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PlasTeX is an implementation of LaTeX in Python, which supports custom rendering classes - you can provide a new class on the output end of the function which transforms something a little like DOM into XHTML or XML.

I'm thinking of using this to convert a series of novels which have been written in LaTeX into ePub.

It occurred to me that I might write a custom rendering engine to transform the book I have into all of the file-components of ePub, however it's likely that somebody else has already done this. Not wanting to re-invent the wheel, are you aware of any project (or possibly an undocumented feature of PlasTeX) which already does what I need?

A search of Google and the PlasTeX documentation suggests that I might have to actually write this thing! Please say it 'aint so!

ePub does not seem to be a particularly difficult format to master, however I am incredibly lazy and dislike repeating programming that other (possibly much better) developers have already done, so please point me in the right direction!

Caramdir
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Salim Fadhley
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3 Answers3

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I just started to write a render for plasTex, but it is still a very preliminary version, you can find it here:

https://sourceforge.net/p/epubtex

Claudio

user28422
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Pubtex is still in beta, but is it targeted at exactly this kind of niche. If you are familiar with git, you can start using it immediately for LaTeX -> HTML conversion. Otherwise, contact me via address listed on the Pubtex homepage and I'll hook you up.

Disclaimer: I work for Pubtex.

Kevin L.
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  • Kevin, are you saying that PubTeX can already do what I want? I've begun writing my own PlasTeX renderer which I had planned to release via a Google Code project - but I probably will not bother if yours can do the trick. – Salim Fadhley Apr 06 '11 at 11:08
  • Yes--we are working on a a LaTeX -> ePub converter. If you have a novel with simple formatting, I should be able to run it through for you pretty easily. We don't have any publicly available tools yet though, so you'll have to send me an email. – Kevin L. Apr 06 '11 at 23:42
  • The domain is expired... Is this project dead? – leonbloy Apr 08 '12 at 13:22
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In Plastex, one way to control the kind of output is with themes. There is a theme called ePub. You invoke theme:ePub like this:

c:\python27\python.exe c:\python27\Scripts\plastex --theme=ePub source.tex

but I have not tried because I stumbled first with theme:minimal which produces only the HTML pages and the PNG figures with the equations; barebones, no fancy navigation, bibliography, or anything like that. That is all I need. With that, I use Sigil to assembly my ePub.

Echeban
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