Resources

For publishers : our tools to create your own book!

For all content producers, publishers and transcribers, content developers and producers, the Flex Picture Ebook team has developed tools to streamline the production chain for your accessible illustrated EPUB3s.

1) A methodology for designing inclusive illustrated content

If you want to design inclusive books but are unsure about the steps involved or how to adapt images, this multi-part methodology is for you:

  • Guidelines for adapting images for readers with disabilities and/or learning difficulties.
  • A practical guide to the design stages, questions to ask before production, and/or drafting specifications for graphic designers, sound engineers, and digital developers.
  • Presentation of a case study summarising the different design stages in practice.

2) Illustrator Flex Picture Ebook plug-in

This plugin helps you adapt your drawings into multi layered, interactive svg images, that can be included in the Flex Picture Ebook Format.

These extensions help you automatically create different levels, make the elements of your illustration clickable, and create animations. They also allow you to easily export your SVG illustrations in xhtml format, which is necessary for EPUB3 to function.

If the interface is empty, your computer does not support unsigned plugins.
Adobe has removed all means of signing ours, so you need to activate it manually.
On Mac :
Open a terminal window (for me, it’s under Launchpad->Other->Terminal, or just write ‘Terminal’ in launchpad).
Then write and press enter :
defaults write /Users/<username>/Library/Preferences/com.adobe.CSXS.11.plist PlayerDebugMode 1
Replace ‘<username>’ with the username you use to connect to your Mac.

3) The Flex Picture Ebook Builder

The FPE Builder is a software package we have developed to help you create your enriched illustrated EPUB3. It allows you to organise the content (text, files for each illustration with its different levels of simplification, audio files) as well as the menu proposed to readers at the beginning of the book:

4) Some examples

Example of an illustration (creation) produced using our tools by Erickson, in partnership with AbilNova and the Robert Hollman Foundation (Italy)
Discover the titles here

Example of illustration (adaptation) produced by the Institut des Jeunes Aveugles (IJA, France)

5) Informational Flyer

This flyer for publishers summarises the Flex Picture Ebook project. Please feel free to share it, as the aim is to make as many books as possible accessible to children.

Download the flyer.

For caregivers

For parents and for teachers to discover and explore our EPUB3 and related resources.

1) Download installation instructions

2) Download the teaching guide

3) Download the appendices to the teaching guide

a_Iconographic_Sheet-FPE_EN

b_Sound effects effects in the order of their appearance in the story

c) 2 colouring pages to print

“Classic” Colouring

Colouring_Ben

Colouring_Bat

Adapted coloring

This adapted colouring file for severely visually impaired children can be used in 2 ways: printing with conventional ink, or printing to inflate the ink with a PIAF oven. In the 2nd case, the tactile outlines will help children locate the areas to be colored.

d-Files of relief drawings to download for printing and inflation in the PIAF oven

relief bat & octopus

relief ben and the bat

relief ben flaps wings bat folded wing

relief cave and bats

relief mosquito mouse

4) Alternative texts for images

During the development of the digital book, an alternative text was included for each image so that blind readers could also access the content of the images. Each alternative text is read by a computer-generated voice using assistive software. If you prefer to read the texts aloud yourself for young blind children, you can download them in PDF format.

5) Step-by-step guide to understanding how to help a child with autism spectrum disorder understand a text‘ available for download

    • To Download, a step-by-step guide to understanding how to help neuro atypical children understand text
    • Discover the replay of the webinar held on may 2025 entitled ‘Reading and autism’, in which Priscilla Laulan, founder of Ludosens, defined autism spectrum disorder and presented three methods for helping readers to better understand text: video replay.

For everyone

1) Analysis and Summary of questionnaire

A field survey was carried out in France, Italy and Lithuania in the spring of 2024. A total of 246 children and 48 teachers, parents and educators were accompanied by project partners in their discovery of the book Ben wants a bat. The aim was to gather information on the uses and needs of children and accompanying adults, and to use this feedback to improve the EPUB3 Flex Picture Ebook. Companions were provided with a teaching guide to help them make the most of the many possibilities offered by this digital book.

At the end of the reading session, the children and accompanying adults respectively answered a 48-question and 42-question questionnaire.

Summary of questionnaires for download.

Full analysis for download.

2) Scientific articles

a) Article ‘Flex Picture eBook Builder – Simplifying the Creation of Accessible eBooks’.

Read the article by Danya Gharbich, Maximilian Punz, Klaus Miesenberger and Valentín Salinas-Lopez, researchers at Johannes Kepler University Linz in the ‘Institut Integriert Studieren’ laboratory, published in the Springer journal, on Flex Picture Ebooks epub.
Article available here

b) Article ‘Educazione all’immagine tattile’ (in English)

Read the article by Enrica Polato, researcher at the University of Bologna, on representations of blind children in the Italian magazine ‘Toccare le parole’.
Article available here (automatically translated into English)
Article in Italian

c) Article ‘Flex Picture eBook: A new approach to designing more accessible and inclusive images and text’.

Read the article by Danya Gharbieh, Maximilian Punz Junior Scientist, Klaus Miesenberge, researcher at Johannes Kepler University in Linz (Austria) within the ‘Institut Integriert Studieren’ laboratory, and Sophie Blain, director of the publishing house Les Doigts Qui Rêvent, in Talant (France), published in the journal STUDIUM EDUCATIONIS, on Flex Picture Ebooks epub.
Article available here