Designing ebooks with free software

Custom Conversion

© Lead Image © Renee Jansoa, Fotolia.com

© Lead Image © Renee Jansoa, Fotolia.com

Article from Issue 236/2020
Author(s):

With LibreOffice Writer and Calibre, you can publish your own ebooks with better results than most online conversion tools.

If you are publishing an ebook, you can find numerous conversion tools online. The trouble is, most of these tools give you minimal control over the results. Too often, the results are poorly formatted, partly because Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), the language used to format ebooks, is limited, but mainly because automatic formatting is often too inflexible. You have far more control if you do the conversion yourself. Without being an expert, you can produce better ebooks with just two open source tools: LibreOffice Writer and Calibre. However, expect some trial and error before you get the results you want.

Creating an ebook involves these steps:

  1. Create the raw file in LibreOffice Writer.
  2. Convert to EPUB format.
  3. Edit glitches in Calibre.
  4. Edit CSS directly, if necessary.
  5. Add finishing touches in Calibre.

[...]

Use Express-Checkout link below to read the full article (PDF).

Buy this article as PDF

Express-Checkout as PDF
Price $2.95
(incl. VAT)

Buy Linux Magazine

SINGLE ISSUES
Print Issues
Digital Issues
 
SUBSCRIPTIONS
Print Subs
Digisubs
 
TABLET & SMARTPHONE APPS
Get it on Google Play

US / Canada

Get it on Google Play

UK / Australia

Related content

comments powered by Disqus

Visit Our Shop

Trial Subscription

Digital Subscription

Subscribe

Direct Download

Read full article as PDF:

Price $2.95

News

Tag Cloud

Administration Community Desktop Events Hardware Linux Linux Pro Magazine Mobile Programming Software Ubuntu Web Development Windows free software open source