Quote:
Originally Posted by DNSB
If you mean which programs can be used to create/edit an ePub3 FLO ebook? May I recommend you to the tender mercies of an Internet search? Work on that google fu, grasshopper!
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To be somewhat fair to Jon, our curmudgeon, in reality, the world of eBook formatting is still a black search hole for the Google-fu. I'm not really 100% sue why that is, but I
think it's because there are 90 million ways to "make" or "build" or "code" an eBook, all of which go to different destinations.
mean...once upon a time, there was MobiPocketCreator. Then just making ePUBs by hand, mostly. Then Sigil, Calibre, and then...now you can export ePUBs from LO and from AWP. You can export them (more or less) from INDD. You can...
And Fixed-layout is
also its own quasi-bottomless, no-daylight pit. It's device- and vendor-dependent. No two fixed-layout codings for two different devices are the same. The "Apple-tized" Adobe version, from INDD, works for iOS devices and even then, it's "better" on the iPad than the iPhone and I have no idea if it really even
works on the mini-Pad.
Oh, and that doesn't even BEGIN to cover all the super-easy, drag-drop, build your "kids book" on our website and sell through "our store" (named... what?) online apps. Those websites like Magic Story Machine, Mixam, Blurb, (to some extent), MyStorybook...shall I go on????
Too many variables, too many what-ifs. Seriously. By the time someone looking for an article has enough knowledge to know what
questions to ask...the article writer has run out of oomph.
I'm not kidding. What sort of article--think about it, guys--could give the requisite knowledge to a first-time user/browser around "which programs or apps can make fixed-layout eBooks,"
without that person, the pursuer of knowledge, knowing about what THIS gang of miscreants knows? Do you think that person will know aspect ratios, offsets, pixel margins, and so on? Hell no.
Something about the world of books and publishing and eBooks. It just
is.
Wanna have fun? Try to write, even using AI, a decent "do I need an ISBN, yes, no" Chatbot, around that (simple) topic. There are now so many If/thens in that logic journey that you pretty much cannot do it. e.g., "IF I am publishing in print on KDP, but I'm not on Ingram, but I am going to use an ePUB at Ignram, what do I need for an ISBN," coupled with "Should I use an Amazon free ISBN or not?" and you can choke ChatGPT. Not kidding. I know this because I answer this question nearly every. single. day. I've written not less than five articles around it, on my site, FAQ etc. and you know what? NOBODY ever reads them because, OMG, you have to read more than 5 sentences to know everything. And now, with all these other players on the field with freebie/lent ISBNs; it's a MESS.
That's what FXL eBooks are like, too. /rant.
Hitch