What is the best way to generate an ebook? Is EPUB the best ebook format?

lou
2025-06-03T20:51:28Z

I usually generate ebooks in two ways. One is to export directly from Emacs Org-Mode with ox-epub. That doesn't give me a lot of control and export options are a bit of a crapshoot. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. The other is to export from Org-Mode to either odt or docx and use Libreoffice Writer to export to EPUB. I will then open the ebook on Calibre to fix the metadata, the table of contents., and generate a cover.

That works fine for my personal use, but in the near future I may need to generate an ebook that looks proper and professional. I don't even know what "proper and professional" really means for an ebook, but I assume there must be tools and practices that are universally recomended that I am not following.

Hence the question: are there "pro" tools for authoring ebooks? Are there any rules, standards, workflows, or guidelines I should be following? If those exist, where can I find tutorials and documentation on how to generate the best books?

EDIT: I use Windows and Linux.

Thanks!

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