If you’re on the hunt for an easy way to convert your online documents to an ebook-friendly format, Google has quietly announced that it will now let you save your documents directly to the .epub (EPUB) format.
Above: Google Docs: EPUB
First released in 2007, EPUB has emerged as the most broadly supported file format for ebooks. As an open ebook standard, it can be adopted by any device maker. That said, the most common ereader brand — Amazon’s e-ink Kindle range — doesn’t support the format directly, though it is easy to convert. Other ereaders brands, such as Kobo, support EPUB, as do most smartphones, tablets, and computers.
In short, EPUB is an effective means of publishing and converting documents into a format that will play nicely with digital devices, which is why Google has now introduced this simple little option in its file menu. While it will work with any Google Doc file, it’s designed more for longer-form content, perhaps a company report, academic paper, or – of course — a book.