Can I use Calibre to make an e-book?

outlookcarol · 09-24-2013, 07:20 AM

Dear fellows in the MobileRead Forum,

I am a fresh user of Calibre. Recently I am searching for an SW to build up an e-book. I am confused with the function of Calibre. From the DEMO on company website, Calibre is an SW for e-book library management. However, some of my colleagues said we can use Calibre to build up corporate e-book.

My question is, is Calibre running same as, for example, Adobe Indesign CC, for editing e-publish documents?

Thanks a lot for any helpful suggestions from you.

Carol

EowynCarter · 09-24-2013, 07:32 AM

Nope.
Calibre can convert e-books, but to make one, it's not the tool I would use. Actually buying an e-book to realise it's calibre converted makes me go

look at inDesign, jutho and sigil if it's an ePub. And there are others.

alicepattinson · 09-24-2013, 07:43 AM

Yep I agree with @EowynCarter. Go for inDesign

Dr. Drib · 09-24-2013, 08:35 AM

Welcome to MobileRead.

Please post in the appropriate forum.

Take the time now to look over our site and become familiar with it.

Your thread has been moved to the calibre forum.

Don
(Moderator)

Sabardeyn · 09-24-2013, 09:04 AM

No, calibre is not e-book creation software.

It is, as you mention, e-book library management software and that includes modifying certain aspects of e-book file content as well as conversion. By itself, calibre will not allow you to create an e-book from beginning to end. It will allow you to tweak your e-book output a bit.

As for recommending e-book creation software... I'm not qualified to do so. There are several MobileRead forum members who are in the publishing business in some manner and, to the best of my knowledge, none of them is completely happy with any of the available software tools. From their comments, I have come to the conclusion that each tool seems to be adept at one or two workflow aspects, but otherwise has some fault(s).

A major impediment is simply getting used to workflow in that particular piece of software. Note that many software applications can produce e-book files - they just don't do it well (again, based on the member's comments).

Lastly, but critically, no software or hardware e-reader/viewer will interpret your resulting e-book file in the exact same manner. Each reader/viewer has some slight difference that will play havoc with your output. So the old K.I.S.S. adage is "best practices". Unless you're catering to a limited portion of the market (ie, Kindle only).

I hope my comments help.

Adoby · 09-24-2013, 12:05 PM

And different tools are suitable for different types of books.

Some books rely on very specific layout and typography. Then you obviously need some tool that can handle that. Indesign has already been suggested. Scribus is another possibility. But if you don't have a lot of previous experience using this type of tool, you should perhaps let someone more experienced handle the layout.

On the other end of the scale is a typical novel. Just text, paragraphs and chapters. Then just a simple text editor would be enough, perhaps one text file and per chapter. And you could use some form of markup to quickly create a pleasant and consistent layout with headings and so on.

You can start with a set of plain text files, one per chapter. Perhaps written using some type of markup.
Then convert the text files to html, using the markup tags.
After that import the html to sigil and create a epub.

Either way you should start with a very small test project and try to set up an environment that allows you to test and learn all the tools.

Here is more information about "markdown", a popular markup system that allows you to write the book as a set of plain text files, and with minimal effort convert them to html that acan be imported to sigil.

http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/

And here a slightly more advanced version, "Multimarkdown" :

http://fletcherpenney.net/multimarkdown/

mrmikel · 09-25-2013, 08:55 AM

Atlantis Word Processor will also do the job of creating an epub from scratch and it produces pretty good epubs. Many, who have some familiarity with html and css, the language of epubs, use the free program Sigil to correct any small remaining errors from the conversion progress of other programs.

A number of people use MS Word, save as filtered HTML and then put the result through calibre. There are free Word macros created by Toxaris which help remove extraneous material from Word documents prior to conversion in calibre, but these work only on more recent versions of Word.

09-24-2013, 07:20 AM	#1
outlookcarol Junior Member Posts: 1 Karma: 10 Join Date: Sep 2013 Device: none	Can I use Calibre to make an e-book? Dear fellows in the MobileRead Forum, I am a fresh user of Calibre. Recently I am searching for an SW to build up an e-book. I am confused with the function of Calibre. From the DEMO on company website, Calibre is an SW for e-book library management. However, some of my colleagues said we can use Calibre to build up corporate e-book. My question is, is Calibre running same as, for example, Adobe Indesign CC, for editing e-publish documents? Thanks a lot for any helpful suggestions from you. Carol

09-24-2013, 12:05 PM	#6
Adoby Handy Elephant Posts: 1,737 Karma: 26785684 Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Southern Sweden, far out in the quiet woods Device: Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra	And different tools are suitable for different types of books. Some books rely on very specific layout and typography. Then you obviously need some tool that can handle that. Indesign has already been suggested. Scribus is another possibility. But if you don't have a lot of previous experience using this type of tool, you should perhaps let someone more experienced handle the layout. On the other end of the scale is a typical novel. Just text, paragraphs and chapters. Then just a simple text editor would be enough, perhaps one text file and per chapter. And you could use some form of markup to quickly create a pleasant and consistent layout with headings and so on. You can start with a set of plain text files, one per chapter. Perhaps written using some type of markup. Then convert the text files to html, using the markup tags. After that import the html to sigil and create a epub. Either way you should start with a very small test project and try to set up an environment that allows you to test and learn all the tools. Here is more information about "markdown", a popular markup system that allows you to write the book as a set of plain text files, and with minimal effort convert them to html that acan be imported to sigil. http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/ And here a slightly more advanced version, "Multimarkdown" : http://fletcherpenney.net/multimarkdown/ Last edited by Adoby; 09-24-2013 at 12:33 PM.

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09-24-2013, 07:32 AM	#2
EowynCarter Wizard Posts: 4,337 Karma: 4000000 Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Paris Device: Cybooks; Sony PRS-T1	Nope. Calibre can convert e-books, but to make one, it's not the tool I would use. Actually buying an e-book to realise it's calibre converted makes me go look at inDesign, jutho and sigil if it's an ePub. And there are others.

09-24-2013, 07:43 AM	#3
alicepattinson Banned Posts: 142 Karma: 2564052 Join Date: Jan 2013 Device: Kindle Fire	Yep I agree with @EowynCarter. Go for inDesign

09-24-2013, 08:35 AM	#4
Dr. Drib Grand Sorcerer Posts: 45,442 Karma: 59592133 Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Peru Device: KINDLE: Oasis 3, Scribe (1st), Matcha; KOBO: Libra 2, Libra Colour	Welcome to MobileRead. Please post in the appropriate forum. Take the time now to look over our site and become familiar with it. Your thread has been moved to the calibre forum. Don (Moderator)

09-24-2013, 09:04 AM	#5
Sabardeyn Guru Posts: 644 Karma: 1242364 Join Date: May 2009 Location: The Right Coast Device: PC (Calibre), Nexus 7 2013 (Moon+ Pro), HTC HD2/Leo (Freda)	No, calibre is not e-book creation software. It is, as you mention, e-book library management software and that includes modifying certain aspects of e-book file content as well as conversion. By itself, calibre will not allow you to create an e-book from beginning to end. It will allow you to tweak your e-book output a bit. As for recommending e-book creation software... I'm not qualified to do so. There are several MobileRead forum members who are in the publishing business in some manner and, to the best of my knowledge, none of them is completely happy with any of the available software tools. From their comments, I have come to the conclusion that each tool seems to be adept at one or two workflow aspects, but otherwise has some fault(s). A major impediment is simply getting used to workflow in that particular piece of software. Note that many software applications can produce e-book files - they just don't do it well (again, based on the member's comments). Lastly, but critically, no software or hardware e-reader/viewer will interpret your resulting e-book file in the exact same manner. Each reader/viewer has some slight difference that will play havoc with your output. So the old K.I.S.S. adage is "best practices". Unless you're catering to a limited portion of the market (ie, Kindle only). I hope my comments help.

09-25-2013, 08:55 AM	#7
mrmikel Color me gone Posts: 2,089 Karma: 1445295 Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Central Oregon Coast Device: PRS-300	Atlantis Word Processor will also do the job of creating an epub from scratch and it produces pretty good epubs. Many, who have some familiarity with html and css, the language of epubs, use the free program Sigil to correct any small remaining errors from the conversion progress of other programs. A number of people use MS Word, save as filtered HTML and then put the result through calibre. There are free Word macros created by Toxaris which help remove extraneous material from Word documents prior to conversion in calibre, but these work only on more recent versions of Word.

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