Generate EPUB and PDF from ebook-edit "folder as book"

[rmichael]

Hello,

I am on macOS 10.14.6, learning Calibre 4.13.0.

I have extracted an EPUB for a folder and opened it with `ebook-edit`, on the command line, as follows:

`unzip -d source The_book.epub`
`ebook-edit path/to/source`

I have made changes to the files, saved the book, and I see the changes in the source files.

How do I (re)build a new EPUB and PDF file?


If I start Calibre itself, the "source" book I opened via `ebook-edit` on the command line is not in the Library, so I cannot use "Convert Book" in Calibre.

I also do not see an option in Calibre to open a "source folder" as a book, as "Edit Book" (`ebook-edit`) can do.



As background:

I am working this way so that I can keep the source files in git and make commits as I adjust them. I am editing technical material on programming, and I want to send a patch to the original author.

I found that if I open the EPUB itself (not extracted) in Calibre, then used Edit Book, I was not able to tell Calibre about extracting the EPUB files to a folder so that I could stage and commit changes. Calibre only seemed to keep the extracted files in the Cache, and only while it was running.


Thank you

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by rmichael

Hello,

I am on macOS 10.14.6, learning Calibre 4.13.0.

I have extracted an EPUB for a folder and opened it with `ebook-edit`, on the command line, as follows:

`unzip -d source The_book.epub`
`ebook-edit path/to/source`

I have made changes to the files, saved the book, and I see the changes in the source files.

How do I (re)build a new EPUB and PDF file?


If I start Calibre itself, the "source" book I opened via `ebook-edit` on the command line is not in the Library, so I cannot use "Convert Book" in Calibre.

I also do not see an option in Calibre to open a "source folder" as a book, as "Edit Book" (`ebook-edit`) can do.



As background:

I am working this way so that I can keep the source files in git and make commits as I adjust them. I am editing technical material on programming, and I want to send a patch to the original author.

I found that if I open the EPUB itself (not extracted) in Calibre, then used Edit Book, I was not able to tell Calibre about extracting the EPUB files to a folder so that I could stage and commit changes. Calibre only seemed to keep the extracted files in the Cache, and only while it was running.


Thank you

You may want to check the ePub Zip/Unzip AppleScript application for Mac OS X thread.

There is also the [Plugin] FolderIn and FolderOut - Folder input and output plugins for Sigi if you don't mind using an alternate epub editor.

[rmichael]

Thanks for the quick reply.

Originally Posted by DNSB

You may want to check the ePub Zip/Unzip AppleScript application for Mac OS X thread.

This is very helpful, thank you. I did not realize there was no "build" step to prepare the EPUB, and that it was only a matter of zipping the files.

There is also the [Plugin] FolderIn and FolderOut - Folder input and output plugins for Sigi if you don't mind using an alternate epub editor.

The ebook I am editing was produced with Calibre, so I will likely continue using it, in case there is author workflow involved. Thank for mention this though, because it seems to have been created for my use-case (git tracked sources). I may look at Sigil in the future.

[kovidgoyal]

If you want to work with git, use ebook-convert to generate your EPUB and PDF files. You can run

ebook-convert file.opf output.epub or output.pdf


where the opf file is from your unzipped epub.