Basic Book Builder

A Pandoc template for building books and articles

Basic Book Builder

A Pandoc template for building books and articles

Author	John Haverlack
Version	1.1.0
Date	2026-02-04
ISBN:	UNSPECIFIED
DOI:	UNSPECIFIED
Maturity	BETA

Licensing

Open Source Edition (PDF and HTML)

Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License

License: CC BY-ND 4.0

Basic Book Builder

Preface

Preface t the Book…

Introduction

This is a basic book (or article) builder template based on a Pandoc build process in conjunction with a number of other tools to generate PDF, ODT, HTML, LaTex, Markdown, and Epub book output formats from Markdown source content , which can optionally be edited as an Obsidian vault.

This book builder template has been curated by John Haverlack.(John Haverlack ACEP, n.d.)

Getting Started

Installing Pre-Requisites

For Debian / ZorinOS and likely Ubuntu based systems.

TODO

It would be nice to roll a setup script to take care of this.

Required

Pandoc

https://pandoc.org/
Download

sudo apt install https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/releases/download/3.8.2.1/pandoc-3.8.2.1-1-amd64.deb

Code Editor

Code Editor

VSCodium is recommend for privacy (telemetry/tracking) reasons - https://vscodium.com/

But any text editor will work. #### make

sudo apt install make

jq and yq

sudo apt install jq yq

texlive

sudo apt install texlive texlive-xetex texlive-latex-extra texlive-fonts-recommended texlive-fonts-extra

MathJax

https://www.mathjax.org/

wget https://registry.npmjs.org/mathjax/-/mathjax-3.2.2.tgz
tar xzf mathjax-3.2.2.tgz
mv package/es5/* lib/mathjax
rm -rf package mathjax-3.2.2.tgz

TODO

This need to be rolled into a setup script.

Optional

The following are not strictly requires to use this book builder template.

Obsidian

Highly Recommended

Editing book chapter content in Obsidian is a very productive means for editing Markdown source content.

https://obsidian.md/
Deb Package

sudo apt install https://github.com/obsidianmd/obsidian-releases/releases/download/v1.9.14/obsidian_1.9.14_amd64.deb

Zotero

Highly Recommended

If you need to managed citations and references, Zotero integration is highly recommended.

https://www.zotero.org/

sudo cp ./scripts/deps/zotero.list /etc/apt/sources.list.d/

sudo apt update

sudo apt install zotero

Better BibTex for Zotero

Install the Better BibTex Plugin for Zotero - Zotero > Tool > Plugins

Export citations.bib

Zotero > File > Export Library > Format: Better BibTeX
Keep Updated
Save to: ~/Documents/Lib/zotero.bib
Symlink your ~/Documents/Lib/Citations.bib to basic-book-builder/lib/zotero.bib

Zotero Connector Browser Plugin

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/zotero-connector/ekhagklcjbdpajgpjgmbionohlpdbjgc

Provides you the ability to auto add Web resources to your Zotero citation database.

lmodern

sudo apt install lmodern

epubcheck

sudo apt install epubcheck

foliate

An EPub Reader

https://johnfactotum.github.io/foliate/

sudo apt install https://github.com/johnfactotum/foliate/releases/download/2.6.4/com.github.johnfactotum.foliate_2.6.4_all.deb

calibre

An EPub Reader

https://calibre-ebook.com

sudo apt install calibre

Editing the Configuration

Editing the Book

Configuration

There are a number of other config files for each format:

conf/
├── epub-metadata.xml
├── epub_template.html
├── epub.yaml
├── frontmatter_epub.md
├── frontmatter_epub.xhtml
├── frontmatter.html
├── frontmatter.tex
├── header.tex
├── html.yaml
├── latex.yaml
├── markdown.yaml
├── metadata.yaml
├── pandoc.yaml
├── pdf.yaml
├── style.css
└── style_epub.css

Main Config Files

metadata.yaml - Set Title, etc
pandoc.yaml - Main Pandoc Config #### Per format Configs
pdf.yaml
html.yaml
latex.yaml
epub.yaml

FrontMatter Config

There are 2 Version of the FrontMatter for PDF, and HTML bases formats that set the Title, Author, Verizon, Copyright, etc…

frontmatter.tex
frontmatter.html
frontmatter_epub.* - Work in Progress

There is probably a better way to do this.

Editing the Content

To edit the book open the basic-book-builder directory as an Obsidian Vault.

Edit the Markdown content in the chapters directory.

Citations

Note: the Zotero database needs configured to export automatically to lib/citations.bib

To insert a Zotero Citation - Ensure the Zotero App and DB are running on you system. - Alt + I (to insert citation) - Search for and select citation reference

Usage: Building the Book

PDF

make pdf

HTML

make html

LaTex

make latex

Markdown

make markdown

EPub

Note: This ePub configuration still needs tuning.

make epub

Appendix A

First Appendix

Glossary

AI - Artificial Intelligence

Bibliography

John Haverlack ACEP. n.d. Https://www.uaf.edu/acep/about/our-team/john-haverlack.php.