crowbook/book_example/config.md

The configuration file

If you want to use Crowbook for your book, this configuration file is all you'll have to add (assuming you'll already have the book in Markdown files; if you don't, you'll also have to write a book first, but that's besides the scope of this document).

The format is not very complicated, and it looks a bit like YAML. This is an example of it:

# metadata
author: Joan Doe
title: Some book
lang: en

output.html: some_book.html

# list of chapters
- preface.md
+ chapter_1.md
+ chapter_2.md
+ chapter_3.md
+ chapter_4.md
- epilogue.md

Basically, it is divided in two parts:

• a list of options, under the form key: value;
• a list of Markdown files.

Files starting with the # characters are comments and are discarded by Crowbook when parsing the files. Note that # must be at the beginning of the line, so e.g.:

author: John Smith # aka John Doe

will set the author key to John Smith # aka John Doe.

The list of files

There are various options to include a markdown file.

• + file_name.md includes a numbered chapter.
• - file_name.md includes an unnumbered chapter.
• ! file_name.md includes a chapter whose title won't be displayed (except in the toc for epub); this is useful for e.g. including a copyright at the beginning or the book, or for short stories where there is only one chapter.
• 42. file_name.md specifies the number for a chapter.

So a typical usage might look like this:

! copyright.md
- preface.md
# We want first chapter to be Chapter 0 because we are programmers!
0. chapter_0.md
# Next chapters can be numbered automatically
+ chapter_1.md
+ chapter_3.md
...

There are two important things to note:

1. you must not use quotes around the file names
2. the path of these files are relative to the directory where your config file is, not to the directory where you are when running crowbook. E.g. you can run crowbook books/my_trilogy/first_book/config.book without being in the book's directory.

Also note that you don't have to specify a title. This is because the title of the chapter is inferred from the Markdown document. To go back to our previous example:

+ chapter_1.md

does not specify a chapter title, because it will read it directly in chapter_1.md, e.g.:

The day I was born
==================

...

You should have one and only one level-one header (i.e. chapter title) in each markdown file.

If you have more than one, Crowbook won't get too angry at you and will just print a warning and treat it as another chapter (numbered according to the scheme specified for including the file). It will however mess the table of contents if Crowbook tries to generate one (e.g. for Epub).

It's also a problem if you do not have a level-1 header in a markdown file. If it is a numbered chapter Crowbook will still be able to infer a chapter name, but if it is not numbered Crowbook will fail to generate an Epub file.

---

So, to sum it up. please: one file = one chapter, a chapter starts with a title, and this way this will work nice.

Crowbook options

The first part of the configuration file is dedicated to pass options to Crowbook. Each one is of the form option: value. Note that you don't have to put string in quotes, e.g.:

title: My title

If you do use quotes, Crowbook will actually put those quotes in the string, so basically don't do that.

It is possible to use multiline strings with either > or |, and then indenting the lines that are part of the string:

title: >
 A
 long
 title
author: Joan Doe

will set title to "A long title", whereas

title: >
 A
 long
 title
author: Joan Doe

will set title to "A\nlong\ntitle\n" (replicating line returns).

This feature is useful for options like description who may take a long string.

Here is the complete list of options, with a short description. The usage of some of them is detailed later on.

Metadata

• author
  • type: string
  • default value: Anonymous
  • The author of the book
• title
  • type: string
  • default value: Untitled
  • The title of the book
• lang
  • type: string
  • default value: en
  • The language of the book
• subject
  • type: string
  • default value: not set
  • Subject of the book (used for EPUB metadata)
• description
  • type: string
  • default value: not set
  • Description of the book (used for EPUB metadata)
• cover
  • type: path
  • default value: not set
  • File name of the cover of the book

Output options

• output.epub
  • type: path
  • default value: not set
  • Output file name for EPUB rendering
• output.html
  • type: path
  • default value: not set
  • Output file name for HTML rendering
• output.tex
  • type: path
  • default value: not set
  • Output file name for LaTeX rendering
• output.pdf
  • type: path
  • default value: not set
  • Output file name for PDF rendering
• output.odt
  • type: path
  • default value: not set
  • Output file name for ODT rendering

Misc options

• zip.command
  • type: string
  • default value: zip
  • Command to use to zip files (for EPUB/ODT)
• numbering
  • type: integer
  • default value: 1
  • The maximum heading levels to number (0: no numbering, 1: only chapters, ..., 6: all)
• display_toc
  • type: boolean
  • default value: false
  • If true, display a table of content in the document
• toc_name
  • type: string
  • default value: Table of contents
  • Name of the table of contents if toc is displayed in line
• autoclean
  • type: boolean
  • default value: true
  • Toggles cleaning of input markdown (not used for LaTeX)
• verbose
  • type: boolean
  • default value: false
  • Toggle verbose mode
• side_notes
  • type: boolean
  • default value: false
  • Display footnotes as side notes in HTML/Epub
• temp_dir
  • type: path
  • default value: ``
  • Path where to create a temporary directory (default: uses result from Rust's std::env::temp_dir())
• numbering_template
  • type: string
  • default value: {{number}}. {{title}}
  • Format of numbered titles
• nb_char
  • type: char
  • default value: ' '
  • The non-breaking character to use for autoclean when lang is set to fr

HTML options

• html.template
  • type: path
  • default value: not set
  • Path of an HTML template
• html.css
  • type: path
  • default value: not set
  • Path of a stylesheet to use with HTML rendering

EPUB options

• epub.version
  • type: integer
  • default value: 2
  • The EPUB version to generate
• epub.css
  • type: path
  • default value: not set
  • Path of a stylesheet to use with EPUB rendering
• epub.template
  • type: path
  • default value: not set
  • Path of an epub template for chapter

LaTeX options

• tex.links_as_footnotes
  • type: boolean
  • default value: true
  • If set to true, will add foontotes to URL of links in LaTeX/PDF output
• tex.command
  • type: string
  • default value: pdflatex
  • LaTeX flavour to use for generating PDF
• tex.template
  • type: path
  • default value: not set
  • Path of a LaTeX template file

Note that these options take a type, which in most case should be pretty straightforward (a boolean can be true or false, an integer must be composed a number, a string is, well, any string, just remember not to put the quotes). The path type might puzzle you a bit, but it's equivalent a string, except Crowbook will consider it relatively to the book file.

Output options

These options specify which files to generate. You must at least set one of this option, or Crowbook won't do anything.

Recall that all file paths are relative to the directory where the config file is, not to the one where you run crowbook. So if you set

output.epub = foo.epub

and runs

$ crowbook some/dir/config.book

foo.epub will be generated in some/dir, not in your current directory.

Crowbook will try to generate each of the output.xxx files that are specified. That means that you'll have to set at least one of those if you want a call to

$ crowbook my.book

to generate anything. (It's still possible to generate a specific format, and only this one, by using the --to argument on the command line).

Note that some formats depend on some commands being installed on your system. Most notably, Crowbook depends on LaTeX (pdflatex by default, though you can specify the command to use with tex.command) to generate a PDF file, so PDF rendering won't work if it is not installed on your system. Crowbook also uses the zip command to generate the EPUB and ODT, files. want to use.)

Generic options for rendering

numbering

An integer that represents the maximum level of numbering for your book. E.g., 1 will only number chapters, while 2 will number chapters, sections, but not anything below that. 6 is the maximum level and turns numbering on for all headers.

default:: 1

numbering_template

A string that will be used for chapter titles. You can use {{number}} and {{title}} in this string, e.g.:

numbering_template: Chapter {{number}} {{title}}

Note that:

• this string isn't used for unnumbered chapters;
• this string isn't used by LaTeX, either.

autoclean

This option cleans a bit the input markdown. With the default implementation, it only removes consecutive spaces, which has not real impact (they are ignored anyway both by HTML viewers and by LaTeX).

However, if lang is set to fr, it also tries to add non-breaking spaces in front (or after) characters like '?', '!', ';' to respect french typography.

nb_char

This option allows you to specify the non breaking character used by the french cleaning method (see above). Probably not really something you need to modify.

Additional options

temp_dir

When it is generating epub or pdf files, Crowbook creates a temporary directory (which is then removed), named from a random uuid (so we can be pretty certain it's not gonna exist). By default, it uses Rust's std::env::temp_dir function, which should an appropriate place for temporary files, so you probably won't have to use this option.