Kroc CamenHas anyone any recommendations for tools / styling for #ebooks? I'm looking at #asciidoc to #epub but I'm wondering what the "right" way to style the epub should be
#aeonglass #writersofmastodon #ebook #writing #writingcommunity
Kirtai 🏳️⚧️@Kroc
I believe ebooks are mostly html + css so I'd look into that.
I believe ebooks are mostly html + css so I'd look into that.
@kirtai The goal is to transform from a plain-text, editable on a Psion, format to both HTML, epub and PDF. Writing in raw HTML is not really up to the task as I need a plain-text source I can send to non-techy people. Markdown is a no-no, it's just not capable enough. Both Asciidoc and Pandoc will do the job, but it's a matter of working out the tooling and what additions an ebook needs adding, like CSS. Any examples of already published books in Ascidoc/Pandoc would be helpful. I'm even considering adapting ReMarkable, my own markup I used on my blog.
Zegnat@Kroc I would probably start by looking at the repositories behind all the books published by @standardebooks. Not sure how generic there tooling is today, but they do a great job creating ebooks that have good support cross different platforms and devices with a very consistent style. Also with accessibility in mind, which I appreciate.
(PS: according to the manual, pandoc can convert from asciidoc … wonder what is going on there.)
@Zegnat @standardebooks Looking at Standard Ebooks' repo, all their books are in HTML from the beginning, no conversion from a plain-text source but I could reuse their CSS, yes.
Amin Girasol@Kroc I was going to suggest Standard Ebooks https://standardebooks.org/ and their tooling as a possibility but then I landed on
The Standar
d Ebooks Ma
nual of Style
LordMax
Kit Bashir@Kroc @kirtai I’m using pandoc-publish. Link and example here https://aus.social/@Unixbigot/116156840668636158
Kit Bashir (@[email protected])
Oh hey, do you (yes YOU) publish toots on a regular theme (art, fiction, particular niche interests)? Would you like to archive them to a searchable blog and/or RSS feed? I wrote a program to do that. The tl-dr is that I use the "Hugo" blogging engine which compiles markdown files into blog posts on a static site (no wordpress, no database, no hacking surfaces). Then I use this script that I wrote to search my mastodon and make new markdown files for any new toots. I run it once with -- count=0 to get all matching toots forever, then daily with --count=14 to update the last two weeks' toots (refreshing likes etc, on recent posts). Then it's the standard compile-the-blog-and-push-it-to-the-server process. https://github.com/unixbigot/rankle?tab=readme-ov-file#blog-archiving The same process can also be combined with Matt @[email protected] Gemmel's https://github.com/mattgemmell/pandoc-publish to turn a collection of toots into an e-book.
@Unixbigot @mattgemmell OK, this looks real good but I'm concerned that the sample books / CSS are also GPL3, like the code, which I can't use if I'm wanting to publish a commercial book; I can't use this as a starting point or edit the book without having to release my manuscript in the open
@Kroc Hmmmn not sure if that was the intent of the code license to cover object files. @mattgemmell could you clarify please?