[scribus] What about E-PUB format?

[John Jason Jordan]

On Wed, 29 Dec 2010 22:24:38 -0500

I still think that PDF is not reflowable, and if that is a requirement
then HTML or XHTML should be used.

Recently I had my first experience with the EPUB format, as that I how
I read C?dric G?my's new book about Scribus. I don't have a Kindle or
other portable reader, I just installed Calibre on my Fedora laptop.
Calibre comes with e-book viewers that can display most formats. In
response to John's point above, the E-PUB format is definitely
reflowable. Using the reader you can also highlight text and add
bookmarks.

And speaking of formats, I am specifically interested in E-PUB, because
it is open source and, as far as I know, all the commercial tablets can
read it as well as their own proprietary formats.

So my big question is, can I export from Scribus in E-PUB format?
Assuming not, is there a workaround, like exporting to PDF or
something else and then converting the output to E-PUB? Has anyone
here published anything in E-PUB format?

[Steve Herrick]

Post by John Jason Jordan
And speaking of formats, I am specifically interested in E-PUB, because
it is open source and, as far as I know, all the commercial tablets can
read it as well as their own proprietary formats.

Last I knew, the Kindle does not read EPUB, though you can convert the
Kindle format to it.

Post by John Jason Jordan
So my big question is, can I export from Scribus in E-PUB format?

No.

Post by John Jason Jordan
Assuming not, is there a workaround, like exporting to PDF or
something else and then converting the output to E-PUB? Has anyone
here published anything in E-PUB format?

I've published one large book as an EPUB (I am not the author; you can
see the book at justthings.info), and am close to finishing my second.
The first, I imported from ODT, and the second from PDF, both through
Caliber. But -- the conversion was mostly a head start, and not
anything that would pass for a finished EPUB. I had to do significant
proofreading in Sigil, including hand-tweaking the underlying code.

In your case, if you have the text finalized, I'd skip Scribus
entirely, and paste the text into Sigil.

InDesign now exports to EPUB (though not perfectly). This might be an
incentive to build that in as a feature to Scribus. Then again, maybe
not. Maybe we should just leave that to Caliber and Sigil.

[Bill208]

Post by John Jason Jordan
So my big question is, can I export from Scribus in E-PUB format?
Assuming not, is there a workaround, like exporting to PDF or
something else and then converting the output to E-PUB? Has anyone
here published anything in E-PUB format?

John,

I've created epub files, but unfortunately not with Scribus. I've used
OpenOffice plus an extension for OpenOffice that will convert OO text files
to epub. From epub I use Calibre to convert to mobi for my Kindle. Kindle
will not read epub files.

Even though the epub standard incorporates CSS and XHTML formatting is lost
or scrambled through the conversion process and I?ve yet to develop a
satisfactory workflow starting with Scribus.

I would hope that at some point in the not too distant future Scribus will
be able to convert to epub. For an in-depth discussion on the epub format,
along with sample files for download and reference links, start with this
link:

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/tutorials/x-epubtut/index.html

Bill

[John Culleton]

Post by Bill208

Post by John Jason Jordan
So my big question is, can I export from Scribus in E-PUB format?
Assuming not, is there a workaround, like exporting to PDF or
something else and then converting the output to E-PUB? Has
anyone here published anything in E-PUB format?

John,
I've created epub files, but unfortunately not with Scribus. I've
used OpenOffice plus an extension for OpenOffice that will convert
OO text files to epub. From epub I use Calibre to convert to mobi
for my Kindle. Kindle will not read epub files.
Even though the epub standard incorporates CSS and XHTML formatting
is lost or scrambled through the conversion process and I?ve yet to
develop a satisfactory workflow starting with Scribus.
I would hope that at some point in the not too distant future
Scribus will be able to convert to epub. For an in-depth discussion
on the epub format, along with sample files for download and
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/tutorials/x-epubtut/index.htm
l
Bill

EPub and the Kindle language are subsets of the xhtml language. EPub
also has a three file structure for each document that is unique (and
IMO more or less useless). Both of these languages limit severely the
kinds of things we do with printed documents insofar as typesetting of
text and placing of objects precisely on a page. This lack of
specificity allows the document to be read on different readers with
different screen widths etc.

Many decades ago Grace Murray Hopper stated that she didn't expect
COBOL (her invention) to do the work of FORTRAN and vice versa. IBM
violated her principle and touted PL/I which was a horrid mishmash of
both. Despite much institutional support it died an early death. You
could look it up. I lived through it.

I don't see the mission of Scribus as expanding beyond printed output
to e-book formats. The two missions are incompatible. MSWord and Open
Office Writer provide multiple output formats. Both of them do many
things, and do most of them badly. InDesign provides e-book formats,
but the results are not widely praised.

(IMO e-books did not need a special format, let alone two. E-Books can
be formatted as html or xhtml or as pdf. In fact my one e-book
"Creating Book Covers with Scribus" is in pdf format. I began setting
it up in Scribus itself, but the file grew beyond the size limit
imposed by the e-book host. So I rewrote it in pdftex, more work but
smaller output. )

We can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. We are stuck with the
two popular e-book formats. Their capabilities and limitations are
quite different from the capabilities and limitations of printed
documents. So be it. Let Scribus become the best at one thing, and
let other programs produce e-books as defined by Kindle and EPub.

For printed documents we need PDF X/1-a formatting, currently only
available on Scribus 1.5.0. A quality indexing system is needed, along
with paragraph at a time justification. We have enough on our plate.
Let someone else create the universal formatter. Given the history of
PL/I, OO Writer and so on I wish them luck.

[Astrobob Group]

Message: 8
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2010 20:12:02 -0800
From: John Jason Jordan <johnxj at comcast.net>
Subject: [scribus] What about E-PUB format?
To: Scribus <scribus at lists.scribus.info>
Message-ID: <20101229201202.32bda40a at mailhost.pdx.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Assuming not, is there a workaround, like exporting to PDF or
something else and then converting the output to E-PUB? Has anyone
here published anything in E-PUB format?

Hello John,

I don't own a reader or pad yet, but I use Calibre. Maybe you are not
yet aware that in Calibre you are capable of converting to another
format. just right click on the book/document you want to convert &
select convert>convert individually (or as bulk if u want several book
to be converted). Alternatively you can just highlight the book & press
"c". Then you go on selecting your output format in the upper right
corner of the window.

Hope this helps :D

[Gregory Pittman]

Post by Astrobob Group

Message: 8
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2010 20:12:02 -0800
From: John Jason Jordan<johnxj at comcast.net>
Subject: [scribus] What about E-PUB format?
To: Scribus<scribus at lists.scribus.info>
Message-ID:<20101229201202.32bda40a at mailhost.pdx.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Assuming not, is there a workaround, like exporting to PDF or
something else and then converting the output to E-PUB? Has anyone
here published anything in E-PUB format?

Hello John,
I don't own a reader or pad yet, but I use Calibre. Maybe you are not
yet aware that in Calibre you are capable of converting to another
format. just right click on the book/document you want to convert&
select convert>convert individually (or as bulk if u want several book
to be converted). Alternatively you can just highlight the book& press
"c". Then you go on selecting your output format in the upper right
corner of the window.

I have a Kindle, and it can handle PDFs, either through Amazon's
mechanism of putting things on your Kindle or by direct file transfer.
In many cases the complex layout of PDFs is not suited well to the
Kindle -- you either have to do a lot of scrolling or the size of the
page makes the print small and hard to read.

If one just had text and no graphics, you might as well leave it in
plain text or RTF, in which case you can either use Amazon's ability to
transform those into MOBI and then download to your Kindle or use Calibre.

For these reasons, I don't see a value in Scribus itself needing to
export to EPUB. It's a very different concept. EPUB is about the text
content, not about the layout.

Greg

[John Jason Jordan]

On Thu, 30 Dec 2010 09:38:03 -0500

Post by Gregory Pittman

Post by Astrobob Group

Message: 8
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2010 20:12:02 -0800
From: John Jason Jordan<johnxj at comcast.net>
Subject: [scribus] What about E-PUB format?
To: Scribus<scribus at lists.scribus.info>
Message-ID:<20101229201202.32bda40a at mailhost.pdx.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Assuming not, is there a workaround, like exporting to PDF or
something else and then converting the output to E-PUB? Has anyone
here published anything in E-PUB format?

Hello John,
I don't own a reader or pad yet, but I use Calibre. Maybe you are not
yet aware that in Calibre you are capable of converting to another
format. just right click on the book/document you want to convert&
select convert>convert individually (or as bulk if u want several
book to be converted). Alternatively you can just highlight the
book& press "c". Then you go on selecting your output format in the
upper right corner of the window.

I have a Kindle, and it can handle PDFs, either through Amazon's
mechanism of putting things on your Kindle or by direct file transfer.
In many cases the complex layout of PDFs is not suited well to the
Kindle -- you either have to do a lot of scrolling or the size of the
page makes the print small and hard to read.
If one just had text and no graphics, you might as well leave it in
plain text or RTF, in which case you can either use Amazon's ability
to transform those into MOBI and then download to your Kindle or use
Calibre.
For these reasons, I don't see a value in Scribus itself needing to
export to EPUB. It's a very different concept. EPUB is about the text
content, not about the layout.

Thanks to all who responded. I have learned a lot.

My need for e-book format is not imminent. I asked about it only
because I had been thinking about it ever since I got C?dric G?my's
book and read it in Calibre's e-book viewer. Eventually I may need to do
an e-book, but perhaps not for a long time.

After investigating a bit more I have come to the conclusion that the
only format that will do for my work is PDF. That is because I write
materials in linguistics and need to specify the font so the user
cannot change it. There are thousands of fonts out there, but fewer than
a dozen faces that have the glyphs that I need. I noticed that, at
least in e-pub format, the reader that came with Calibre allows the user
to change the font, which will just not do.

Not only do I need to specify the font, but I also cannot allow text
reflow, lest it mess up formulas. I suppose I could create the formulas
as raster images to prevent reflowing them, but PDF solves the font
problem as well as issues with formulas.

I thought the E-PUB format would work, but apparently not.

[JLuc]

For these reasons, I don't see a value in Scribus itself needing to export to EPUB. It's a very different concept. EPUB
is about the text content, not about the layout.

That's very true, however, exporting to epub makes sense
in a multichannel spreading sheme : making only one source document
and being able to export it to a good quality PDF as a main channel,
- and thus Scribus is THE candidate for master handling -
and to other alternate channels like HTML or EPUB.

JLuc

[Bill208]

Post by John Jason Jordan
So my big question is, can I export from Scribus in E-PUB format?
Assuming not, is there a workaround, like exporting to PDF or
something else and then converting the output to E-PUB? Has anyone
here published anything in E-PUB format?

John,

I've created epub files, but unfortunately not with Scribus. I've used
OpenOffice plus an extension for OpenOffice that will convert OO text files
to epub. From epub I use Calibre to convert to mobi for my Kindle. Kindle
will not read epub files.

I would hope that at some point in the not too distant future Scribus will
be able to convert to epub. For an in-depth discussion on the epub format,
along with sample files for download and reference links, start with this
link:

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/tutorials/x-epubtut/index.html

Bill