Website Update. More Fanfic Style Customization

[unspeakablehorror]

Today I updated PermianExtinction's Fanfic on my site to have my own custom formatting for the HTML, EPUBs, and PDFs.

Did you know that Calibre can convert a LibreOffice odt file to an epub? Here's an example of what that might look like:

The Empire Needs Children by PermianExtinction

I really like the autogenerated cover pages that calibre makes for epubs. They're simple but stylish. Calibre seems to randomly choose the overall color--I wonder if there's a way to purposely select a particular option.  I'm planning to go back and switch my own fic to use calibre instead of LibreOffice to generate the epubs because I really like the covers and because this way I can include an autogenerated Table of Contents from the odt into my epub.

Comments

[octahedrite]

pandoc can probably do a custom cover too

[unspeakablehorror]

Oh, I don't mean custom covers -- pandoc can definitely do covers (and surely has the most options for them) as it is incredibly flexible. I mean that Calibre can autogenerate a cover for you--you don't need to choose one.

I do want to give pandoc another try sometime. There are some things I may want to do that may require its flexibility. In particular, it would be cool to generate printable pdfs that are of professional book quality, which is something LibreOffice can't do. My goal for my pdfs is that they should produce good output if printed.

Whereas my goal for the epubs is that they be readable on any screen size. But it would be interesting to see what the pandoc epub experience is like, too.

I'm using LibreOffice and Calibre right now because it's fast and I'd also like to produce some howtos on how other people can produce their own pdfs and epubs, and I think more people are probably more comfortable with using GUI-based cross-platform software for that than pandoc (which while certainly can be used on Windows is probably not as intuitive for the average user). One of my goals is not only to improve my own site, but to give other people resources to lower the barrier to entry for them to do the same on their sites.

But I'd also like to make some documentation for this kind of thing on things like pandoc for people that want more fine-grained control over that kind of thing and aren't intimidated by more advanced functionality.

[octahedrite]

Wah, sorry, I totally misread that as custom covers. My bad.

professional book quality

If this is your goal, you can't go wrong with LaTeX for pdf. I'd also rec standardebooks.org's methodology for epubs.

I'm using LibreOffice and Calibre right now because it's fast and I'd also like to produce some howtos on how other people can produce their own pdfs and epubs, and I think more people are probably more comfortable with using GUI-based cross-platform software for that than pandoc (which while certainly can be used on Windows is probably not as intuitive for the average user). One of my goals is not only to improve my own site, but to give other people resources to lower the barrier to entry for them to do the same on their sites.

Low barrier of entry, true! But using Calibre for conversion, it seems to me like buying a Cadillac for the cigarette lighter. Just my opinion though haha, and probably not worth much to a layman user :) I'm aware that my original comment makes some incorrect assumptions about your motivation/end goal.

[unspeakablehorror]

No problem! I do love talking about webpage stuff!

If this is your goal, you can't go wrong with LaTeX for pdf.

LaTeX is great, though I'd like to see if I can get good results with ConTeXt, which is also TeX based, since it provides PDF tagging for screenreaders, which I've heard LatTeX doesn't currently do. But I'll have to investigate the matter more closely.

Thanks for reminding me of StandardEbooks! Yeah, taking a look at their styles will probably help my work look a lot more professional.

Low barrier of entry, true! But using Calibre for conversion, it seems to me like buying a Cadillac for the cigarette lighter.

The reason Calibre conversion is a big deal to me is that it does proper chapter divisions and autogenerated Table and Contents. I have three longfic and PermianExtinction also has a multichapter fic on my site. A use case the AO3 document downloads don't accomodate well is browsing through chapters and picking one or part of one to read--to really do that comfortably, one has to use the website. This is especially something I find useful if I've already read a work and want to find a certain part. And LibreOffice does not do proper chapter divisions or Table of Contents for epub, either.

Of course I can use search for that sometimes, but it can really help a lot to have chapter headings to browse through as well. Search depends a lot more on precise memory than this form of navigation, which I feel makes rereading longfic more fun. Also helpful for people who don't read their fiction sequentially. While that's not generally me, I like to accommodate different types of readers.

Of course there are many other great features of Calibre, but this one has been especially useful for my particular document creation use cases.