Booktype is a free and open source[1] software for authoring, collaborating, editing, and publishing books to PDF, ePub, .mobi, and HTML formats.[2][3] It was launched by Sourcefabric in February 2012 when Booktype evolved from the Booki software, which powers FLOSS Manuals.[4][5]

Booktype
Developer(s)Sourcefabric
Initial release14 February 2012 (2012-02-14)
Stable release
2.3 / 15 November 2017; 6 years ago (2017-11-15)
Repository
Written inPython
Operating systemLinux, OS X
Available inAlbanian, Catalan, English, Estonian, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Ukrainian; translatable
TypeBookmaking software
LicenseGNU Affero General Public License v3
Websitebooktype.pro

In March 2015 it was announced that Amnesty International was using a pre-release version of Booktype 2.0 to publish its Annual Report on the state of human rights, in multiple languages.[6]

Booktype interface localizations are crowd-sourced from volunteers in a Transifex project.[7]

While Booktype is open source software, it also exports books to the proprietary desktop publishing software Adobe InDesign via the ICML markup language.[8]

Facilitators of the book sprint method - creating a book collaboratively in a short period of time - regard Booktype as a "specialist software for doing book sprints".[9]

Booktype is no longer under development.[10]

Organisations using Booktype

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Amnesty International has been using Booktype for their annual reports three years in a row in 2014/2015, 2015/2016[11] and 2016/2017.[12] Books on Demand [de]), the European market and technology leader for digital book publications use Booktype branded as easyEditor for their self-publishing service.[13] The Berlin-based publisher mikrotext uses Booktype for their entire catalogue.[14]

Nominations and awards

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In 2016, Booktype was shortlisted for the contentSHIFT innovation award of the Frankfurt Book Fair but did not win.[15]

In 2017, Booktype won the Neuland 2.0 jury award for innovation in media and book publishing at the Leipzig Book Fair.[16]

References

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  1. ^ "Booktype Features".
  2. ^ "Who's the Patron of eBooks? (FOSOTNTT)".
  3. ^ "Meet Open-Source eBook Editing/Publishing App 'BookType'".
  4. ^ "Booktype Launches Crowd-Sourced eBook Tools".
  5. ^ Charman-Anderson, Suw (14 February 2012). "Booktype: Book collaboration made easy". Forbes.
  6. ^ "Why Amnesty International uses Booktype 2.0 for report publishing". 25 March 2015.
  7. ^ "Booktype localization on Transifex".
  8. ^ "Adobe InDesign integration with Booktype's publishing platform". 16 March 2017.
  9. ^ "What is a booksprint? And introduction".
  10. ^ "Sourcefabric Booktype". 9 June 2022.
  11. ^ "New Booktype output features create laid-out, print-ready PDFs across languages". 25 February 2016.
  12. ^ "Amnesty's Annual Report, a case study in single source publishing". 13 March 2017.
  13. ^ "Software-Tipp: Bücher gemeinsam online schreiben, lektorieren und in Buch und eBook umwandeln". 13 October 2015.
  14. ^ "mikrotext und Booktype". 29 September 2015. Archived from the original on 9 August 2016. Retrieved 18 June 2016.
  15. ^ "CONTENTshift veröffentlicht Shortlist". 8 September 2016.
  16. ^ "Neuland 2.0: Abook und Booktype holen Startup-Preise der Leipziger Buchmesse". 26 March 2017.
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