Test EPUB Files

EPUB files used or developed at U-M are required to meet digital accessibility standards and provide equitable access for people with disabilities.

Not sure if your EPUB file is accessible? Use the testing guidance below to find out.

About EPUB

EPUB is a format for electronic books, or eBooks. The EPUB format is recommended because it is universal and can be made accessible according to standards. An EPUB is basically a set of connected web pages and assets (like images, other media) that conform to the EPUB specification and can be read with an EPUB reader.

Electronic publications, when properly created, can be used and read by people with disabilities like blindness, low vision, cognitive impairments or mobility constraints. Unlike paper publications, they can be used by everyone without conversion to another format.

EPUBS are usable and accessible to all when they:

When to Test EPUB

When selecting an electronic publication, test to assess its accessibility and provide feedback to the vendor or publisher.

  • Use automated testing tools on a sample publication(s) from the vendor
  • Findings will indicate the publisher’s ability to produce accessible publications
  • Automated tool reports can be provided to vendor as guidance for improving their products

When creating an electronic publication, test to confirm your creation workflow has produced an accessible product.

  • Use a publishing process and toolset to produce EPUBs that are “born accessible”
  • Check your output using automated tools
  • Confirm accessibility with manual testing
  • Review the DAISY knowledge base

Run Automated Testing

EPUB-Checker: Validate Conformance of the EPUB Spec

EPUBCheck is a tool to validate the conformance of EPUB publications against the EPUB specifications. This is an important step - if the EPUB conforms, the EPUB reader software will interpret it correctly and present the information correctly to the user.

We recommend the EPUB-Checker from Pagina, which includes the EPUBCheck engine but also provides a user interface.

  1. Download EPUB-Checker and follow the prompts to install.
  2. Launch EPUB-Checker.
  3. Choose the file you want to test.
  4. The application will read it and generate a report.

If you want to save the report for your records, or send it to the publisher, choose Logfile from the menu, pick Save logfile. This will be the report you can share with the publisher. If you are testing your own book, the report will outline what things you need to remediate.

Note: When you first launch the EPUB-Checker it may notify you that it requires Java, which you may need to install. Pick the Oracle version from the dialog, install and restart EPUB-Checker.

ACE: Check the Accessibility of the EPUB

ACE will check your EPUB against the WCAG 2.0 AA guidelines, ensuring that the EPUB reader will interpret and deliver the content correctly to assistive technology.

  1. Download ACE and follow the prompts to install.
  2. After installing it, launch the application.
  3. Select the EPUB you want to test, either by browsing for it (click on the Check EPUB button) or drag the EPUB file onto the application.
  4. ACE will read in the file and provide you with a report on screen.

If you want to save the report for your records, or send it to the publisher, you can export a compressed archive of the report by clicking on the “Export” button. If you are testing your own book, the report will outline what things you need to remediate.

Note: If you add an EPUB and nothing seems to happen, the temporary directory where ACE does its work may not be accessible to the application. Create a folder on your Desktop or some other common location. Click on “Settings” and select that folder in the “Internal Report Storage” setting.

Functional Testing

Since you have already done automated testing, you can focus your functional testing on those things that automated testing will not be able to examine. The guidelines referenced below deal with “web pages,” which is fine, as this is what an EPUB is at heart.

Start with the Quick Non-technical Accessibility Tests (omit the automated test at the end). For more extensive coverage, follow the checks recommended in Functional Testing as an Adjunct to Automated Testing. Finally, make sure to perform some checks that involve the following things that are specific to the EPUB medium:

  • Discovery
    • Make sure that the EPUB package has the right metadata so that a user can understand what the contents are without actually reading the contents. Think of this as the card catalog entry for the book. The EPUBCheck application will note the absence of metadata elements, but will not be able to judge how appropriate and accurate they are. Only a manual check will tell the tale.
  • Page Navigation
    • Page navigation is provided and page breaks are programmatically discoverable by assistive technologies.
  • Synchronized Media Playback
    • Media can be totally controlled by user
    • Media and text are synchronized