Welcome to Softcover!
This short setup guide will help you get set up with the Softcover publishing system and point you to the private Softcover authors group. See The Softcover Book for a detailed explanation of features. If you haven't already created an account you should do that now!
01 Installation
The first thing to do is to install the softcover gem:
$
gem install softcover
Note: On some systems, you may have to run this instead:
$
gem install softcover -- --with-cppflags=-I/usr/local/opt/openssl/include
or possibly
$
gem install softcover -- --with-cppflags=-I/usr/local/opt/openssl/include --with-cflags="-Wno-error=implicit-function-declaration"
We recommend downloading LaTeX now, as the download is rather large. Type the following command in your terminal to see if you already have LaTeX installed:
$
which xelatex
If the result is blank, you should download LaTeX now and install it after the download finishes. Note: If using macOS, don’t install LaTeX using Homebrew; instead, download and install the MacTeX package.
02 LEARNING SOFTCOVER BASICS
Follow the basic introduction for the Softcover command line interface from The Softcover Book:
tl;dr: Run this at the command line to create an example book:
$
softcover new example_book
Then change into the book directory and run
$
softcover server
to build the example book and serve it up on localhost:4000.
To build ebooks, run
$
softcover check
to check and install the dependencies on your system, and then run
$
softcover build:all
to build HTML, EPUB, MOBI, and PDF files from the same source. If you have trouble with any of the steps, please refer to the Softcover manual or post a question to the Softcover Google Group.
03 JOIN THE SOFTCOVER AUTHOR GROUP
As part of the Softcover beta, you will also be able to join the Softcover Google Group to ask questions and get advice about how best to use the system. Click the link to apply to the group.
The Softcover.io website is in heavy development, so the founders will be available in the Google Group to help you however we can. We also hope to organize some presentations and online meetups to help you get up and running with the system—watch the Softcover Google Group mailing list for announcements.
