– Publishing CG plenary –
Exploring uses of Web Publications (WPUB)

Web Publications (WPUB)

Gautier: we want to collect input from the industry concerning Web Publication format. Get information about its usage and its functionality.
… The Web Publications (WPUB) specification defines how to treat a collection of web resources as a single, coherent publication on the Web, with its own identity, reading order, and metadata. It builds on existing Open Web Platform technologies (HTML, URLs, web app manifest, service workers, etc.) instead of inventing a new file format.
… In concrete terms, a Web Publication is:

A set of one or more resources (HTML, audio, images, styles, scripts).
… Organized by a manifest that describes metadata, default reading order, and resource list.
… Exposed through a primary entry page at a stable URL, which acts as the canonical identifier and human entry point.
… Intended to be presentable as a bounded, book-like work (with navigation, table of contents, etc.) while remaining fully web-native.
… This model was meant to support many kinds of publications on the Web: long-form articles, books, journals, corporate documents, educational material, audiobooks, and more.
… January 2018: First public Working Draft of Web Publications is published (WD‑wpub‑20180104), defining a Web Publication as a collection of resources with a manifest and default reading order.
… August 2019: “Web Publications” and “Web Publications Use Cases and Requirements” are published as Working Group Notes, not Recommendations, reflecting that work did not progress further on the standards track.
… Vincent Gros and Julietta Murata from Hachette have presented their ongoing work regarding the utilization of Web Publications as a pivot format for production. This session will detail the transformations involved, the identified advantages, and the specific work undertaken by Hachette in this area. They cannot be with us today but I'm adding

to the minutes the link to the recording : https://www.edrlab.org/events/digital-publishing-summit-2025/#1742891648861-f7f314c9-6f67

<ivan> a/A set of/... A set of/

Hadrien: Readium uses Readium WebPub Manifest almost as an internal format - has many benefits - EPUB is treated as a representation of this format - independent from the EPUB version used - you work directly with images or sound tracks - standardized canonical representations used for many years
… also authoring format - in education ppl struggle with EPUB - RS often block Javascript - and a lot of assumptions (pagination) - interest in education - WPUB as core format because it's better suited to their needs

Dale: could you provide a link to an actual example in the wild - would like to see it myself

<gautierchomel_> https://www.w3.org/TR/wpub/

<gautierchomel_> https://www.w3.org/TR/pwp-ucr/

<gautierchomel_> https://w3c.github.io/pwpub/

Three links to the documents

Hadrien: for mobile, it's used behind the scene - in terms of WebReaders - have a look at the Readium playground - developments behind doors of companies

<ivan> https://www.w3.org/TR/pub-manifest/

Gautier: conversion of an EPUB to WPUB for Thorium Reader - we should reference some example

ivan: originally the idea was to have publications on the web - books, articles - idea came up in 2025 - no major publisher was interested - mistake: no survey with publishers about business case - it ended up as a note
… publication manifest is a rec though - used in audiobooks - major pushback from browser developers - never picked it up
… the current samples (Gautier, Hadrien) are absolutely viable - useful tool for internal work (Hadrien) and at Hachette also uses it as internal tool in their work with authors
… we might have been 10 years too early- Publication Manifest and Readium WPUB Manifest are close, but not interoperable or identical

Gautier: I have seen audiobooks using that manifest

Gautier: looking for further use cases

<Hadrien> https://playground.readium.org

<Hadrien> Example of a manifest generated on the fly from an EPUB: https://publication-server.readium.org/webpub/Z3M6Ly9yZWFkaXVtLXBsYXlncm91bmQtZmlsZXMvZGVtby9tb2J5LWRpY2suZXB1Yg/manifest.json

<Hadrien> Example of a native manifest (not generated from EPUB on the fly): https://readium.org/css/docs/manifest.json

Pedro: worked with HTML books - in EPUB 3 - in 2019 we started a new way due to issues with EPUB - HTML5 packages - whole structure in HTML 5 with digital objects - infographics, complex interactive features - today packaged as EPUBs
… created LPF books to be consumed in Thorium - we will definitely go for web publications -

Hadrein: US/UK bookshop.org - if you read online, Readium Web Publication Manifest will be used - used to power audiobooks in Quebec, Spain, Finland - Netgalley (US, UK, Australia, Germany, France, Japan) also use this manifest

ivan: the packaging problem was a problem - strong push for a more webby packaging format - we thought that would be a good solution - interest dwindled - but this problem still exists

gautier: sb who does not want to use this format

Hadrien: B2C format for audiobooks and libraries

Hadrien: PDFs based on XML catalogues - limitations in its model - single collection with items - working on PDF 2.0, we decided to use the web publication manifest - project in Brazil mentioned - useful for teachers and students to browse available materials - Finland: national library - everything in PDF except for audiobooks

<ivan> The first reference to the concepts: https://www.w3.org/TR/pwp/

Gautier: presented to each user in Readium - Readium CLI allows to export your manifest from EPUB - is there a will to use it outside Readium ecosystem

Hadrien: end user format: esp. for audiobooks and comics - South Korea doens't want to use EPUB - for education it supports interactivity - Readium has an implementation and tools - authoring: Brazil, Unicef, South Korea, Hachette as users - interchange format: depends on available tools

Gautier: we could make a survey, report on the Readium ecosyystem

Hadrien: W3C version seen as a internal format, mostly for audiobooks - referred to by NISO - stepping on EPUB toes for education

Gautier: after the adoption of EPUB, the publishing industry may shy from a further format

ivan: traditional publsihing has no reason not to use EPUB - scholarly publishing (journals, reports) have not really adopted EPUB - almost all have moved to HTML. e.g. conference proceedings (ACM) - Webpub manifest is a tool for joint metadata -

gautier: as a user i should be able to collect a bunch of stuff - packaging format ist very relevant

ivan: collection should be downloaded into a web browser - readable offline using web workers

Gautier: often collection of articles only as PDFs - you get stuck - any further aspects?

dale: notion of packaging - EPUB as a ZIP container, downloaded to a local device, consumption is local - WebPublications - the content is on a server, but downloadable - packaged on the server?

Hadrien: Readium - javascript app - loading contents from the web - stream audio resources or comics OR download as a ZIP to a location - default: streaming, but you may download a zip - ppl often complain about ZIP, but it works for different formats - better not to reinvent the wheel

Pedro: possibility of downloading a specific content for a student- collect a structured collection of previously selected content to produce a package on the fly - interactive textbooks - able to offer individual selection of content for each student - still a project

<Hadrien> Yes, Service Workers allow caching indeed, you can do it over the entire publication or parts of it.

ivan: intermediate approach: usage of WebWorkers to download content and read it in the browser saved locally - read web content offline -

<Hadrien> Same thing is possible in a native app, you can download individual resources to cache them temporarily or use them offline.

<Hadrien> A Service Worker acts like a proxy, so you can replicate the same concept natively.

ivan: Web has no concept of a collection of web pages - a web publication manifest allows to handle collections with metadata attached - main function of webpub

Dale: use case for education - many rural students, no good internet connection, electronic version could be downloaded - publishers wanted to keep them on the server - EPUB was great - ability to create a local archive of content from the Web
… sounds a great idea!

Gautier: we should discuss more with the Web community

ivan: browser vendors didn't see any business case - referred to simply using HTML

Hadrien: browsers provide the building blocks

Gautier: there's more attention now - it might be a reason to reconsider to bring more book content to the Web -
… rrsagent, draft minutes