PDF stands for ‘Portable Document Format’ file. EPUB also has the potential to include interactivity, accessible image, video, or audio elements.

EPUB files normally include an index page for navigation, and accessibility features to adjust text size or allow for text-to-speech. The EPUB format comprises three open standards – one defining content markup, one describing the ebook structure, and one packaging all the files into a compressed format. The EPUB standard is now maintained by a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) working group.

Amazon announced in 2022 that new Kindle models would also support EPUB files. EPUB files can be viewed on a wide range of e-readers and digital reading apps, including NOOK, Apple Books, Okular and Calibre. The format was developed in the mid-late 2000s by the International Digital Publishing Forum and is an alternative to formats like AZW, developed for the Kindle.

EPUB is short for ‘electronic publication’. EPUB is the standard open-source format for ebooks.

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