Creating a standard editable format

[ebooks-love]

Dear developers,

first I would like to thank you for the super software you have created.
I like to use it.

I would like to contact the head developer of Calibre. But I did not find any contact data...

I'm a multilingual user - my native language is Czech, I live in Germany.
And I'm a website developer...

My aim is to create a website that offers many DRM free books.
I have many DRM free books on my local, but the convertor of Calibre does not work well in some cases. Special chars (Czech, German) are not well displayed.
And, if I have a book with more stories, I would like to have an index of contents with these stories. It does not work.

It would be nice if the head developer would contact me to talk about details.
I would like to create a standard format in an editable software (Word?) that can be edited and than "one-to-one" converted into all eBook formats. The coverting is very well done by Calibre.

Kind regards
Kata

[a.peter]

Originally Posted by ebooks-love

It would be nice if the head developer would contact me to talk about details.
I would like to create a standard format in an editable software (Word?) that can be edited and than "one-to-one" converted into all eBook formats.

But why do you want to create a new eBook-format. There are alreade more than enought formats to choose from:

• epub
• mobi/azw
• DjVu
• cbz

and many, many more.

If you want to create collections of eBooks you don't need Calibre, you do need an eBook publishing software. For each of the formats there is a bunch of software to use, e. g. Sigil for epub, MobipocketCreator for mobi/azw.

And why do you want to use Microsoft Word as editing software. It isn't free, the file format is complicated. There are too many features, that simple eBook readers (Sony, Kindle, Kobo) do not support. And it lacks too many features that advanced reading devices (Tablet PCs and smartphones) will need (like animation, video or audio).

I do think: Tell us what you realy want to do and we will offer you hints for the software to be choosen to fit your needs.

[Serpentine]

It's called : epub

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Serpentine

It's called : epub

Yes, ePub is THE editable format.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by a.peter

But why do you want to create a new eBook-format. There are alreade more than enought formats to choose from:

I think he means a standard editable template for ebook production, that can be auto-converted into other ebook formats.

HTML (XHTML?) would be the right kind of source file, but setting up the template wouldn't be easy for a beginner to ebooks. And it still wouldn't work for selling on Smashwords; those books would need to be produced separately in Word until SW starts accepting other formats as source files.

[PeterT]

Makes me think back to the days of SCRIPT, GML/SGML, and DCF

:h1.Chapter 1:  Introduction
   :p.GML supported hierarchical containers, such as
   :ol
   :li.Ordered lists (like this one),
   :li.Unordered lists, and
   :li.Definition lists
   :eol.
   as well as simple structures.
   :p.Markup minimization (later generalized and formalized in SGML),
   allowed the end-tags to be omitted for the "h1" and "p" elements.

The original idea was that documentation could be written using DCF, and then when it was processed, the same input format would be output according to the characteristics of the output device; lineprinter / laser printer / dot-matix, glass-tube etc

[a.peter]

The sample of PeterT reminds me of docbook. In fact this is a standard template for documents. A list of converters docbook to anything exists. IBM provides a tutorial to convert docbook to epub.

Mabe that's the template, that ebooks-love is looking for?

[ebooks-love]

Hello,

sorry for late reply, I thought, I would get an email about answering my thread, but I did not...

@a.peter
I do not want to create a new eBook format. I think, there are enough formats on the market. Unfortunately. I would prefer ONE format for all books.

My aim is, to have an editable format (Word, txt ...) to create an eBook format with calibre.

One of my problems: I have 20 files with 20 short stories (one story is 2-4 pages). I would like to put all these stories into one file. I created a rtf Format with an index of contents. That means: First page with the title and author. Second page with index of contents (a head line for each story). Other pages with stories.
I converted this file with calibre to ePub. After each story there was originally a page break. In ePub this page break disappears. The index of contens is not in ePub.

It is difficult to describe my problem. I would like to upload the file to this forum for converting. Than you can see where the problem is.

What I want is a editable format that can be one-to-one converted to ePub. With page breaks, with formatting headers, with all special chars (I'm Czech).

Kata

[theducks]

Originally Posted by ebooks-love

Hello,

sorry for late reply, I thought, I would get an email about answering my thread, but I did not...

@a.peter
I do not want to create a new eBook format. I think, there are enough formats on the market. Unfortunately. I would prefer ONE format for all books.

My aim is, to have an editable format (Word, txt ...) to create an eBook format with calibre.

One of my problems: I have 20 files with 20 short stories (one story is 2-4 pages). I would like to put all these stories into one file. I created a rtf Format with an index of contents. That means: First page with the title and author. Second page with index of contents (a head line for each story). Other pages with stories.
I converted this file with calibre to ePub. After each story there was originally a page break. In ePub this page break disappears. The index of contens is not in ePub.

It is difficult to describe my problem. I would like to upload the file to this forum for converting. Than you can see where the problem is.

What I want is a editable format that can be one-to-one converted to ePub. With page breaks, with formatting headers, with all special chars (I'm Czech).

Kata

Sigil

Add each piece as (x)HTML

Add a Sigil chapter Split marker (use the button) at the correct place.
Set the title of the story (at the beginning) of each story, as a Header 3.
Click the Generate TOC button (on the TOC edit pane)
Set the Metadata (F8)
Save and you are done

[ebooks-love]

Thank you very much. That is what I'm looking for.
Sigil is not perfect but it is a good help tool to create an XHTML from plain text.

Thank you also for your tips for editing in Sigil.