An electronic book also known as an e-book is
a publication in digital form, consisting of text,
images, or both, and produced on, published
through, and readable on computers or other
electronic devices. Sometimes it can be the
equivalent of a conventional printed book but
e-books can also be created to exist only in a
digital form. E-books are usually read on
dedicated hardware devices known as e-
Readers or e-book devices. Personal computers and some cell phones can also be used to read
e-books.
This article attempts to define most of the eBooks formats. With the great proliferation of formats a
new e-book reader can easily become confused. The most important ones are always the ones
that work on the device or devices the reader owns but if you have a choice the most important
ones are the ones that have the most eBook dealers or most eBooks available. Today these
formats include AZW from Amazon, MOBI, and ePub. Another very popular format is PDF from
Adobe. However, PDF doesn’t work as well on portable mobile devices due to its screen size
requirements. It is designed to replicate the printed page and handheld devices just don’t have a
screen big enough for this.
As many reading devices settle on a limited list
of formats the ePUB and PDF have emerged as
the leading formats, with Adobe Digital Rights
Management (DRM) support on both. Amazon
does not support ePUB and insists on AZW
which is the same as MOBI but with different
DRM.
Just to confuse you further, there are actually a
lot of other formats. These are the formats most
commonly available commercially. Take a deep
breath before you read on.
AZW - The Amazon proprietary format. This is
very close to the MOBI format sometimes with
