Bookmint vs Vivliostyle

Bookmint formats manuscript files into print-ready PDFs and ebooks through a web browser. It accepts .docx, .md, and .txt files, detects chapters from headings, and picks up footnotes; Google Docs, Pages, and Scrivener files need to be exported to Word first. Authors can choose from 55 adjustable templates for fiction, nonfiction, poetry, memoir, cookbooks, and children's books, then adjust fonts, margins, drop caps, borders, and title pages. The title page studio has seven layouts and fields for a subtitle, tagline, and publisher. Live previews show print and ebook layouts, with device views for phones, e-readers, and tablets in light, sepia, and night modes; text can also be edited in the app. Exports include print PDFs with trim, bleed, crop marks, and embedded fonts, plus accessible EPUBs. The print PDF is preflighted for KDP and IngramSpark, and Kindle, Apple Books, and Kobo are named as ebook stores. The maker says processing happens in the browser, manuscripts are not uploaded, and no account is required. The free plan includes exports, with attribution unless activated.

Vivliostyle is an open-source typesetting project for digital and web publishing based on web standards. Vivliostyle Viewer presents HTML with CSS typesetting in a browser and can display EPUB files and web publications. The command-line tool typesets HTML and CSS and exports PDFs, including PDFs generated from EPUB files. For print production, its PRESS-READY option supports PDF/X-1a output and requires Ghostscript and Xpdf.

Vivliostyle Pub is a web application for editing text, Markdown, or HTML and previewing typesetting; its new version is in alpha. Themes are distributed as npm packages and applied through vivliostyle.config.js. Viewer can display HTML hosted on GitHub or Gist, or be copied into a public web-server directory. The CLI requires Node.js, and the installation tutorial lists macOS, Windows, and Linux. Vivliostyle uses AGPLv3, which allows modification and commercial use subject to reciprocal license terms. Its FAQ says publications made with the software need not publish their HTML or CSS source data. The project is maintained by Vivliostyle Foundation.