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A user decides to annotate a textual section of an EPUB. She selects the section, triggers the annotation affordance, optionally enters a note, selects a highlight mode and color. She then saves the annotation. The selected section appears on the page with the chosen highlight.
A user annotates an image included in an EPUB. He selects the image and triggers the annotation affordance. The annotation feature is then identical to the one associated with a textual selection.
A user consults an EPUB publication that includes detailed diagrams (e.g., in SVG) and images (e.g., in JPG or PNG) visualizing a research data set. She analyses the data by annotating parts of the diagrams and/or images by selecting rectangular areas of the data visualization and shares these annotations with her colleagues.
A user consults an EPUB publication that includes an audio clip (e.g., in mp3 format). Thanks to the audio player offering the proper API, he selects a time segment in the audio clip. The annotation feature is then identical to the one associated with a textual selection.
A user decides to bookmark a location in a reflowable EPUB. The cursor is located where the user clicks on the screen, or at a default location (often the top-left corner of the screen, for left-to-right content). The user triggers the bookmark affordance, optionally labels the bookmark, and saves it. A bookmark icon appears on the page, near the line where the cursor was positioned when the bookmark was created.
A user stops reading and closes the EPUB. He exports the EPUB with his annotations, bookmarks, and last reading position. He then imports the EPUB into another reading system that supports this specification. The reading system opens the EPUB at the last reading position, allowing him to continue reading from where he left off.
A user adds an annotation to an EPUB after selecting an audio segment in an audio clip. He adds a textual note with rich text formatting: emphasize, italic, underline, subtitles.
A user adds an annotation to an EPUB after selecting an image. She adds an audio note by recording her voice; the audio clip is attached to the annotation.
A user adds an annotation to an EPUB after highlighting some text. She adds an image note by drawing a sketch on her screen with her digital pen and attaching it to the annotation.
A user adds an annotation to an EPUB after highlighting some text. He selects a color for the highlight and a type (e.g. solid background,underline, strikethrough, outline).
A user adds an annotation to an EPUB. He enters one or more keywords that will help categorizing the annotation.
A user responds to an annotation by creating an new annotation that points to the first one, creating a thread of annotations.
A famous author annotates a book she has just written, and deals with her publisher a specific edition of the EPUB version of the book which includes these annotations. Readers buy this highly marketed edition, open it with a reading system that supports this specification, and benefit from the author's notes.
A user exports from a reading system an EPUB he has previously annotated. He decides to save his annotations and bookmarks in the EPUB package. If he imports the ebook into another reading system that supports this specification, annotations and bookmarks automatically appear.
A copy-editor verifies an EPUB before publication. She opens the EPUB in a reading system that supports this specification, annotates text containing typos and images with missing descriptions. She exports his set of annotations on a destination folder with a specific file name, and provides the file to the EPUB creator. The EPUB creator associates the annotation set with the EPUB file in an editing tool that supports this specification, goes through the annotations, and corrects the EPUB.
A teacher reads an ebook and prepares some annotations. He adds a keyword to each annotation so that students can group them easily; examples of keywords include “clarification”, “question”. He exports an annotation file and shares this file with his students. His name (or nickname) is attached to each annotation. The students import the same ebook and the teacher's annotation file into their reading system. Annotations prepared by the teacher appear in the ebook. Students add their own annotations to the ebook and send them back to the teacher, with keywords like “interpretation”. Their name or nickname is also attached to their annotations.
A student had temporary access to an EPUB via an academic subscription bundle. He annotated the ebook while he had access to it and exported his set of annotations. He no longer has access to the ebook. These annotations are nevertheless useful to him, as they include ebook metadata (title, author, year of publication), and each annotation is associated with an indication of the progression in the publication (print pagination if present, % of progression in the publication, timestamp in the case of an audiobook), and contextual information like the chapter or section in which the annotation was created. He can generate citations in a standardized format, like APA or MLA, to include in his report. He can then use these annotations in a word processor, or in a note-taking application, to prepare a report or an essay.
A user annotates an EPUB. She synchronizes her annotations and bookmarks with her other personal devices via a standardized Cloud mechanism supported by each of these systems.
Participants to a book club read the same EPUB ebook during a period of time, in a reading system that supports this specification. Each participant adds notes to the book, and these annotations are shared via a standardized Cloud mechanism supported by their reading system. The name of each participant appears, so that each participant can see who made which annotation.
A user has annotated a textual section of an EPUB and closed the ebook. Today, he loads a new version of the EPUB in his reading system. The spine item in which the annotations were created has been modified, and some words have been added to the leaf HTML element in which an annotation was created, before the start of the annotation and in the annotated text itself. Still, the user gets the annotation at the proper location.
The same user loads a new edition of the EPUB in his reading system. A new resource - a foreword - has been added to the spine, and the page list has been modified. Still, the user gets the annotation at the proper location.
In this section, we will list all requirements the EPUB Annotations specification must respect to fulfil the use cases listed in the previous sections. Not all requirements will be kept during the implementation phase, and some aspects may be postponed to future versions of the specification.
The EPUB Annotation specification should provide the following features: