[HN Gopher] Ask HN: What are the best eBook authoring tools today?
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Ask HN: What are the best eBook authoring tools today?
I want to make some updates to a [free] ebook I wrote several years
ago when Rice University was still running their Connexions service
open to the world I keep the most recent edition of that ebook as
a pdf on my blog What is the current "great ebook creation"
toolset that all the Cool Kids(tm) are running? Is it to refactor
it into something like Obsidian notes, connecting them, and
exporting to pdf? Is it a 'classic' word processor like Apple Pages
or Microsoft Word or Google Docs? Beyond merely updating/expanding
what I wrote previously, I also have a few other ebooks I want to
compile - and would _like_ to not learn more than one tool to do
this.
Author : warrenm
Score : 31 points
Date : 2024-03-07 15:19 UTC (7 hours ago)
| t-3 wrote:
| I don't know about anyone else, but I just use pandoc. The
| documentation is lacking for input formats other than markdown,
| but it works.
| BjoernKW wrote:
| For "Stratospheric - From Zero to Production with Spring Boot and
| AWS" (https://stratospheric.dev/) we used IntelliJ IDEA.
|
| For a technical ebook with lots of code samples using our trusted
| IDE just was the natural choice.
| Javalicious wrote:
| "Best" is probably whatever you're familiar with. If your pre-pdf
| content is in Word, I'd just run with it -- most 'classic' word
| processors can handle the export to ebook stuff just fine. I've
| done exports from Apple Pages without issue.
|
| That said -- if you're looking for a layout that reflows based on
| the screen size (read: more suited for mobile devices), you might
| want to look at exporting to .epub rather than .pdf.
| __rito__ wrote:
| I make some long notes for students that I am sometimes teaching.
|
| I use Jupyter Notebook, and use export to PDF feature. It renders
| the code, the text, and LaTeX equations perfectly.
|
| I have also written stuff in Markdown and converted them to EPUB
| and PDF via pandoc. But there were no equations there. I used
| Obsidian as the editor.
|
| Don't really know what will fit your need. If it were up to me, I
| would have used LaTeX- end to end. There are just a lot of tools
| and packages, and online help available. I wrote my Master's
| Thesis- fully in LaTeX.
|
| I have done some technical review for Packt Publishing, and they
| use MS Word for everything.
| drakonka wrote:
| For ebooks that I publish to sell, I use Vellum (Mac only). But
| if it was more of a PDF only kind of thing, without needing to be
| optimized for traditional book formatting or ereaders, I'm
| guessing exporting to PDF through something like Word would be
| plenty good enough.
| sparker72678 wrote:
| This violates the "One Tool" constraint that OP requested, but
| the Standard Ebooks tool chain is available on Github for anyone
| interested: https://github.com/standardebooks/tools
| robin_reala wrote:
| Worth noting that the create-draft command takes a --white-
| label flag to remove SE branding on a new project.
| davidgerard wrote:
| Many things can generate an epub. You need one that passes
| epubcheck to go on Smashwords/Draft2Digital which gets you into
| Apple Books and all the even more minor bookstores. (Kindle
| doesn't care.)
|
| I understand that Apple Pages outputs standard-compliant epub
| that can go straight onto Apple Books/SW/D2D.
|
| Calibre _does not_. The Calibre authors think that epubcheck is
| trash and if you follow it, your books won 't quite be right on
| the widest variety of epub readers, which is what they aim for.
| Beware.
|
| When I tried Pandoc it didn't output a compliant epub, I'm told
| it does now.
|
| Don't just run and hope - check the output against a variety of
| readers. You _will_ hit issues.
|
| (e.g. one I only found out about because someone just happened to
| use a Kobo reader.)
|
| You may have to edit XHTML files in a .zip that has to be ordered
| in a particular way. (I hate epub so much.) Having done this, I
| don't recommend it at all. Here's my guide for people who've made
| poor life choices, e.g. me:
| https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2020/11/05/calibre-epub...
|
| tl;dr if you have a Mac I'd just see what Pages can do for you.
| If not, you're gonna have fun!!
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _I understand that Apple Pages outputs standard-compliant
| epub._
|
| Neato! Have you started using it instead of Callibre?
| https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2020/11/05/calibre-epub...
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208499
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/108362
| davidgerard wrote:
| no, because (per linked blog post) I use Ubuntu and not a
| Mac.
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