Quote:
Originally Posted by Moonbase59
The really easiest way to start
Nothing against the "higher-level tools" (Calibre, Sigil, InDesign, …), but the real best way if you’re a newbie or a novelist is to use Markdown & Pandoc and go from there.
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No, that is absolutely not true. I'm a programmer and I've used markdown. I've also done HTML in a text editor before WYSIWYG tools arrived.
Anyone doing non-trivial amount of writing needs to understand styles (no direct formatting) and use LO Writer (or MS Word if they insist). Not Pages or Indesign. You can use a plain text editor and some markdown, maybe a file per scene.
In LO Writer, only edit ODT.
Insert an auto TOC edited to have no page numbers.
No headers or footers. Footnotes need a separate explanation. Even epub3 is poor for scholarly works and textbooks. The ebook systems are really for novels, but textbooks with formulas and scholarly works with marginalia, footnotes and endnotes can be done.
Save a docx and simply convert to epub in Calibre and only images are potentially an issue (but you don't have images embedded in a text file using markdown). Styles convert 1:1 to CSS.
As long as there are no tables, frames, and lists (tricky, better simulate by style margins and type in the i, ii, iii etc as auto numbering can fail in ebooks) it will be perfect.
I've been editing on PC for 45+ years, taught Web design, wordprocessing & programming. DTP since 1987. The ebooks for over 10 years.
Typists used a form of markdown in the 19th C. to tell typesetters what to do*. Modern markdown is derived from that and was great on CP/M, DOS, small PDAs, portable Epson micro-computers and phones etc. It's obsolete and is not simple or user friendly for a beginner. Nor is MediaWiki normal formatting. Though MS Word, LO Writer and Calibre can to lesser or greater extent parse some markdown from imported or even cop/paste text.
[* Some text chat programs will still respond to a subset of markdown]
EDIT
Indesign and similar are GARBAGE for ebooks because they are designed for DTP, via PDF to paper. Fudged for ebooks.