1. What you'll learn in this document

1.1. About XMLmind Ebook Compiler

Free, open source software XMLmind Ebook Compiler (ebookc for short) may be used to create a self-contained book out of a set of HTML (or Markdown) pages. If you download the distribution containing Apache FOP, all you'll need to create your first book is just a text editor.

However, ebookc has been tightly integrated into XMLmind XML Editor to make this task much quicker and much safer than with a text editor.

The basic idea behind ebookc is simple. You author a set of HTML pages and then you create an ebook specification assigning a role —part, chapter, section, appendix, etc— to each page. To make this clear, let's take a look at a very simple ebook specification:

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<book xmlns="http://www.xmlmind.com/schema/ebook"
      href="titlepage.html">
  <frontmatter>
    <toc/>
  </frontmatter>

  <chapter href="ch1.html"/>

  <chapter href="ch2.html"/>

  <appendix href="a1.html"/>
</book>

Before proceeding with this document, it's strongly recommended to read this short primer to quickly learn about ebook specifications and about what ebookc can do with these specifications.