Build

Build a Book Template

A book template includes a book directory with the following:

• content directory: this will contain your book’s content
• output directory: this will contain your book’s rendered files (PDF, EPUB, HTML)
• outline markdown file: your book’s outline used for generating file and directory structure
• metadata markdown file: information about your book

The tanagra build command will generate the project structure seen outlined in purple.

tanagra build

First, you should navigate to the directory in which you would like to generate the book template. The build command will create a new directory within the current working directory.

$ cd Books/

The build command will prompt you for a book project name. You can enter a specific name or press enter to accept the auto-generated name.

$ tanagra build
-------------------------------------
| Tanagra                           |
|   A markdown book pipeline tool   |
|   https://www.tanagra.dev/        |
-------------------------------------

Building book template.
Checking current working directory (/Users/user/Books) for project...
Tanagra project not found in current directory: /Users/user/Books
What is a short name for your book project? This is not your title. [new_book_20200113-203331]
Magic Tricks for Dogs
Template creation completed.
/Users/user/Books/magic_tricks_for_dogs/content
/Users/user/Books/magic_tricks_for_dogs/output
/Users/user/Books/magic_tricks_for_dogs/metadata.md
/Users/user/Books/magic_tricks_for_dogs/outlne.md

In the output of the build command, you can see what was created:

• content/: a directory for storing your book’s markdown files
• output/: a directory for storing your rendered books (PDF, EPUB, or HTML)
• metadata.md: a file for storing information about your project
• outline.md: a file in which you can create your book’s outline for later conversion into a book structure in the content/ directory

Your new Tanagra book project is now ready to begin working on your outline in the outline.md file.

Next Steps

Now that your book template has been generated, you can populate your metadata.md and outline.md files. Once those are complete, you can convert your outline to a book template.