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| author | David T. Sadler <davidtsadler@googlemail.com> | 2020-03-27 16:11:06 +0000 |
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| committer | David T. Sadler <davidtsadler@googlemail.com> | 2020-03-27 16:11:06 +0000 |
| commit | c09305bfcf14707ef8c6b46e4e39a03c42a5c746 (patch) | |
| tree | cd04679b5fef0feac617d54b96636327a403a38c /source/_posts | |
| parent | 2d30971007ebc6a9a8c63f03504e5ff66667201c (diff) | |
Add post creating_an_ebook_with_markdown
Diffstat (limited to 'source/_posts')
| -rw-r--r-- | source/_posts/creating_an_ebook_with_markdown.md | 79 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | source/_posts/welcome.md | 12 |
2 files changed, 79 insertions, 12 deletions
diff --git a/source/_posts/creating_an_ebook_with_markdown.md b/source/_posts/creating_an_ebook_with_markdown.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..29519bb --- /dev/null +++ b/source/_posts/creating_an_ebook_with_markdown.md @@ -0,0 +1,79 @@ +--- +extends: _layouts.post +section: content +title: Creating an Ebook With Markdown +date: 2020-03-30 +description: Use Markdown to Create an Ebook That Can Be Read on Various Devices +tags: [Markdown] +--- + +[Pandoc](https://pandoc.org/) is a great tool for converting a file in one markup format into another. This means we can use it to convert a file written in [Markdown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown) into an [EPUB](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPUB) file that is supported by many e-readers. + +Lets start by writting a very simple markdown file called `example_ebook.md`. + +```markdown +--- +title: +- type: main + text: Example Ebook +- type: subtitle + text: An Ebook created from a Markdown file +creator: +- role: author + text: David Sadler +publisher: Published by myself +--- + +This is an introduction. + +# Chapter 1 + +This is the first paragraph of chapter 1. + +This is the second paragraph of chapter 1. + +Below is a list. + +- Item One +- Item Two +- Item Three + +# Chapter 2 + +This is the first paragraph of chapter 2. + +This is the second paragraph of chapter 2. + +# Chapter 3 + +This is the first paragraph of chapter 3. + +This is the second paragraph of chapter 3. +``` + +Note that the file begins with a [YAML metadata block](https://pandoc.org/MANUAL.html#extension-yaml_metadata_block) that starts and ends with three hyphens (`---`). This allows you to specify [EPUB metadata](https://pandoc.org/MANUAL.html#epub-metadata) such as the title and author. + +Converting this to EPUB is done by running pandoc. + +```shell +$ pandoc example_ebook.md -t epub3 --toc -o example_ebook.epub +``` + +There are several options that need to be passed to pandoc. + +- `example_ebook.md` — This argument is the file that you are converting. +- `-t epub3` — Set the output format to be [EPUB v3 book](https://www.w3.org/community/epub3/). +- `--toc` — Include a table of contents in the output document. This will be derived from the H1 headers in the markdown. +- `-o example_ebook.epub` — Tell pandoc to output the conversion to the named file instead of *stdout*. + +You can now copy the file `example_ebook.epub` to any device that supports the format or use one of the many software readers such as [Calibre](https://calibre-ebook.com/). However, if you wish to read this on a Kindle device you will need to convert it to the [Mobi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_e-book_formats#Mobipocket) format. + +Amazon provides a command line tool called [KindleGen](https://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000765211) that can convert our EPUB file into the Mobi format. After downloading the tool just run it as shown below. + +```shell +$ kindlegen example_ebook.epub +``` + +This will create a file called `example_ebook.mobi` that you can copy to your Kindle to read. + +There is a [zip file](/assets/files/example_ebook.zip) available that contains all the example files. diff --git a/source/_posts/welcome.md b/source/_posts/welcome.md deleted file mode 100644 index 02473da..0000000 --- a/source/_posts/welcome.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,12 +0,0 @@ ---- -extends: _layouts.post -section: content -title: Welcome -date: 2020-03-08 -description: My first post on my redesigned blog -tags: [Jigsaw] ---- - -I've decided to take part in the [four weeks challenge](https://twitter.com/flaviocopes/status/1233393406556151808), that was announced by [@flaviocopes](https://twitter.com/flaviocopes), to get a blog up and running. - -This site was generated with [Jigsaw](https://jigsaw.tighten.co) and styled using [Taillwind CSS](https://tailwindcss.com). |
