Used to be a simple program to prepare ACV files from images (jpg/png). Now it's purpose is to create comic books in popular formats, from a set of images. Currently, EPUB and CBZ output is implemented.
For best usage, maximize the window (the program should start maximized).
Click "Open directory", and navigate to a directory of images. These must be named screenXX.{jpg|png}
, with XX as
numbers increasing in page reading order. The numbers need not be contiguous.
The images will load into a list. Click any of them to load that screen into the frame editor.
Drag an area with the left mouse button to create a frame, as many times as necessary. Frames must be larger than 5% of width or height, otherwise they will be rejected as accidental clicks. Drag with right mouse button to pan the image around. Mouse wheel scrolls the image vertically, or horizontally when Shift is held. Hold Ctrl and use the wheel to zoom.
Frames are shown with their thumbnail in a list below the screens list. Delete a frame by clicking the X button on its entry, reorder by drag-and-drop. Drop a frame on another one in the list to swap their places. Hover the cursor over a frame to see it highlighted in the editor area.
Edit metadata by switching to its tab. It shows a minimal subset of possible ePUB metadata. For the date field, use either a 4 digit year, a year plus month, or a full year-month-day date. The Full Pages option is special, see the * Saving* section below for an explanation.
If necessary, customize per-page HTML and the book CSS in their respective tabs. Each one contains a dropdown list with useful snippets. The HTML page is actually a Mustache-style template, to be used as each page of the resulting comic. Variables available are:
{{title}}
- book's title as set in metadata{{image}}
- path to current screen image or frame image{{width}}
,{{height}}
- dimensions of current screen image or frame image
If left empty and unsaved, a simple default page is used, and no special CSS is added.
Clicking Save saves your changes, but does not generate the e-book yet. To do that, click "Export EPUB".
This will produce a file named TITLE - AUTHOR.epub
(as set in metadata) in the images' directory. It will also
generate all the subframes as individual images, before embedding them into the epub file. If Full Pages
option was
set in the metadata tab, the book will have a single page with each full image, followed by all its frames on separate
pages. If it was unset, only the frames are inserted.
If a file named cover.jpg
or cover.png
exists in the images directory, it will be used as the book's cover.
- Ctrl+O: show open-directory dialog
- Ctrl+S: save changes. Doesn't build the epub file.
- F1, Ctrl+1: switch to frame editor tab
- F2, Ctrl+2, Ctrl+M: switch to metadata tab
- Ctrl+F: fit image to editor frame, resetting zoom. Resizing the window will also fit and reset.
- PageUp, PageDown (with focus in editor tab): jump to previous or next screen. When the screens list is focused, these behave differently, and jump around the list.
- Ctrl+0 (the zero digit): toggle dark mode
On Apple computers, use the Command key instead of Ctrl.
The epub-creator
library used produces EPUB3 files. They have
a mandatory navigation section, which is
automatically inserted before all content. While it is set to hidden, it may still be visible as a blank page in your
reader. The Illustrator
metadata property is generated as
a dc:creator
element, annotated with
an ill
role. Similarly, ISBN is a dc:identifier
with scheme
set to isbn
.
CBZ files name image files differently than the original. A full frame image is always named XXXX_00.png
(zero-padding
the screen number to four digits), and its subframes are XXXX_YY.png
. Currently, no metadata ships with CBZ files.
This may change in the future.