EPUB 3 and DAISY
State of the Art and Accessibility
George Kerscher
March 1, 2012
EPUB 3 and Accessibility
The incorporation of the DAISY accessibility
requirements into the non-proprietary
EPUB 3 standard holds significant promise for the
increased availability of commercial
products that are useable, out of the box, by a wide
range of consumers.
Specification is available at http://idpf.org/epub/30
Accessible Publishing Ecosystem
Wide array of pieces must fall into place in order to have
an accessible publishing ecosystem:
• Commitments from the accessibility community
• Standards and Guidelines
• Samples
• Validation tools and accessibility checkers
• Accessible reading systems
• Math support
• Beautiful user interfaces
• User friendly ways to purchase content
Accessibility Guidelines and Support
• Guidelines in support of accessible publishing in EPUB
3 are accessible for all and will be frequently updated.
• ‘Accessible EPUB 3’, published by O’Reilly, available at:
http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920025283.do
• Accessibility Forum on the IDPF site:
http://idpf.org/forums/epub-accessibility
EPUB 3 Sample Files
• The DC will collaborate with the IDPF and its
Members and Friends to gather EPUB 3 content
samples.
• Go to http://code.google.com/p/epub-revision/downloads/list
to check out the latest samples
• IDPF Samples include accessibility features
DAISY Consortium and IDPF
• The DAISY Consortium will continue to be committed to
collaboration with the IDPF in the development and
evolution of digital publishing standards
• The DC will monitor the development of accessibility check
in EpubCheck and promote accessibility evaluations.
EpubCheck project site is located at
http://code.google.com/p/epubcheck/
• EPUB Validator is now available at http://validator.idpf.org/
• The DAISY Consortium will participate in Readium Project
to bring accessible EPUB 3 content and reading systems to
users faster, learn more at http://readium.org/
Other Ongoing Developments
• The mechanisms to handle descriptions of graphical
content - the DIAGRAM Project, more info at:
http://www.diagramcenter.org/development.html
• The DAISY Consortium will continue to monitor and
influence HTML5 developments to increase the
accessibility features in that specification
• The DAISY Consortium will support the NISO process for
the Authoring and Interchange Framework for Adaptive
XML Publishing
• The DAISY Consortium will continue to support the DAISY
2.02 and 3 Standards
DAISY Tools
DAISY tool development to support EPUB 3:
• Tobi - accessible multimedia production tool
http://www.daisy.org/tobi
• DAISY Pipeline 2 - next generation framework
for automated production of accessible
materials http://www.daisy.org/pipeline2/
DAISY on Mobile Devices
10 mobile applications for reading DAISY
books on mainstream devices are available
and more in development
• DAISY Marketplace: http://www.daisy.org/tools/mobileapplications
Portable DAISY Players
• PlexTalk Pocket, Milestone 212 and 312,
BookSense XT and DS, BookPort, Victor Reader
Stream, Olympus DM-4 and DM-5 players,
ClassMate Reader
Hardware DAISY Players
Array of legacy DAISY Players:
• NLS players, available at no cost to qualified
people - does not support text-to-speech yet
• HumanWare Stratus players
• PlexTalk PTX 1 / Pro – DAISY Online Delivery
compatible
• Braille Sense OnHand by HIMS can read DAISY
books
DAISY Software Players
• EasyReader - supports DAISY and EPUB
• ReadHear PC and ReadHear Mac - support
DAISY and EPUB, Math support
• Ida-reader - supports DAISY and EPUB
• Book Wizard Reader
• AMIS (free)
Go to our website to see the list of DAISY
players: http://www.daisy.org/tools/splayback
Mainstream Reading Systems
• Kindle - does not natively support EPUB
• Nook – Barnes & Noble working on improving
accessibility
• Adobe Digital Editions - supports EPUB
• iBooks demo
Share your experiences of using
mainstream reading systems
Goal: Enriched Accessible Reading
Experience for All
• Work with us to bring DAISY reading
experience into the mainstream, to make ALL
publications accessible to EVERYONE.
• Join the DAISY Consortium!
• More information is available at daisy.org