Tuesday Tech Tip: Editing ePub files

The moment I figured out that ePub files are actually just a zip file full of HTML, CSS, and image files, it felt like something in my world just shifted a few degrees off it’s axis. Today’s tip is for those looking to edit or create from scratch their own ePub files. Head on over to code.google.com and download Sigil.

Sigil is a multi-platform EPUB ebook with the following features:

• Online Sigil User’s Guide, and Wiki documentation
• Free and open source software under GPLv3
• Multi-platform: runs on Windows, Linux and Mac
• Full UTF-16 support
• Full EPUB 2 spec support
• Multiple Views: Book View, Code View and Preview View
• WYSIWYG editing in Book View
• Complete control over directly editing EPUB syntax in Code View
• Table of Contents generator with multi-level heading support
• Metadata editor with full support for all possible metadata entries (more than 200) with full descriptions for each
• User interface translated into many languages
• Spell checking with default and user configurable dictionaries
• Full Regular Expression (PCRE) support for Find & Replace
• Supports import of EPUB and HTML files, images, and style sheets,
• Documents can be validated for EPUB compliance with the integrated FlightCrew EPUB validator
• Embedded HTML Tidy: all imported files have their formatting corrected, and your editing can be optionally cleaned

(Yes, you can edit files in Calibre, but I find this program a bit more powerful, though Calibre is a great choice for editing other eBook formats. Also, this all assumes the file in question is free of DRM.)

Posted in ebooks Tagged with: ebooks, editor, software, tips

Tuesday Tech Tip: Manipulate PDF files online with CutePDF editor

Need to do some basic manipulation of a PDF file like rotating, removing, cropping, or reordering pages? Check out CutePDF Editor. There is a file-size limit of 10MB but I’ve found that it does just about everything I’ve ever needed do to a PDF including the wonderful ability to merge multiple documents into one.

Posted in Tech Tagged with: editing, editor, pdf, tips