Ebooks and DVDs

[imported_waldo]

I posted this in software, but no one responded, and maybe here there is a more diverse crowd. I am trying to publish an ebook of sorts, but want it fully packed on a cd or dvd. It is a journal publication actually. But I want it self contained and to just open up. Does anyone know what would be good software to do this with? Recommendations welcome. NO worries about the price, as the school is paying for the software.

TIA

 

[Jasiek]

Most e-books open with Acrobat Reader. Couldn't you just make a data cd with the e-book in Acrobat format?

 

[imported_waldo]

There is an acrobat ebook format, but that won't necessarily give you quite the user interface that I would like with chapters, titles, pages, editors note, etc.

 

[Jasiek]

What about this?

http://www.desktopauthor.com/

 

[imported_waldo]

not bad. That seems to be pretty decent. Do you know what design studios or anything like that are using?

 

[Jasiek]

Not that I know of, i'm not in that industry.

 

[phisrow]

Not to be a downer; but I would be cautious about attempting to design too much of an "interface" on top of an ebook. Now, I understand if you simply must DRM this or something, that you'll have to use some sort of obnoxious Etext reader software; but if you don't, I'd give serious consideration to keeping things simple. A basic PDF(with links for navigation, if you feel like it) is readable on pretty much anything, quite printable, and won't induce your readers to want to gouge your eyes out. HTML is, if anything, even more widely readable, and easier to manipulate the text of, if perhaps less trivially printable.

If you were feeling deeply nice, a simple CD with nothing but a suitable autorun.inf which would bring up a basic splash screen offering the user a choice between standard formats, PDF, HTML, Postscript, etc. with those documents also in sensibly, clearly, labelled directories(for the folks without Windows autorun) would be lovely.

http://autorun.moonvalley.com/autoruninf.htm provides a description of the autorun syntax.

 

[imported_waldo]

Phisrow, Thanks for the comments. DRM isn't such a huge issue at this point. The major thing that we want is to provide the readers with as professional an appearance as possible. A pdf, in my opinion, does not give the reader adequate navigation options. I would like to see more animation, and display options. That is why I was inquiring as to software.

Thanks

 

[shortylickens]

Put an autorun.inf file on the disc.

 

[imported_waldo]

That is basically the previous suggestion, but that doesn't allow for great navigation.

 

[imported_waldo]

Anyone else have any ideas?