Do-it-yourself E-book: creating electronic books. Overview of Free Publishing Software (Print Layout Creation) Create an ebook

Consider the process of creating an electronic book or eBook in the format PDF with office suite openoffice.org. The resulting document will have interactive content and a bookmark bar for easy navigation, as well as the ability to search the document, print it, highlight and copy text.

Using this approach, you can quickly produce a high-quality electronic textbook or electronic document with advertising materials and you don't need to be an experienced OpenOffice user to do it.

A PDF document can be placed on the Internet, read on a computer screen using your favorite PDF viewer or browser.

As an example, let's create an electronic directory for free and free software to work with PDF, which will contain information about the programs described on this site.
Source Document: PDF-programs.odt
Resulting PDF document: PDF-programs.pdf

Document preparation:


Create a new OpenOffice Writer document.
Place the cursor on the first page of the document, select "Format" -> "Styles" in the main menu, or press the F11 key.
In the dialog that appears, click on the "Page Styles" icon (fourth button from the top left of the window) and double-click on the "First Page" item to apply this style to the current page.

According to the default settings of OpenOffice, the page with the "First page" style will be followed by the page with the "Normal" style, which is what we need to style the first page of the document in a style that is different from the rest of the pages.


We make out the first, title page of the document. In our directory, the first page looks like this.

Let's "hang up" the page - having finished filling out the title page, press the Ctrl and Enter keys at the same time.
The second page of the document appears - it will contain the contents of the directory. Enter the title - "Content", center it and press Enter.
The content itself does not need to be created manually - OpenOffice will automatically generate it based on the structure of the finished document. Therefore, we “beat off” the page (Ctrl + Enter), go to the third page and fill the directory with information.

Formatting:

This article does not cover the basic methods of working with text, its formatting, we will only consider inserting a hyperlink and adding headers and footers.

Inserting a hyperlink:


Position the cursor at the location in the document where you want to place the link. Select menu "Insert" -> "Hyperlink".
In the dialog box that appears, fill in the fields "Address" and "Text" approximately as it is done in the image.
Click "Apply" and then "Close". The hyperlink that appears will be the usual blue color with an underline.

Adding headers and footers:

Go to the menu "Insert" -> "Footer" and select "First Page". The cursor will be placed at the bottom of the title page, enter the required text.

The rest of the pages are automatically set to "Normal" style, all of these pages will have a header and footer. The header will contain the page numbering.
Select the menu "Insert" -> "Header" -> "Normal", the cursor will move to the top of the first page with the style "Normal", in our case this is the second page of the document.
Next, the menu "Insert" -> "Fields" -> "Page number" - the numbering will be done automatically.

Creating footers is similar - menu "Insert" -> "Footer" -> "Normal" and enter the desired text.


Right-click in any header and select "Edit Paragraph Style" from the context menu. In the dialog box that appears, you can configure appearance header and footer - font color and size, borders and indents.

Structuring:

Let's move on to the most important stage - structuring the document.

In order to subsequently generate the content of the document automatically, it is necessary to correctly structure our directory, which consists of two sections - "Programs for creating PDF" and "Programs for viewing PDF" - these are the first level headings, and also from subsections - program names - these are second level headings .


PDF Creation Software (Level 1)
- Scribus (Level 2)
- PDF Creator (Level 2)
- doPDF (Level 2)


PDF Viewers (Level 1)
- Evince (Tier 2)
- PDF-XChange Viewer (Level 2)
- SumatraPDF (Level 2)
- Brava Reader (Level 2)


Highlight the heading of the first level with the pointer, as in the image, right-click and select "Paragraph" from the context menu.


In the dialog box, set the Outline Level property to Level 1 and click OK.

Such an operation must be carried out with all first-level headings.


Highlight the heading of the second level with the pointer, as in the image, right-click and select "Paragraph" from the context menu.


In the dialog box, set the Outline Level property to Level 2 and click OK.

Such an operation must be carried out with all second-level headers.

On the second page of the document, select the heading "Contents" and define it also with a heading with a level of structure "Level 1".


The resulting heading structure can be viewed by clicking the "Navigator" button on the OpenOffice toolbar or by using the F5 hotkey.

Content generation:

When the structure of the document is correctly defined, position the cursor at the place in the document where you want to place the content and go to the menu "Insert" -> "Tables and Indexes" -> "Tables and Indexes".

In the dialog box that opens, set the appropriate settings:


The "Elements" tab contains the main settings. The "Structure" line determines what components each line of content will consist of.
The default settings are fine, but for easier navigation through a PDF document, lines of content from text should be turned into links to their respective pages.

Print media and self-publishing in our time are unlikely to serve just one or two markets when it comes to distributing their titles. In addition to print and audio books, they should also release electronic versions of books, which will guarantee protection against the loss of a certain part of the audience.

Since e-books are released in certain formats, sometimes not all devices can support them. If you want your publication to reach a larger number of readers, then you should take care of many formats in which the book will be released.

Our article today will tell you about several interesting and useful tools that will help you get into the process of creating and compiling e-books for distribution over the web and for reading on the Amazon Kindle, the Barnes & Noble Nook, iPad, iPhone, iPod, Android smartphones, and more.

Tool for creating books in EPUB and MobiPocket formats. The EPUB format is based on open technologies and can be used by anyone. Numerous devices easily support the EPUB format, including Android, Barnes & Noble Nook, iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Sony Reader and many more.

eCub allows you to easily compose simple EPUB books using text files or XHTML files. The app also helps you create simple covers and even convert text to audio file. eCub also supports the creation of books in the MobiPocket format, which is accepted by many devices, personal computers, as well as the Amazon Kindle. The eCub does not include a WYSIWYG editor or text highlighting, which limits the ability to compose complex e-books. But for novels with simple formatting, eCub will be the best option. Plus, the app is completely free and you can download versions for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, and even Solaris.


If you are using Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) service, HTML is the preferred formatting language. Most of the HTML tags work, so you can easily format your book with the HTML editor. In most cases, however, WYSIWYG editors will provide you with all the necessary tags to help you convert your publication to Kindle format.

Although many people prefer to edit HTML code, a WYSIWYG editor developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) team. Amaya is a free and open source application available for Windows as well as operating systems such as Unix and Linux, including also Mac OS X. Check out for more detailed information about the Kindle.


Treesaver is great for creating book formats that are easily readable by any device connected to the Internet. This application is a user-friendly and easy-to-use HTML magazine/e-book authoring script. If your plan is to have your own domain and organize a high-quality representation of your brand on the web, this application will come in handy!

Unlike other e-book authoring tools on the web, this application does not require Flash, Java or any other plugins. It works in almost all browsers and adapts to any display size (depending on the device). Those. iPhone owners who use their reading gadget will see the app in much the same way as PC users. The app also supports swiping via keyboard arrows, mouse scrolling, finger swipe (for touch screens), and the old-fashioned click function. Moreover, books created with Treesaver can be decorated with images, videos and links, as the application is designed for compiling e-books (which is currently rare in books).

Treesaver is completely free and open source. You can download the javascript file and read the tutorial for publishing content on the official website of the project.


In addition to e-book formats and standard web formats, many devices can also support PDF books. If you need something that can be distributed or sold online, then the PDF format is ideal for this purpose. Many text editors, such as OpenOffice.org / LibreOffice, have a built-in function to export documents to PSD format. There are also online PDF converters like Neevia Document Converter. It's free, but there are some limitations.

It's also important to keep in mind that you shouldn't over-complicate your design so that it works great on all devices. Many readers prefer solid text with various diagrams and graphs (unless we are talking about a children's book, of course). Readers are interested in the text itself, not in your fine art skills.

It is very convenient and easy to provide your book to a large number of readers without resorting to paid software. The above tools are just a small part of the huge list of eBook authoring apps available. Select the best option for yourself and enjoy the easy gravity process.

The role of a modern computer in the workflow process can hardly be overestimated. Moreover, the digital format of data presentation preserves not only the hectares of forests, but also the time, nerves and forces of simple office workers. Therefore, let's understand in more detail how to create an e-book for storing documents:

What is an e-book

An interesting fact about the appearance of the electronic version of the book is that it was the US Declaration of Independence. It was created back in 1971 by an American inventor Michael Stern Hart. It was he who became the founder of the Gutenberg project, which involves the digitization and preservation of world literature in in electronic format, as well as providing free access to books:

In the modern concept of an e-book - this electronic version paper original, made in digital form. An e-book can be created in one of the generally accepted formats. Often an e-book is referred to as an e-book or e-text.

An e-book is also understood as any educational publication in any discipline, made in one of the digital formats and supplied with notes or exercises. As well as explanatory illustrations in the form of bitmap images.

The term e-book is used both for digital versions of books and for portable devices designed specifically for reading them.


An e-book can be made in various digital formats. We will try to highlight their main types:

  • Plain text - refers to the txt format, which can be created (read) using the usual text editor(Notebook );
  • As raster graphic images- these include DjVu, TIFF, JPEG and others;
  • Multimedia formats of e-books - these can be files with the extension exe, SWF. As well as various audiobook formats (MP3, Vorbis);
  • Java books are applications created specifically for mobile devices based on Java.

I would like to dwell in more detail on several main formats currently used to create e-books.

Basic e-book formats

Nowadays, e-books are most often presented in several of the most popular formats.

These include:

  • HTML - Created using Hypertext Markup Language. Books are combined html pages. Hyperlinks are used to navigate between sections. You can open such a book using a regular browser or through a special interface;
  • Electronic Publication (ePub) is an open international standard created specifically for e-books. The format allows the book to be recorded and distributed in a single file. At the same time, the source itself is a ZIP archive, in which data is stored in HTML, XML, PDF standards;
  • DjVu is an implementation of low-loss image compression technology. It was designed specifically for saving scanned texts illustrated with various drawings, graphs and diagrams. The technology is optimally adapted for transferring DjVu files over the network. This allows you to start reading the book while it is downloading:
  • PDF (Portable Document Format) is a cross-platform standard for storing and creating electronic documents from Adobe. Its implementation uses a number of features of the PostScript language. The format is oriented specifically for displaying various printed publications in electronic form. It supports the use of vector and raster graphics in the text and the introduction of the necessary fonts (line by line). We will talk about how to make a book in pdf a little later. To read documents in this format, the free application Adobe Acrobat is most often used:
  • fb2 (FictionBook) – the structure of the format is described in the XML language. That is, each element of the book is located in its own tag. This ensures that the standard is cross-platform and data is ready for change ( editing, creating) and readable on any device.

But all this information is for reference, and does not explain the practical side of the issue. For example, how to create an electronic textbook. Therefore, we will leave the theoretical component and get into practice.

Create an HTML based tutorial

Consider the process of creating an HTML-based e-book using the eBook Maestro program. The weight of the installation package of the program is small and is only 2.7 MB. After installing and launching the application, you are greeted with a dialog box informing you that you are using the free version of this software product. Which, in turn, somewhat "infringes" on the capabilities of the program:

For novice users, the help for the application suggests downloading a template for the html page for the book on the official website. This should greatly simplify the whole process:

In fact, the template turned out to be just a collection of simple web pages, the code of which is not complex. But to add content and images to them, you need a special editor with html support:

After inserting the page names and their content into the html, we saved all the files again:

Now let's go back to our application. On the General tab, enter the title of the book and the contact information of its author:

On the "Files" tab, we inform the program about the location of the book's files. That is, we set the path where we saved the web pages of the standard template that we edited. You can also specify the path to the icon for the book here, and in the " EXE book output» - the place to save the finished sample:

In the tab " Interface»Set up the user interface: set the size, color and layout of the main elements of the book:

This is what we got as a result of creating a sample e-textbook in html . Of course, some adjustments could be made, but for demonstrating the whole process, it is quite suitable:

A few more similar programs:

  • HTML Help Workshop;
  • eBooksWriter LITE.

Create PDF Books

We used the SunRav BookOffice program to create the PDF book. On the official website you can find a lot of information about the application. Particularly pleased with the presence of an extensive section of technical documentation:

The application supports the creation of not only PDF documents, but also the creation of books based on other standards:

We have chosen the easiest way. Therefore, in the menu shown above, Word articles were selected as the source.

Most commercial publishing programs are expensive. But don't despair, there are at least two great freeware programs that can help you with the specific task of designing a print layout. One of these programs is designed for small businesses and is a great alternative to Microsoft Publisher. The other is a serious high-class competitor, not inferior to multifunctional commercial programs.

Overview of Free Software for Publishing (Print Layout Creation)

Scribus is a multi-platform complete layout solution

The first, most advanced program is , open source. Initially, Scribus was designed only for Linux systems, but over time it also began to support Mac OS X, OS2 and Windows.

Scribus is truly a program capable of creating professional creations that can be printed immediately without any need for pre-processing. The feature list is impressive. Everything that can be useful, including support for CMYK colors, separators, management of ICC color profiles, pdf creation and much more. The layout layout procedure is somewhat reminiscent of Gimp (a fairly well-known open source program). In addition, Scribus can import and export data from Open Office, a powerful alternative to Microsoft Office.

While Scribus is a very, very functional application, the user interface lags a bit behind its commercial brethren. Of course, the program allows you to use different display templates (shells), but still the difference is felt. Scribus has ample documentation, and its development continues to this day.

In general, Scribus places more emphasis on functionality than on beauty. Therefore, this program is more suitable for those who need to create printed layouts of any complexity.

PagePlus Starter Edition is a great product for start-up publishers and small organizations

The second program is from Serif, the creators of the well-known free image editor PhotoPlus. PagePlusSE is a simplified version of the PagePlus X8. Of course, the free version lacks many of the features of the commercial version, but the functionality is more than enough to create the relatively simple brochures, flyers, flyers, and newsletters often used by small businesses and charities. In fact, the lack of complex features makes PagePlusSE much more understandable and user-friendly for novice users with normal publishing needs.

The program comes with a good set ready templates(additional templates can be downloaded from the Internet), so that even a novice user will be able to short time create beautiful and presentable print materials. PagePlusSE has pretty good text and image processing tools (pasting, resizing, etc.). There is also basic set forms: folding flyers, business cards, letter forms, etc. Tools for managing the color palette are limited in places, but, however, they are quite enough for most needs. Restrictions also affected the available file formats for saving your work (for example, there is no PDF).

Note: However, you can use programs for creating pdf to get around this limitation.

If there's one thing that truly sets the PagePlus SE apart from its peers, it's undeniably its ease of use. In fact, the program interface is designed in such a way that if you are at least a little familiar with Microsoft Word and similar office suites, then assume that you already know how to use PagePlus SE. In this case, it feels good that this product is based on commercial software.

Note: Of course, you should not in any way assume that free and open source products cannot be attractive, beautiful and convenient. And that all commercial products have a better interface by default. In reality, this is not always the case. It's just that unlike freeware, the main focus of commercial software should almost always include appearance (interface, etc.). Otherwise, they simply cannot stand the competition.

Quick Guide (Free Download Links for Publishers)

Scribus

Very powerful, can do anything you can imagine.
Perhaps too complex and powerful for normal users.
http://www.scribus.net/canvas/Scribus
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70MB x86; 82 MB x64 1.4.4 Unrestricted freeware Windows 2000 - 8 x86, Vista - 8 x64, Mac OS X, Various Linux distributions, OS2 eComStation.
Support for 64-bit OS
Before installing Scribus (for Windows), install Ghostscript. It is required to import EPS and print previews.

Page Plus Starter Edition

Easy to use. Lots of ready-made backgrounds, templates, swatches, styles, and more. It will most likely be the best choice for everyday creation of relatively simple layouts.
Basically, basic functionality.

 

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