EbookFoundation/StandardEbooks-tools

About

A collection of tools Standard Ebooks uses to produce its ebooks, including basic setup of ebooks, text processing, and build tools.

Installing this toolset using pip makes the se command line executable available. Its various commands are described below, or you can use se help to list them.

Installation

The toolset requires Python >= 3.5.

Ubuntu 18.04 (Bionic) users

# Install some pre-flight dependencies.
sudo apt install -y python3-pip libxml2-utils librsvg2-bin libimage-exiftool-perl imagemagick epubcheck default-jre inkscape calibre curl git

# Install required fonts.
mkdir -p ~/.local/share/fonts/
curl -s -o ~/.local/share/fonts/LeagueSpartan-Bold.otf "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/theleagueof/league-spartan/master/LeagueSpartan-Bold.otf"
curl -s -o ~/.local/share/fonts/OFLGoudyStM.otf "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/theleagueof/sorts-mill-goudy/master/OFLGoudyStM.otf"
curl -s -o ~/.local/share/fonts/OFLGoudyStM-Italic.otf "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/theleagueof/sorts-mill-goudy/master/OFLGoudyStM-Italic.otf"

# Refresh the local font cache.
sudo fc-cache -f

# Install the toolset.
pip3 install standardebooks

# Either link the `se` executable to a place that's in your path...
sudo ln -s $HOME/.local/bin/se /usr/local/bin/se

# ...or, add pip's binary location (~/.local/bin) to your $PATH to be able to access the `se` command.
# To make this permanent, add ~/.local/bin to your $PATH in ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc
export PATH=$PATH:~/.local/bin

# Optional: ZSH users can install tab completion.
sudo ln -s $HOME/.local/lib/python3.*/site-packages/se/completions/zsh/_se /usr/share/zsh/vendor-completions/_se && hash -rf && compinit

# Optional: Bash users can install tab completion.
sudo ln -s $HOME/.local/lib/python3.*/site-packages/se/completions/bash/se /usr/share/bash-completions/completions/se

macOS users

These instructions were tested on macOS 10.12 and 10.13. Your mileage may vary. Corrections and fixes to these steps are welcomed, as the SE maintainers don’t have access to Macs.

1. Install the Homebrew package manager. Or, if you already have it installed, make sure it’s up to date:

   brew update
   

2. Install dependencies:

   # Install some pre-flight dependencies.
   brew install python epubcheck imagemagick libmagic librsvg exiftool git
   pip3 install pyopenssl
   
   # Install required applications.
   brew cask install java calibre xquartz inkscape
   
   # Install required fonts.
   curl -s -o ~/Library/Fonts/LeagueSpartan-Bold.otf "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/theleagueof/league-spartan/master/LeagueSpartan-Bold.otf"
   curl -s -o ~/Library/Fonts/OFLGoudyStM.otf "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/theleagueof/sorts-mill-goudy/master/OFLGoudyStM.otf"
   curl -s -o ~/Library/Fonts/OFLGoudyStM-Italic.otf "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/theleagueof/sorts-mill-goudy/master/OFLGoudyStM-Italic.otf"
   
   # Install the toolset.
   pip3 install standardebooks
   

Help wanted

We need volunteers to take the lead on the following goals:

• Writing installation instructions for Bash and ZSH completions for MacOS.

• Possibly adding virtualenv to the installation instructions.

Tool descriptions

• se british2american

  Try to convert British quote style to American quote style in DIRECTORY/src/epub/text/.

  Quotes must already be typogrified using the se typogrify tool.

  This script isn’t perfect; proofreading is required, especially near closing quotes near to em-dashes.

• se build

  Build an ebook from a Standard Ebook source directory.

• se build-images

  Build ebook cover and titlepage images in a Standard Ebook source directory and place the output in DIRECTORY/src/epub/images/.

• se clean

  Prettify and canonicalize individual XHTML or SVG files, or all XHTML and SVG files in a source directory. Note that this only prettifies the source code; it doesn’t perform typography changes.

• se compare-versions

  Use Firefox to render and compare XHTML files in an ebook repository. Run on a dirty repository to visually compare the repository’s dirty state with its clean state.

• se create-draft

  Create a skeleton of a new Standard Ebook.

• se dec2roman

  Convert a decimal number to a Roman numeral.

• se extract-ebook

  Extract an EPUB, MOBI, or AZW3 ebook into ./FILENAME.extracted/ or a target directory.

• se find-mismatched-diacritics

  Find words with mismatched diacritics in Standard Ebook source directories. For example, cafe in one file and café in another.

• se help

  List available SE commands.

• se hyphenate

  Insert soft hyphens at syllable breaks in an XHTML file.

• se interactive-sr

  Use Vim to perform an interactive search and replace on a list of files. Use y/n/a to confirm (y) or reject (n) a replacement, or to replace (a)ll.

• se lint

  Check for various Standard Ebooks style errors.

• se make-url-safe

  Make a string URL-safe.

• se modernize-spelling

  Modernize spelling of some archaic words, and replace words that may be archaically compounded with a dash to a more modern spelling. For example, replace ash-tray with ashtray.

• se prepare-release

  Calculate work word count, insert release date if not yet set, and update modified date and revision number.

• se print-manifest-and-spine

  Print <manifest> and <spine> tags to standard output for the given Standard Ebooks source directory, for use in that directory’s content.opf.

• se recompose-epub

  Recompose a Standard Ebooks source directory into a single HTML5 file, and print to standard output.

• se reorder-endnotes

  Increment the specified endnote and all following endnotes by 1.

• se roman2dec

  Convert a Roman numeral to a decimal number.

• se semanticate

  Apply some scriptable semantics rules from the Standard Ebooks semantics manual to a Standard Ebook source directory.

• se split-file

  Split an XHTML file into many files at all instances of <!--se:split-->, and include a header template for each file.

• se titlecase

  Convert a string to titlecase.

• se typogrify

  Apply some scriptable typography rules from the Standard Ebooks typography manual to a Standard Ebook source directory.

• se unicode-names

  Display Unicode code points, descriptions, and links to more details for each character in a string. Useful for differentiating between different flavors of spaces, dashes, and invisible characters like word joiners.

• se version

  Print the version number and exit.

• se word-count

  Count the number of words in an HTML file and optionally categorize by length.

What a Standard Ebooks source directory looks like

Many of these tools act on Standard Ebooks source directories. Such directories have a consistent minimal structure:

.
|-images/
|--cover.jpg
|--cover.source.jpg
|--cover.svg
|--titlepage.svg
|-src/
|--epub/
|---css/
|----core.css
|----local.css
|---images/
|----cover.svg
|----titlepage.svg
|---text/
|----colophon.xhtml
|----imprint.xhtml
|----titlepage.xhtml
|----uncopyright.xhtml
|---content.opf
|---onix.xml
|---toc.xhtml
|--META-INF/
|---container.xml
|--mimetype
|-LICENSE.md

./images/ contains source images for the cover and titlepages, as well as ebook-specific source images. Source images should be in their maximum available resolution, then compressed and placed in ./src/epub/images/ for distribution.

./src/epub/ contains the actual epub files.