Open holtzermann17 opened 4 years ago
holtzermann17
commented
4 years ago 
skreutzer
commented
4 years ago We need documentation for how to generate the EPUB
Not entirely sure if that's in reference to the tool I use to produce an EPUB (which is, as a decent open standard, basically just a Zip with XHTML inside + a few extra files, also with some extra requirements like file paths need to resolve locally for offline readability), but just in case, for reproducability by peers I added a short README, which may or may not be sufficient.
Keep in mind that my particular attempt is a quick-and-dirty experiment with a lot of cheap shell script glue (which can also be inspected, as well as the code of how the EPUB is technically constructed, which might be of no interest to the user), so if peers want to independently reproduce, we might want to save them from the dependency of having a Java Development Kit (JDK) present to compile the tools from source, and instead provide pre-compiled Java bytecode binaries that only need a Java Runtime Environment (JRE) installed (+ filtering to the few tools that are actually used, not the entire big package a whole larger processing infrastructure and its capabilities). My assumption usually was that a JRE is pretty likely available on most machines, and be it for LibreOffice or some other app that needs it and/or comes with one.
Note that Pandoc (also required as a dependency) can generate EPUBs as well (not to mention the many options of doing it manually, be it Sigil, LibreOffice Writer, other).
go onto Amazon
That should be the case, as the result is supposed to always be a valid EPUB (don't run the results through epubcheck, but may add that to the workflow eventually), and if not, I have to fix the tool. Amazon might still refuse the EPUB on other grounds (like, we still have to add a "cover image" or what about the metadata?), but that's their problem, not mine. Maybe you're hinting at Amazon expecting/requiring EPUB as a good, clean source to then convert to and serve their proprietary PDA Mobi/AZW format to customers instead and strap their artificial DRM restrictions on (and take 30% for this "service"), at least that's how it worked a few years ago.
I believe the question should rather or firstly be what is needed to publish the e-book into the many other distributors, ideally automatically, and not bother about Amazon that much at all.