How do I produce accessible EPUB files?
11/2024
What file format should you choose to make your digital book accessible? How do you go about it next? From format to content, discover 6 guidelines for producing an accessible EPUB 3 file.
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First step: choose the right format!
Before looking at accessibility within the file itself, let's go through some recommendations on a work environment conducive to the accessibility of your ebooks, and that starts with choosing the file format.
EPUB 3: the reference format for an accessible file
The preferred file format for making an ebook accessible is the reformattable EPUB 3 format (reflowable).
It is strongly recommended, as much as possible, to abandon PDF and EPUB 2 formats in favor of the reformattable EPUB 3 format, because these formats do not allow the integration of the accessibility features necessary for people with visual impairments.
The EPUB 3 format with fixed layout, on the other hand, does not enable the book to reach an optimal level of accessibility, although it is essential for certain types of publications such as comics or photography books.
Beyond the choice of file format, it is also the choices in terms of layout of your ebook that will make it accessible.
An adapted layout for an accessible digital book
When designing an ebook, while it is normal to want to choose a layout that is similar to the format chosen for the paper version, it is crucial to think about the experience of the end reader. And even more so when thinking of a reader suffering from impairments that alter their reading abilities.
However, in digital technology, reading comfort invariably depends on the reading tool chosen (e-reader, tablet, telephone, etc.) and its functionalities.
If you want to guarantee an optimal reading experience on all media, it is therefore sometimes necessary to detach yourself from the layout of the paper book, in particular by following these rules:
- Avoid background images of a title or a text.
- Avoid colored backgrounds, or choose very contrasting colors that will stand out well on the e-reader (currently, color is not yet supported by e-readers and colors are therefore rendered by gray levels).
- For the same reason, it is recommended to use very contrasting colors for a font, if you want it colored.
- Avoid forcing a police, because the reading tools offer different fonts. For example, most reading tools allow the reader to choose the font. OpenDyslexic, specially designed to make it easier for dyslexic people to identify letters. Forcing a font into the EPUB file prevents the reader from selecting the font that best fits their needs.
- Use tags
<ul>and<ol>for the bulleted lists and the numbered lists.
- Avoid creating tables when the information can be rendered in text form.
Overall, when designing a layout for an ebook based on the layout of a paper book, the most important question to ask yourself is: Is this layout semantically relevant? Or is it purely decorative? In which case it is important to make choices that are more suitable for digital reading.
6 guidelines for producing an accessible EPUB 3 file
Here are the most important things to consider in order for you to produce an accessible EPUB file:
- Adjustable content
- The content should be, as far as possible, adjustable by the reader (possibility of changing the font, the size of the characters, the margins, etc.).
- The content should be, as far as possible, adjustable by the reader (possibility of changing the font, the size of the characters, the margins, etc.).
- Images
- All images (except for decorative images only) must be accompanied by complete and relevant alternative descriptive text.
- If you use an external company to produce your files, alternative descriptions must be provided at the same time as the source file that will be used to produce the EPUB version.
- Language
- The language of the text should be documented in each of the sections, in order to allow the technologies to Text-to-Speech technologies to use the appropriate pronunciation.
- The language of the text should be documented in each of the sections, in order to allow the technologies to Text-to-Speech technologies to use the appropriate pronunciation.
- Navigation
- The table of contents should be comprehensive, and allow the reader to easily navigate through all sections and chapters of the book. It should also be included in the spine of the OPF document.
- Footnotes and endnotes should be linked to the content to which they refer using internal links.
- Content structure
- Each section of the EPUB file should be clearly identified using tags
<section>and<epub:type>. - We recommend also including ARIA roles, which make it possible to give even more semantic meaning to the various sections of the document.
- The content must be structured correctly respecting the different levels of hierarchy of sections and titles.
- The addition of a Pagelist (list of the equivalent of digital locations for pages in the paper version) is highly recommended, especially in the case of content with a complex layout, as it further helps the reader to find their way around and navigate easily through the content.
- Each section of the EPUB file should be clearly identified using tags
- Accessibility metadata
- The accessibility metadata documentation within the book's OPF file allows computer systems and assistive technologies to quickly identify the accessibility features available in the book.
This last guideline is also one of the most fundamental ones, because if you don't fill in your accessibility metadata, your EPUB file won't be declared accessible. Therefore, it will not meet your obligations under the European directive, even if it is accessible. But it will also not allow the rest of the book chain (distributors, booksellers, librarians, reading tools) to promote its accessibility to the final reader.
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