Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffcb
Hi All,
I'm a member of a large university initiative focused on publishing resources developed by faculty openly through creative commons licenses. We've recently started looking into EPUB files as a way to create and distribute our content openly. There are several tools we're looking into (Calibre, Sigil, etc), but since we haven't worked with EPUB files before a primer would be greatly appreciated. In particular, I am looking for answers to several questions:
1) What software do you recommend for professionally editing EPUB files? While several members of our team do have HTML/CSS knowledge, it would be extremely advantageous if all of the work could be done solely in a WYSIWYG editor, assuming that this type of editor would be able to work with all of our content. As a large portion of our work comes from medical schools, we frequently use tables and images which we have embeded in our books.
2) What are some of the advantageous to using the EPUB format? Our goal is to make our content available in as many venues/stores/sites as possible in one goal. One of the reasons we started looking into EPUB is that we currently develop IBA (Ibooks Author) and MOBI/AZW files seperately. The process is time consuming and if EPUB allowed us a more direct route to reach both Amazon and Apple devices (as well as branch out to new potential partners) this would be extremely advantageous for us. Other formatting suggestions would be welcome.
tl/dr: If you were starting from 0, had a large number of books to publish regularly in doc and pdf files, needed an editor that could be used after relatively little training to produce professional ebooks, and wanted to hit as many devices and stores as possible in one straightforward system, what would you do?
Any help/walkthrus/links to other threads would be greatly appreciated!
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Jeff:
You've already had some feedback from other folks here, but, heavens forfend I not stick my $.02 in. As background, I own a professional formatting company, that's done thousands of books.
- There's really no such thing as a WYSIWYG ePUB-maker. That's a mythological creature, up there with the unicorn.
- You didn't say what your source material is, as pointed out by someone else.
- Without knowing that, most of us are spinning our wheels.
- Assuming that your source material is in PAGES, you may have some limited options. I infer this because--for reasons that sorta elude me--you're using iBA, which is a really poor product for making books.
- And yes, I know that Mac fans will howl about that, but the garbage that iBA creates in the 99% of the iceberg that you CAN'T see, is horrific. It's like looking at Pages' underlying code--same thing. It looks good on the surface, but underneath--ye gods. Moreover, the output is limited to be sold on iBooks, which is a pretty notoriously small percentage of the eBook market, and a far, far smaller percent of the ePUB-reading market, most of whom are reading on Nooks, Kobos, Sonys, and the like.
- If you are using Pages, consider exporting the Pages content to ePUB, and then fixing that content using Sigil or Calibre's editor.
- If you are using Word, I second the suggestion that you try Toxaris' Word ePUBTools, but I'm unsure that this will work in a Mac Environment.
- I second the idea that you read Liz Castro's excellent book, "ePUB: Straight to the Point." Yes, it's outdated now, but it is very good on all the basics.
- I further recommend that you read Pablo's excellent tutorial, here in the MR Wiki, on making ePUBs.
- HOWEVER, all that being said, if I needed to make books in BOTH PDF (for print or ePDF?), and eBooks, I'd seriously consider biting the bullet and learning InDesign. You'll still have to know/learn how to tweak the ePUB output, but it would save you a crapload of repetitive work.
Looking forward to your answers about source materials, etc., to see what we can all do to assist you in your options.
Hitch