People often ask what is the difference between an e-book and a PDF file? Well, I must say that it is indeed pretty frequently asked question. An e-book and a plain PDF file are not very different from each other —but if you go in finer details, the differences will appear. I will explain this difference towards the end of this article. Today let’s understand the difference among EPUB, AZW, MOBI and PDF eBook formats. Let’s begin with understanding the basic question, what is an e-book? An e-book is essentially an electronic document. In simple terms, it is just a computer file. In modern terminology, electronic book or e-book is the electronic version of a printed book. Electronic book can be read using computer or a custom designed mobile device. A number of e-book standard formats have been developed in order to make e-books compatible with the device specific features. Mobipocket (often called just mobi) is an e-book standard format. It was initially launched by Mobipocket SA, a French company, in the year March 2000. Mobi e-books can be read using Mobipocket e-book reader. This reader is actually a software and it can be installed on a large number of mobile operating systems and devices like smartphones and PDAs. The primary difference between MOBI and AZW is that AZW uses asterisk instead of dollar sign in the serial number scheme. Also, unlike the original MOBI format, the AZW format does not allow the use of JavaScript. E-books with extension .prc are fully compatible with the Kindle devices and can be directly read on it. AZW3 is a Digital Rights Management (DRM) restricted format. It means that the AZW e-book files are locked to a particular device. These files can not be transferred to another device. This is done to put a stop on piracy. Adobe Systems developed Portable Document Format (PDF) format in 1993. This is one of the best known e-book formats as it has been there since long. PDF format is so popular that that PDF e-book files are supported by almost all e-book readers. In 2001, Adobe made the PDF format open source. Original PDF standard did not support reflow feature. But in 2012, an updated format called PDF/UA was released with reflow features. PDF/UA got only moderate support from the third party hardware and software manufacturers. As we all have been seeing PDF files since we have learnt to use computers, a large number of people feel that a PDF file is an e-book. But when they see so much talk about e-books they begin to feel that an e-book must be something more sophisticated than a simple PDF file! Well, actually a PDF file is indeed an e-book. But the modern and popular e-book formats have more features than the plain original PDF. One of such features is reflow. E-book formats like EPUB, MOBI and AZW, support reflow of the book. Reflow means that the same e-book can be read on devices of different dimensions. E-book will automatically adjust the content according to the screen size. Most of the PDFs are not designed to be reflowable. That is one of the major difference between an E-book and a PDF file. Another big difference is that the original plain PDF format did not have the embedded meta information. Whereas E-books contain hidden meta information about the book itself and about the author, publisher etc. You can convert any file into a PDF file but to make it a proper e-book, this PDF file should contain all the required meta information. This meta information is required to identify the book and to know about its various properties. Encryption is yet another aspect that makes a proper e-book different from a plain PDF file. E-books may or may not contain encryption and security measures to allow only the authorized people to read them. Plain PDF files often lack such a security. EPUB is supported by a large number of vendors. EPUB can be read by Apple’s iBooks app (iOS), BlackBerry devices, Kobo eReader, Google Books app (Android) and almost all other notable e-book readers. I hope it was useful for you to know the difference between EPUB, PDF, MOBI and AZW E-book standards. In case you have any questions, please feel free to ask. I will try my best to help you. Thank you for using TechWelkin!
