What is EPUB
EPUB (Electronic Publication) is a free and open standard for eBooks. The contents in an EPUB are reflowable so that the display can be optimized according to the display device used by the reader. The books in EPUB format are available from a variety of publishers and supported on many devices with different software.
Why Go with EPUB
EPUB is based on XML and XHTML standards, which are widely supported. These open standards make the EPUB compatible with a variety of platforms. It provides more flexibility and is more developer-friendly as it is based on XML and XHTML. This format makes self-publishing in the digital sphere a breeze. It is also rapidly gaining adoption in the publishing and distribution circles.
How to Read EPUB
You can use Adobe Digital Editions to read the EPUB files on your computer. There are many other tools and software available from a variety of vendors for a wide array of platforms. However, I’m using Adobe Digital Editions to read the EPUB files converted using Free Aspose.Words Express.
Convert Documents using Aspose.Words Express
You can convert various types of documents (DOC, DOCX, RTF, HTML, ODT, etc) to EPUB using Aspose.Words Express. This free utility to create EPUB files can be downloaded from Aspose.Words Express downloads section. This is a Zip package containing the executable of the utility and the license file. You can run this utility by clicking the executable included in the package.
Before converting the documents to EPUB format, you can specify various settings for the output EPUB file using Settings window of the Aspose.Words Express.
Once you’re satisfied with all the settings for the output EPUB file, you can go to the ‘convert screen’ and specify input and output file paths along with their names.
After setting the paths for input document and output EPUB file, just click on the Convert button at the bottom right corner of the ‘convert screen’. This will produce an output EPUB file at the location specified by you. You can view this EPUB file using Adobe Digital Editions or any other tool of your choice.
Going Pro!
Well, if you want to convert documents to EPUB from time to time manually then you’re good to go with our free utility. However, if you want to convert many documents to EPUB and you want to automate this as well using your code then you’ll have to go with Aspose.Words. This component is available both for .NET and Java platforms. If you don’t want to automate the EPUB creation then be my guest, and enjoy the EPUB files, created using our free utility, on your favorite device.