BookShelf Supported Formats

BookShelf supports E-Books in a wide variety of file formats. Some formats are provided natively by BookShelf while others are handle via an automatic conversion in ShelfServer. All supported files are transferred from ShelfServer using the same process (see Instructional Videos for a five-minute demonstration), and any necessary conversions are performed on-the-fly without any user intervention required.

The Formats

The list of currently supported formats is below. Additional formats are added periodically, either with an instant ShelfServer update or in updated versions of the BookShelf app itself. New versions of ShelfServer should be downloaded automatically when you WebStart the program on your computer. New versions of BookShelf should appear in the AppStore automatically.

Plain Text [.txt]

The most basic of formats, plain-text works best in plain ASCII or UTF-8 Unicode format. Other character encodings are supported and are automatically converted to UTF-8 on the fly. Most ISO Latin formats are supported without problem, but several Asian charactersets have been problematic in the past. For best results, please try to convert files in non-Roman charactersets to UTF-8.

HTML with images [.html]

HTML files are supported, and any local images (on disk in the same directory as the HTML file) are automatically transferred along with the HTML itself. Remote images (with HTTP URL's on other servers) are always stripped out before transferring. Images are automatically resized a max of 300 pixels wide to save space on the iPhone. JavaScript is stripped completely. CSS sizing and font attributes are stripped to ensure that the page fits on the iPhone's screen and to allow font choices on the device to override any hard-coded into the file.

HTML in a variety of character sets is well supported in BookShelf. For best results, files should contain a Content-Type meta tag which identifies the encoding of the file. If such a tag is missing, ShelfServer will do its best to detect the proper encoding and convert it to UTF-8.

An appropriate meta tag might look like the following in the <head> section of the HTML file: <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1251">

At the time of this writing (01-Aug-2008) links in HTML files are not supported. Support is in progress and is expected to be available in BookShelf version 1.2, sometime in mid- to late-August.

FictionBook2 with images [.fb2]

FB2 files are supported by an automatic conversion to HTML. Images are included, though resizing to fit the screen width is not currently supported. Links are not supported at this time.

PalmDoc / AportisDoc [.pdb]

This is the plain-text format of the old PalmOS platform. This format is transferred to the iPhone verbatim without any conversion. By default, the file is expected to be in Latin-1 encoding. Preferences on the phone allow this default to be overridden if necessary.

MobiPocket with images [.pdb, .prc, .mobi]

MobiPocket files are supported with full image support as of BookShelf version 1.1. Links are not yet supported, but should be in version 1.2. Files compressed with the newer HuffDict encoding are not yet supported. Encrypted (DRM'd) files which require a reader ID to open are not supported.

Plucker with images [.pdb]

Plucker is yet another PalmOS format and is supported natively on the iPhone. Images are supported and automatically resized to a maximum 300 pixels in width. Links are not yet supported but should be added in 1.2. The original character encoding is read from the setting contained in the Plucker file, but this default can be overridden on the phone if necessary.

Support for some advanced Plucker formatting such as tables and custom fonts is not yet implemented.

Compiled HTML with images [.chm]

Microsoft's compiled HTML format which combines HTML and images into a single file. This file type is converted to HTML before being transferred to the phone. Links are not yet supported, though supported is expected to be present in 1.2

MIME HTML with images [.mht]

MHT files created when Internet Explorer is set to save a web page as a single file. Converted to HTML along with its images. Link support is expected in 1.2.

Rich Text (currently with limited characterset support) [.rtf]

Rich Text Files are supported in US-ASCII or UTF-8 encoding only at this time. Support for other encodings should be added in the near future.

Word DOC

Word documents are translated to plain-text before transfer. All formatting information is discarded. Formats older than Word 97 are not currently supported. DOCX files are not currently supported.

ZIP Archives - internal folder structure is flattened, but supported files can be extracted

ShelfServer will extract supported files from inside ZIP archives. Support is currently somewhat rudimentary and does not preserve directory structure present inside the ZIP. ZIP files which contain filenames in non-ASCII formats will result in garbled filenames but should allow access to the contents inside.

Unsupported Formats

Digitally Restricted Media (DRM)

Due to legal restrictions in the USA, no files with DRM encryption are supported at this time. Many purchased Mobipocket files which require a reader ID to purchase and unlock fall into this category. In order to read these files, the reader must obtain an unencrypted version of the file.

Other PalmOS Formats

Not all PDB files are created equal. Every single file which could ever be transferred to a PalmOS device had the same file extensions -- either PRC (usually for applications) or PDB (usually for data). Everything from address book data, to video game high scores was stored in one of these file types.

Many E-book formats have been developed for the Palm over its life. Several of those formats are supported (see above), but several popular ones are NOT at this time supported. The most popular ones include iSilo and eReader.

Support for these formats may be added in the future, but they are proprietary file formats with little or no documentation available. At present, higher priority is given to improving feature support for currently supported formats. These additional Palm formats will be added as time permits.

PDF

Adobe's Portable Document Format is not yet supported. Support will be added in the near future by way of a conversion to HTML.

ePub, Microsoft LIT

Support is planned for the future, but not yet implemented.

Anything else not listed here

If it's not listed here, odds are it's not supported. Please feel free to send an email if there's a format you'd like to see added. Open formats which have well documented structures will be given preference simply due to the magnitude of time required to reverse engineer a closed format.

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