Using ebookmaker to create PDFs for print on demand publishing
My first impression of the PDF's created by ebookmaker was that with a little work they might be suitable for print on demand publishing like I have done several times with Create Space. I have spent a few hours installing ebookmaker on my own computer and experimenting with Tex and the attached files represent the kind of thing that ebookmaker might be modified to produce. They are not perfect, but I think they are good enough to criticize. Some observations: 1. The Tex file was created by running my original RST file against both ebookmaker and rst2xetex.py. The two files that were produced were combined to produce the Tex file attached. Rst2xetex.py does not understand the custom RST elements PG uses so I had to make a version of the RST file without them to get rst2xetex to run properly. 2. The output of rst2xetex was actually closer to what I wanted than what ebookmaker produced. Ebookmaker does a table of contents that is just links with no page numbers, and the headings are not regular headings and subheadings that Tex uses. Rst2xetex gave me regular headings and subheadings that could create the TOC I wanted. I had to run xelatex against the Tex file twice to create the PDF with a TOC. 3. I think that a Tex file is a more useful output for ebookmaker than a finished PDF. Create Space wants you to have ISBN and ISBN-13 numbers on the Verso, so having a Tex file to edit is easier than trying to edit a PDF. Also, PG has a lot of short stories that could be combined to create anthologies and that would be easier with Tex files. 4. Looking at the code for ebookmaker it looks like some of it might have been adapted from code written for docutils. Some of the code is clear enough, and some is not. James Simmons
The ebookmaker rst code is basically subclassed docutils - so deeply that upgrades to docutils broke ebookmaker and I had to fix it. My impression is that Marcello, the original author of ebookmaker, was a contributor to docutils. There are 485 RST-sourced books in PG, the most recent is 5 years old. the intermediate tex files generated by ebookmaker during rst processing are accessible but not exposed on the pg website. For example: http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/48620/pg48620.tex In the rest of the world, there's been a lot more development of rst-ish tools outside of rst. Github flavored Markdown is the most widely used, but even asciidoc has found some adoption in the publishing industry. Gitbooks is a rather nice markdown-based book generator. By all means, if you can make improvements to the ebookmaker code, submit a PR on github. No one is working on anything related to tex or rst. https://github.com/gutenbergtools/ebookmaker <https://github.com/gutenbergtools/ebookmaker> A "PODWriter" class might be what you're thinking about. Eric
On May 24, 2020, at 8:51 AM, nicestep@gmail.com wrote:
My first impression of the PDF's created by ebookmaker was that with a little work they might be suitable for print on demand publishing like I have done several times with Create Space. I have spent a few hours installing ebookmaker on my own computer and experimenting with Tex and the attached files represent the kind of thing that ebookmaker might be modified to produce. They are not perfect, but I think they are good enough to criticize.
Some observations:
1. The Tex file was created by running my original RST file against both ebookmaker and rst2xetex.py. The two files that were produced were combined to produce the Tex file attached. Rst2xetex.py does not understand the custom RST elements PG uses so I had to make a version of the RST file without them to get rst2xetex to run properly. 2. The output of rst2xetex was actually closer to what I wanted than what ebookmaker produced. Ebookmaker does a table of contents that is just links with no page numbers, and the headings are not regular headings and subheadings that Tex uses. Rst2xetex gave me regular headings and subheadings that could create the TOC I wanted. I had to run xelatex against the Tex file twice to create the PDF with a TOC. 3. I think that a Tex file is a more useful output for ebookmaker than a finished PDF. Create Space wants you to have ISBN and ISBN-13 numbers on the Verso, so having a Tex file to edit is easier than trying to edit a PDF. Also, PG has a lot of short stories that could be combined to create anthologies and that would be easier with Tex files. 4. Looking at the code for ebookmaker it looks like some of it might have been adapted from code written for docutils. Some of the code is clear enough, and some is not.
James Simmons
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Please don't copy webmaster@gutenberg.org on this discussion (it just shows up in our inboxes multiple times). Thanks! - Greg On Sun, May 24, 2020 at 10:09:37AM -0400, Eric Hellman wrote:
The ebookmaker rst code is basically subclassed docutils - so deeply that upgrades to docutils broke ebookmaker and I had to fix it. My impression is that Marcello, the original author of ebookmaker, was a contributor to docutils.
There are 485 RST-sourced books in PG, the most recent is 5 years old.
the intermediate tex files generated by ebookmaker during rst processing are accessible but not exposed on the pg website. For example: http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/48620/pg48620.tex
In the rest of the world, there's been a lot more development of rst-ish tools outside of rst. Github flavored Markdown is the most widely used, but even asciidoc has found some adoption in the publishing industry. Gitbooks is a rather nice markdown-based book generator.
By all means, if you can make improvements to the ebookmaker code, submit a PR on github. No one is working on anything related to tex or rst. https://github.com/gutenbergtools/ebookmaker <https://github.com/gutenbergtools/ebookmaker> A "PODWriter" class might be what you're thinking about.
Eric
On May 24, 2020, at 8:51 AM, nicestep@gmail.com wrote:
My first impression of the PDF's created by ebookmaker was that with a little work they might be suitable for print on demand publishing like I have done several times with Create Space. I have spent a few hours installing ebookmaker on my own computer and experimenting with Tex and the attached files represent the kind of thing that ebookmaker might be modified to produce. They are not perfect, but I think they are good enough to criticize.
Some observations:
1. The Tex file was created by running my original RST file against both ebookmaker and rst2xetex.py. The two files that were produced were combined to produce the Tex file attached. Rst2xetex.py does not understand the custom RST elements PG uses so I had to make a version of the RST file without them to get rst2xetex to run properly. 2. The output of rst2xetex was actually closer to what I wanted than what ebookmaker produced. Ebookmaker does a table of contents that is just links with no page numbers, and the headings are not regular headings and subheadings that Tex uses. Rst2xetex gave me regular headings and subheadings that could create the TOC I wanted. I had to run xelatex against the Tex file twice to create the PDF with a TOC. 3. I think that a Tex file is a more useful output for ebookmaker than a finished PDF. Create Space wants you to have ISBN and ISBN-13 numbers on the Verso, so having a Tex file to edit is easier than trying to edit a PDF. Also, PG has a lot of short stories that could be combined to create anthologies and that would be easier with Tex files. 4. Looking at the code for ebookmaker it looks like some of it might have been adapted from code written for docutils. Some of the code is clear enough, and some is not.
James Simmons
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Eric, I would question your statement that the most recent RST sourced book is 5 years old. I donated four of them more recently than that: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61937 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/57265 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/57826 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60188 I have done PG donations before discovering RST, but I would not go back. The books I've been doing lately have hundreds of footnotes. RST makes this tolerable. I think if more people knew it existed more would use it. It saves a great deal of work. I'll have to look at the code again to see how docutils is being subclassed. I hadn't noticed that. I've done Python programming in the past, for the One Laptop Per Child project, but I'm rusty at it. James Simmons On Sun, 2020-05-24 at 10:09 -0400, Eric Hellman wrote:
The ebookmaker rst code is basically subclassed docutils - so deeply that upgrades to docutils broke ebookmaker and I had to fix it. My impression is that Marcello, the original author of ebookmaker, was a contributor to docutils. There are 485 RST-sourced books in PG, the most recent is 5 years old.
the intermediate tex files generated by ebookmaker during rst processing are accessible but not exposed on the pg website. For example: http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/48620/pg48620.tex
In the rest of the world, there's been a lot more development of rst- ish tools outside of rst. Github flavored Markdown is the most widely used, but even asciidoc has found some adoption in the publishing industry. Gitbooks is a rather nice markdown-based book generator.
By all means, if you can make improvements to the ebookmaker code, submit a PR on github. No one is working on anything related to tex or rst. https://github.com/gutenbergtools/ebookmaker A "PODWriter" class might be what you're thinking about.
Eric
On May 24, 2020, at 8:51 AM, nicestep@gmail.com wrote:
My first impression of the PDF's created by ebookmaker was that with a little work they might be suitable for print on demand publishing like I have done several times with Create Space. I have spent a few hours installing ebookmaker on my own computer and experimenting with Tex and the attached files represent the kind of thing that ebookmaker might be modified to produce. They are not perfect, but I think they are good enough to criticize.
Some observations:
1. The Tex file was created by running my original RST file against both ebookmaker and rst2xetex.py. The two files that were produced were combined to produce the Tex file attached. Rst2xetex.py does not understand the custom RST elements PG uses so I had to make a version of the RST file without them to get rst2xetex to run properly. 2. The output of rst2xetex was actually closer to what I wanted than what ebookmaker produced. Ebookmaker does a table of contents that is just links with no page numbers, and the headings are not regular headings and subheadings that Tex uses. Rst2xetex gave me regular headings and subheadings that could create the TOC I wanted. I had to run xelatex against the Tex file twice to create the PDF with a TOC. 3. I think that a Tex file is a more useful output for ebookmaker than a finished PDF. Create Space wants you to have ISBN and ISBN- 13 numbers on the Verso, so having a Tex file to edit is easier than trying to edit a PDF. Also, PG has a lot of short stories that could be combined to create anthologies and that would be easier with Tex files. 4. Looking at the code for ebookmaker it looks like some of it might have been adapted from code written for docutils. Some of the code is clear enough, and some is not.
James Simmons
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participants (3)
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Eric Hellman -
Greg Newby -
nicestep＠gmail.com