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Additional Formats for MfGames Writing

Up a Level

Not everyone in the world uses EPUB. Yes, I consider it one of the best formats for me because I can change font size or layout, there is still a big need for print books and Amazon is the source of most ebook sales (though I don't care for that either).

To handle that, MfGames Writing[1] provides a pluggable collection of different output formats. This allows you to use only the formats that you way (EPUB2, PDF, HTML) and they can be updated separately.

1: /tags/mfgames-writing/

Series

I appear to be writing a short series of post about the tools I use for publication and writing.

Semantic Versions and Releases[2]: Why semantic versioning helps with the writing process.

2: /blog/2018/08/13/publishing-processes/

Evolution of MfGames Writing[3]: A brief history and reasoning behind the tools.

3: /blog/2018/08/21/mfgames-writing-reasons/

First Steps Using MfGames Writing[4]: Starting a new project with MfGames Writing.

4: /blog/2018/08/22/mfgames-writing-init/

Adding Content to MfGames Writing[5]: Adding front and back matter to novels.

5: /blog/2018/08/23/mfgames-writing-content/

Working with MfGames Writing, CI, and Docker[6]: Adding automatic building with commits.

6: /blog/2018/08/24/mfgames-writing-docker-and-ci/

Additional Formats for MfGames Writing: How to create PDF, MOBI, DOCX, and HTML versions.
Theming for MfGames Writing[7]: A light introduction on how to customize the output.

7: /blog/2018/08/26/mfgames-writing-themes/

Integrating Semantic Versioning into MfGames Writing[8]: Tying semantic releases into the process.

8: /blog/2018/08/27/mfgames-writing-releases/

Using Formats

Formats are consumed in the edition section of the `publication.yaml` file.

metadata:
    title: Test Project
    author: D. Moonfire
    language: en

    theme: "@mfgames-writing/clean"
    outputDirectory: .
    outputFilename: test-project-{{edition.version}}.{{edition.editionName}}

editions:
    epub:
        format: "@mfgames-writing/epub2"
    pdf:
        format: "@mfgames-writing/weasyprint"
        isbn: 978-1-999999
    html:
        format: "@mfgames-writing/html"
        images:
            scale: 0.25

The format is the name of the package installed with `npm install`.

EPUB

The easiest format to use is EPUB2.

$ npm install @mfgames-writing/epub2
$ npm run build:html

The setup for the NPM commands can be found yesterday[9].

9: /blog/2018/08/24/mfgames-writing-docker-and-ci/

When this runs, it will generate an EPUB2 file that will be verifiable with `epubcheck`.

HTML

HTML is also pretty easy.

$ npm install @mfgames-writing/html

PDF

PDF is the complicated one and why I use a Docker image. I decided to use WeasyPrint[10] for PDF generation because it creates good-quality PDF files and works with HTML, the format themes[11] use.

10: https://weasyprint.org/

11: /blog/2018/08/26/mfgames-writing-themes/

$ npm install @mfgames-writing/weasyprint

This assumes that `weasyprint` and `pdftk` are both in the PATH.

MOBI

There isn't a good package for generating MOBI files directly, so the best approach to creating a Amazon MOBI file for uploading is to create a EPUB file and then use `kindlegen` to convert it.

$ npm run build:epub
$ kindlegen *.epub

DOCX

Like MOBI, it is hard to write a DOCX in a clean manner. To do that, we create a HTML and then convert it.

$ npm run build:html
$ sed 's@@@g' < *.html \
  | pandoc -f html -t docx -o test-package-0.0.0.docx

We have the extra `sed` command to remove the hypenation from `@mfgames-writing/hyphen` which makes a cleaner file.

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