EPUB Inspector — from the page to the source
A book is more than the page on screen. Ambra’s integrated EPUB Inspector puts its structure, source, and resources within easy reach—useful for authors and publishers investigating a book, and for curious readers who want to look inside.
Inspect the EPUB where you read it, without first unpacking the archive or hunting through a separate folder. Open EPUB Inspector from a book’s details in the library or reader.
See the whole book
- Files: browse archive members and file sizes, with the package document, container descriptor, table of contents, and cover identified.
- Source and media: read syntax-highlighted markup, CSS, JavaScript, and JSON; preview images and browser-supported audio/video. Fonts and other binary resources are identified rather than displayed as text.
- Metadata: inspect publication details and OPF metadata entries.
- Spine and manifest: see the declared reading order and resource inventory, including paths, media types, and properties.
- Less hunting: follow supported local source links to other files in the archive, return with Back, and use line wrapping or full screen for longer source files.
Connect reading and source
Choose Popover view, Full screen, Dock left, or Dock right beside the Inspector’s Close button. Docking makes room for Inspector alongside the book rather than covering it; popover and docked views let you keep interacting with the book. Switching views preserves the selected file and inspection history.
When opened from the reader, the Inspector links the reading experience to the underlying content:
- Locate current passage finds the source element for the selected passage, or the current visible reading position when there is no selection.
- Show in book takes a selected source element back to its reading location without closing Inspector. Full screen switches to popover during navigation; other views stay in place. Without an element selection, it opens the readable file’s start.
Move between a layout problem and its markup without losing context. This on-demand, two-way navigation works with readable spine documents when inspecting from the reader; library inspection focuses on the files themselves.
Follow a resource’s references
For an image or stylesheet, Find references lists uses found in supported markup and CSS within the archive. Results include a source path, snippet, and original-source line number. Open one to inspect the source and highlight the reference where mapping is available; Back returns to the results.
This helps answer practical debugging questions: Which pages use this image? Where is this stylesheet linked or imported?
Investigate without changing the book
The Inspector is a read-only inspection and debugging aid, not an EPUB editor or a replacement for EPUBCheck or a complete accessibility audit. Reference finding covers supported static references, not dynamically computed JavaScript uses; an empty list is not proof that a resource is unused.
Your imported EPUB remains unchanged by inspection. Use your authoring tools to make repairs and appropriate validation tools to check the result.