Free @Markdown conversion to EPUB app. Full spec.

[slowsmile]

Hi all...I've been testing my new python app called eBookerMD that converts a text file marked up with my simple @Markdown method directly to epub.

Here's what this free command line utility can do:

*Converts your @marked-up text file to an EPUB in seconds.

*Quickly converts and reformats your marked-up text file to EPUB according to the styles in a master stylesheet contained within the application itself.

* @Markdown gives you 20 paragraph styles 5 character styles and more to play with.

* This application can generate an EPUB with the main bodytext either in fiction style or in block text style. This choice is easily set by a single command line option when you convert your text file to an EPUB.

* All necessary ebook metadata will be automatically added and set in the EPUB.

* Automatically produces a standard and professional Level 1 Table of Contents page and Nav TOC in the new EPUB.

* Automatically creates the TOC, Cover and Beginning-read guides. The Beginning-read guide will be set to Chapter 1.

* Automatically cleans up any punctuation and spacing errors within your text.

* All blanks lines or hard line breaks will be automatically removed from the text file.

* All vertical and horizontal spaces in the generated EPUB – ie space before lines, space after lines, indents -- will be directly created only using paragraph styles or heading styles derived from a robust stylesheet template.

* @Markdown has many centered paragraph styles.

* You can also use blockquotes.

* Character styles – such as italic, bold, underline, upcaps, smallcaps – can be used and implemented.

* With a single command line option you will have the choice of either formatting all you ebook images and book cover in SVG format or in plain html <img> format.

* Every single line or paragraph in your generated EPUB will have a paragraph style(HTML tags) associated with it.

* When viewed in the Sigil Book Browser after conversion, your epub will display all your ebook main headings and chapter headings as written (they will not be indexed or encoded). This makes it much easier to navigate through your EPUB in Sigil when you finally check/edit/tweak your EPUB.

* Similarly, the app-generated EPUB CSS stylesheet deliberately uses long and explicit style names so that there is no mystery or confusion or mistake about how or where these styles are used in your EPUB. This allows you to easily locate, change or add style attribute values to the paragraph or character styles in Sigil if and when required.

* @Markdown has a section splitter(same as Sigil). This splits a non-header section into separate files or epub pages as required. For instance the copyright and colophon pages in an ebook usually always need to be split away from the Title page. You can do this easily and quickly with @mark-up. (See the @Markdown Cheatsheet.doc for details.)

* The ebook cover and inline images are automatically inserted by the application and this is easy to implement. (See the @Markdown Cheatsheet.doc for details).

* Internal llnks and external internet links can also be easily marked-up in the text file and generated in the EPUB(See the @Markdown Cheatsheet.doc for details).

* Directly after conversion, your new EPUB should also pass IDPF EpubCheck and W3C CSS Validation without any problems.

* Using markdown is about as simple as simple gets. I’ve also read that a seven year old child can learn and understand the simple principles of markdown in minutes.

What makes my @Markdown conversion method unique is because I tie all the @Markdown styles to a robust stylesheet which is also installed in the epub by the app. From my own testing of this app, every time I convert to epub it always passes IDPF EpubCheck. But I need other people to test and use this prototype app to see whether it is worthy.

This app will only work on Windows 7, 8 and 10. It is untested on earlier version like Vista(but still might work because its a console app and not a windows app)

If you have any problems downloading the files -- eBookerMD.doc and The @Markdown Cheatsheet or the eBookerMD zip file install you can also download these from my Google Docs here. The docs are all contained in the zip anyway.

The quickest way to see exactly what this app can do and see how it performs is to run ebook_test.txt(a small, marked-up 4 chapter book) that comes with the eBookerMD app. Full details on how to quickly do this is given in the eBookerMD.doc in the By Example: Converting a text file to epub section.

Contact: bt130550@gmail.com

Good Luck !!

[slowsmile]

I also forgot to mention that my eBookerMD.exe python app has been fully converted to an all-in-one windows exe, so you should have no trouble running it right off the bat in Windows.

[crankypants]

Hi, I made something similar in Perl but am having a heck of a time converting the program to an EXE file for Windows cmd line. You said your program is in Python but it's an EXE file. How did you convert the Python to an EXE file?

Thanks.

[eschwartz]

Presumably with PyInstaller or py2exe.

For perl, google tells me you can use:
commercial -- ActiveState's PerlApp, Indigo's Perl2Exe
open-source -- the "pp" module, perlcc


@slowsmile --- you do realize not providing the original sources means it cannot be run on OSX or linux, yes? And it cannot be improved by other people.

[crankypants]

Yes but with Activestate Perl, many modules are out of date, and it may not even have one of the modules I need. Hence, I doubt I can use Activeperl. It was my last choice.

[eschwartz]

Um, does this really look like the best place to discuss best practices for generating standalone perl binary scripts?
Pick a tool, try it out, and if you can't figure out which works best, StackOverflow has people who actually use perl and therefore might have a clue how to help you...