eBook Authoring Tools alternatives to apple’s ibook publisher

For more detail on the process for making ebooks and for a more detailed description on making ebooks, I recommend Chris Jenning’s Page to Screen blog. This brief introduction is largely based on his presentation to the 2012 London Bookfair. SB SB familiar metaphor user friendly and accessible great for media objects that are primarily text-based straight-forward to create dependent on the e- readers’ user interfaces ebooks as alternatives to apps

Choice: ebook standard determines the devices that can read the ebook determines the markup language & authoring tools that will be used to create the ebook viewport form determines whether the pagination is fixed or variable epub and.mobi ebooks have fixed or variable viewport options

epub open ebook standard XHTML5 (epub3) readable in: ๏ browser plugins ๏ apps (bluefire, stanza, etc.) ๏ non-kindle ereaders (nook, sony, kobo, etc.) epub2 is XHTML1.1 public domain image.mobi owned by amazon HTML w/ proprietary tags readable in: ๏ kindle ereaders (67% marketshare) ๏ kindle apps ๏ browsers through amazon’s cloud reader (Kindle format 8 kf8 uses HTML5 & CSS3, but only on the kindle fire)

reflowable ebooks have no set pagination, font face or font size readers & devices will customize fonts & appearance requires a clear TOC structure objects and images must be anchored or inline fixed-format ebooks have set pagination, like a print book readers & devices will customize fonts & appearance requires a clear TOC structure objects and images can go anywhere

reflowable ebook user & device can adjust how text appears on the screen

fixed- format ebook images and objects stay in place fixed pagination count the fonts on this page alone!

ebook authoring tools use your preferred HTML/XML editor OxygenXML, TextWrangler, Dreamweaver, Notepad++, BBEdit, etc. use your preferred document creation tool InDesign (some prefer 5.5), Quark Express, Pages, Open Office use an ebook-specific tool Sigil (open source ebook authoring tool) Calibre (for converting between formats) eCub

Sigil: an open source ebook authoring tool

Calibre: an ebook manager & converter

resources mentioned: Chris Jenning’s Page to Screen blog: pagetoscreen.netpagetoscreen.net Going from InDesign to ebook resource guide: to-ebook/orld.com/resources-going-from-indesign- to-ebook/ Amazon Kindle Amazon Kindle Publishing Guidelines: kindlegen.s3.amazonaws.com/AmazonKindlePublishingGu idelines.pdf Sigil epub authoring tool: tool: Calibre ebook manCalibre ebook management & conversion tool: public domain image