eBook Authoring Tools

alternatives to apple’s ibook publisher

For more detail on the process for making ebooks and for a more detailed description on making ebooks, I recommend Chris Jenning’s Page to Screen blog. This brief introduction is largely based on his presentation to the 2012 London Bookfair.

http://goo.gl/8F0SB

•familiar metaphor•user friendly and

accessible•great for media objects

that are primarily text-

based•straight-forward to

create•dependent on the e-

readers’ user interfaces

ebooks as alternatives to apps

Choice:

Choice:

ebook standard • determines the devices that can read the ebook

• determines the markup language & authoring tools that will be used to create the ebook

viewport form• determines whether the pagination is fixed or variable

• epub and .mobi ebooks have fixed or variable viewport options

epub

•open ebook standard

•XHTML5 (epub3)

•readable in:๏ browser plugins๏apps (bluefire,

stanza, etc.)๏non-kindle

ereaders (nook, sony, kobo, etc.)

•epub2 is XHTML1.1

public domain image

.mobi

•owned by amazon

•HTML w/ proprietary tags

•readable in:๏ kindle

ereaders (67% marketshare)

๏kindle apps ๏browsers through

amazon’s cloud reader

(Kindle format 8 kf8 uses HTML5 & CSS3,

but only on the kindle fire)

reflowable ebookshave no set pagination, font face or font size

readers & devices will customize fonts & appearance

requires a clear TOC structureobjects and images must be anchored or

inline

fixed-format ebookshave set pagination, like a print book

readers & devices will customize fonts & appearance

requires a clear TOC structureobjects and images can go anywhere

reflowable

ebook

user & device

can adjust

how text appears on the screen

fixed-formatebook

images and

objects stay in place

fixed paginatio

ncount the fonts on this page alone!

ebook authoring toolsuse your preferred HTML/XML editor

OxygenXML, TextWrangler, Dreamweaver, Notepad++, BBEdit, etc.

use your preferred document creation toolInDesign (some prefer 5.5), Quark Express, Pages, Open Office

use an ebook-specific tool•Sigil (open source ebook authoring tool)•Calibre (for converting between formats)•eCub

Sigil: an open source ebook authoring tool

https://code.google.com/p/sigil/

Calibre: an ebook manager & converter

http://calibre-ebook.com/

resources mentioned:

Chris Jenning’s Page to Screen blog: pagetoscreen.net

Going from InDesign to ebook resource guide: www.digitalbookw

orld.com/resources-going-from-indesign-to-ebook/

Amazon Kindle Publishing Guidelines: kindlegen.s3.amazonaws.com/AmazonKindlePublish

ingGuidelines.pdf

Sigil epub authoring tool: https://code.google.com/p/sigil/

Calibre ebook management & conversion tool: http://calibre-ebook.com/

public domain image