Re: [docbook-apps] Using ePub

[Keith Fahlgren <abdelazer@gmail.com>]

Hi,

On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 4:03 PM, Eric Johnson <EMJOHNSO@progress.com> wrote:
> I’m interested in generating ePub books from my DocBook 5.0 source and was
> wondering what steps I need to take.
>
> I tried just running the XML through the ePub stylesheet and zipping up the
> results which mostly works. The resulting book opens in Stanza for iPhone,
> but not Stanza desktop. The desktop version generates a namespace error. The
> book also fails the on-line ePub validator.
>
> Is there some customization I need to do? Do I need to also run the Ruby
> stuff to package the book correctly?

You do need to use some other program to invoke the stylesheets. The
README in epub/README
(https://docbook.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/docbook/trunk/xsl/epub/README)
describes how to use the included Ruby command:

$ dbtoepub --help
  Usage: dbtoepub [OPTIONS] [DocBook Files]

  dbtoepub converts DocBook <book> and <article>s into to .epub files.

  .epub is defined by the IDPF at www.idpf.org and is made up of 3 standards:
  - Open Publication Structure (OPS)
  - Open Packaging Format (OPF)
  - Open Container Format (OCF)

  Specific options:
      -d, --debug                      Show debugging output.
      -h, --help                       Display usage info
      -v, --verbose                    Make output verbose

You may also be interested in other tools for invoking the
stylesheets, like Liza Daly's Python program docbook2epub:
http://code.google.com/p/epub-tools/


Keith