LibreOffice Writer is a lot easier to use that WordPerfect 5.1 and its results are better. You'd think that would have scared me off using a word processor for personal publishing. The process, guided by the book Desktop Publishing with WordPerfect 5.1, was painful. My first foray into DTP was in the early 1990s with WordPerfect 5.1. There's a built-in spelling checker, a function that generates a table of contents, a built-in EPUB validator, a metadata editor, and plugins.

Sigil also has several other useful tools. You can also add images, which are saved with the file. You can add or import multiple chapters, add a cover image, include custom fonts, and change the look of your book using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS for short). You can write in a very basic word processor-like interface, or edit the book's HTML directly (remember that an EPUB is basically a contain for HTML files). Fire it up and create the shell of a new ebook. Sigil is a WYSIWYG tool for creating and editing EPUB files. Let's take a quick look at four open source tools that you can use to publish your words and ideas, whether for sale or just for sharing. Nowadays, though, a lot of that publishing is electronic only - publishing non fiction books, novels and short story collections, reports, and such in formats like PDF and EPUB.

It's been years since I've heard term desktop publishing uttered by anyone, but still goes on. Anyone remember the term desktop publishing (DTP for short)? It first came into the wider lexicon in the 1980s, and referred to the ability to use software on desktop computer to layout, typeset, and print, your own material like flyers, newsletters, books, and like.

Open source dtp software