with eCub, you have to use other programs to do that, all it does is take the files you provide and package them up.

On my first attempt I created a book which has a cover and all the content, but the menu is not correct. However, this is good progress for a few minutes work (after hours of working out why Calibre did not run and what happened to my software configuration).

Converting a manuscript to Epub Ebook format

LuLu now offer Epub eBook format as an option for distributing via the service. They seem to imply that they have a service to create Epub format, I could not find it. WHat I did find was "Can I convert my manuscript to Epub on my own?". This had some suggestions for tools: Epub Tutorial, Calibre (Free tool), eCub (EPUB and MobiPocket books), Google Epub Toolkit. What they do not seem to have is an online sercvice like the Amazon DPT service which turns your HTML into a Kindle book.

Apple iPad online ebook tool

Print on demand service Lulu.com, are encouraging self publishing authors to produce their books in the Epub format used by the Apple iPad. My Green Technology Strategies book is avialable though LuLu.com and I was already considering a Epub version. So it was timely that LuLu sent me an offer, where if I created an ePub version of my book by 3/22/10 they would offer 50% off their usual fee. There is also a competition to win an Apple Ipad, but this is only for US residents.

Unfortunately what LuLu.com did not explain was what their new Epub service was, what it cost, or how to obtain more details. I assumed that if I entered the LuLu.com website with my user-id there will be details of the Epub option added next to the existing PDF ebook option. But I had to look in the help files for any mention of Epub. There I found Epub, but discussed as a variant of DRM. , which I assume stands for "Digital Rights Management". That is the topic of how to create a digital book seems to be treated as an exercise in electroncially tagging the file to protect the interlectual proproty rights to the content. So I am still none the wasiser as how to create a Epub ebook with LuLu.

Microsoft Office 2010 support for OpenOffice

Microsoft Office 2010 is due for release in May. A Beta version with the new features of Word, Access, PowerPoint, Publisher, Outlook, InfoPath, Excel, SharePoint Workspace, OneNote and Communicator is still available. The new version will be able to create and read document in both the Microsoft sponsored OOXML format (Office Open XML, ISO/IEC 29500:2008) and Sun sponsored ODF (OpenDocument Format, ISO/IEC 26300:2006). This will better allow the interchange of documents with the open source OpenOffice.Org office suite.

OOXML was provided with Open Office 2007 and ODF in Service Pack 2. However, it seems likely that many documents will still be created in the older proprietary .DOC (Word 97-2003) format to maintain compatibility with older versions of Word and other pre XML formats.

Neither OOXML nor ODF can be read directly by a web browser. My preference would be for a HTML based format. Microsoft tried this with a previous version of Word, with a HTML based format which could be edited, however it did not become popular. However, newer versions of HTML and CSS provide more features and so fewer workarounds to implement word processor features. In addition both OOXML and ODF are conceptually similar to HTML based ebook formats, such as Epub and the Amazon Kindle format. These all consist of an XML formatted document, plus formatting and images, zipped into one file.

Epub eBook Tutorial and Tool

The ".epub eBooks Tutorial" provides a good overview. A sligly more polished presentation is ion "EPUB Resources and Guides" By Keith Fahlgren. Of the tools avialable, calibre looks promising as a free open source HTML or ODT (Open Office Word Processing format) to Epub ebook converter. However, I have not been able to get it to run on Linux so far.
Feedbooks provides a useful online tool for creating and publishing free ebooks. It uses a familar looking web based editor to create the book. It would be interesting to see if this could be added to online commercial book publishing systems like Lulu.com. Currently these assume you prepare the book offline and then upload the typeset result, usually as PDF. But for books which are mostly text it might be easier to provide a web based editor.