Public domain Bibles for e-readers.

About

This is a simple attempt to generate well-formatted EPUB Bibles intended primarily for use with e-readers.

This is loosely inspired by Standard Ebooks, which does not include Bibles as part of their collection.

The Bibles

See the Releases page for the files.

• Bible Segond 1910

Other free EPUB Bibles

• English Standard Version: Crossway | Kobo | Apple | Barnes and Noble | Amazon
• ebible.org

How to read these files

E-readers

For most e-readers (Kobo, Nook, etc.), you should just be able to copy the file to your e-reader.

For Kindle e-readers, you will need to convert them first to MOBI files using a tool such as calibre. Some formatting may be lost, but the conversion is necessary because EPUB is the standard format used by most other e-book stores and Amazon wants to discourage you from buying e-books elsewhere.

Other devices

Because these files are limited to Bibles available in the public domain, if you wish to read the Bible on another device in most cases it would be preferable to read a more modern translation using a different method such as the Bible app or bible.com.

Android

You can read these files using the Google Play Books app, or an alternative such as Book Reader.

iOS

You can read these files using the iBooks app.

Linux/Mac/Windows

You can read these files using an app such as calibre.

Features

• Custom covers featuring public domain art in the style of Standard Ebooks covers
• Table of contents with entries for each book
• Content page for each book with entries for each chapter
  • The heading links back to the main table of contents
• Chapter titles that link back to the book content page
• Separate files for each chapter to speed loading
• Uniform line spacing
• Punctuation fixes
• Deliberately minimal styling (colours, fonts, margins, etc) to better allow e-readers to apply their own styling
• Other elements (section headings, references, footnotes, etc) have been left out
  • These elements are nice but not always ideal on an e-reader with limited space, lower resolution, and less options for visually distinguighing them from the text. EPUB Bibles for devices other than e-readers and that have these elements can be found elsewhere, such as ebible.org

Development

Creating the EPUB files

Prerequisites

1. Install Node.js (see engines in package.json for the specific version to install)

2. Install dependencies

   cd scripts
   npm install
   

Steps

cd scripts
npm start

Creating a cover image

Prerequisites

1. Install the Standard Ebooks tools: https://github.com/standardebooks/tools#installation

2. Install the League Spartan font

   1. Download the latest release from here: https://github.com/theleagueof/league-spartan/releases

   2. Extract LeagueSpartan-N.NNN/static/TTF/LeagueSpartan-Regular.ttf from the downloaded file

   3. Install the font

      mkdir -p ~/.fonts/
      cp /path/to/LeagueSpartan-Regular.ttf ~/.fonts/
      fc-cache -f -v
      

Steps

1. Find a public domain image to use as the cover

   • This is a nice source: https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/exhibitions/3207 > Objects
   • Other sources are listed here: https://standardebooks.org/manual/1.6.2/10-art-and-images#10.3.3.6.2

2. Download and crop the source image

3. Create a temporary directory

   mkdir tmp
   cd tmp
   

4. Run se create-draft, e.g.

   $ se create-draft -t "La Bible" -a "Louis Segond 1910"
   

   • The title will go on top in a larger font, the author will go on the bottom in a smaller font
   • Use "Anonymous" for the author to exclude it from the cover image

5. Copy the image, e.g.

   $ cp ../data/fr/La\ Bible\ Segond\ 1910/cover-source.jpg louis-segond-1910_la-bible/images/cover.jpg
   

6. Build the image, e.g.

   $ se build-images louis-segond-1910_la-bible/
   

7. Build the ebook, e.g.

   $ se build --output-dir=dist louis-segond-1910_la-bible/
   

8. Extract the generated cover image, e.g.

   $ unzip -j dist/louis-segond-1910_la-bible.epub epub/images/cover.jpg -d .
   

9. Move the generated cover image somewhere

   $ mv cover.jpg ../data/fr/La\ Bible\ Segond\ 1910/
   

10. Cleanup

    cd ..
    rm -rf tmp
    

Creating sample page image

1. Open Google Play Books
2. Select html element in browser dev tools
3. Drag width until it's 600 pixels wide
4. Take screenshot of browser window
5. Open in GIMP
6. Image > Canvas Size
7. Resize image to 600 x 900
8. Offset: X: -10, Y: -130
9. Erase the top and bottom content manually with eraser
10. Export image

Adding source for a new Bible

1. First check The Digital Bible Library to see if it has USX files available for download
2. If it's not there, go to ebible.org and download USFM or USFX files
3. Paratext can be used to convert from USFM to USX
   • BibleMultiConverter can be also be used to convert from USFM or USFX to USX

TODO: Compare a few different conversions to see which yield the better output:

• Use Paratext to convert from USFM to USX
• Use BibleMultiConverter to convert from USFM to USX
• Use BibleMultiConverter to convert from USFX to USX