Problems with epub 3 and iBooks 2

Question

Problems with epub 3 and iBooks 2

Problems with fixed layout epub 3 and iBooks version 2

I am producing an epub 3 fixed layout ebook. My query is whether there is a known issue with epub 3 and the old version of iBooks - iBooks 2.

The epub has passed verification with epubcheck 3.0.1 and I have viewed the file on my iPad with iBooks 3.2 as well as on iBooks on my Mac, and also through the Chrome browser using Readium. In all cases the layout is fine. But when the file is downloaded onto an old iPad using iBooks 2, the layout is all mixed up. The iPad says that its operating system of OS.5 is up-to-date , and will not allow it to be updated, and thus it's impossible to update iBooks to versions 3.

So my question is whether this is a known issue with fixed layout epub 3 and versions 2 of iBooks, and if so whether there is a work around to allow fixed layout epub 3 to be read on iBooks2.

Posted on Apr 16, 2014 6:34 AM

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Answer 1

Apr 20, 2014 4:16 AM in response to verydeepwater

Follow-up query: (apple-ibooks-display-options) file needed in epub 3??

I tried adding the old (apple-ibooks-display-options) file to the META INF folder, as you used to for fixed layout epub 2, and the file displayed perfectly on the older version of iBooks, as well as on the latest iBooks. This leads me to ask whether you still need to add the 'apple-ibooks-display-options' file to epub 3, to make them readable on old versions of iBooks, or whether this indicates that some of the settings stating this is pre-paginated etc. are not entered correctly in the content.opf file, but I have checked this and I don't think so.

Any advice on this would be very welcome.

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