Project Gutenberg provides the majority of its books in plain ASCII only. While this is fine for portability, I think every e-book should also include a high-quality typeset version for both on-screen reading and printing. Typesetting significantly enhances the reading experience.
To this end, here are some e-books typeset with LaTeX, together with tools to assist in converting a raw Gutenberg file to a LaTeX file.
Each book includes a "book.txt" file with corrections, the "book.tex" LaTeX source file, and two PDF files, one intended for on-screen reading ("book.pdf") and one intended for printing ("book-f.pdf"). Note that these are unofficial versions, though some may migrate to the Gutenberg mirrors after sufficient review.
The print version can be printed directly on a duplexing laser printer, or alternatively duplexed manually by printing the odd pages, flipping the sheets, then printing the even pages on the other side.
Each sheet of paper includes four page impressions, two on the front and two on the back; therefore each sheet should be folded in half ("folio"), either by hand or by machine, to form a trade-paperback-like book block. Kinko's will perfect-bind the result for a few dollars if you don't want to mess with adhesives; stapling together chunks of a dozen sheets or so near the spine is another low-tech alternative.
| Author | Title | Plain Text | LaTeX | PDF (screen) | PDF (printer) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jane Austen | Pride and Prejudice | pandp.txt | pandp.tex | pandp.pdf | pandp-f.pdf |
| Jane Austen | Sense and Sensibility | sense.txt | sense.tex | sense.pdf | sense-f.pdf |
| Jane Austen | Mansfield Park | mansf.txt | mansf.tex | mansf.pdf | mansf-f.pdf |
| Jane Austen | Emma | emma.txt | emma.tex | emma.pdf | emma-f.pdf |
| Charles Dickens | Some Christmas Stories | cdscs.txt | cdscs.tex | cdscs.pdf | cdscs-f.pdf |
| Charles Dickens | A Tale of Two Cities | 2city.txt | 2city.tex | 2city.pdf | 2city-f.pdf |
| Anthony Trollope | North America vol. 1 | 1noam.txt | 1noam.tex | 1noam.pdf | 1noam-f.pdf |
I'm still working on making a releasable version of the Python scripts to convert italics, rectify quotes and dashes, etc.
But for now, here are the LaTeX style files and the Makefile for producing PDFs from the LaTeX source.
gutenberg-common.tex
gutenberg-simple.tex
gutenberg-toc.tex
gutenberg-toc2.tex
g.cls
Makefile
Here's a checklist for conversion:
checklist