# Vellum equivalents for PC



## Guest (Jan 24, 2016)

What software is available for beautiful and easy formatting of ebooks? Anything other than Vellum? Anything t works on PC?
Do any of them offer both print and ebook formatting?
If using vellum with Mac Cloud service, how much does that service cost and for how long are you "renting" it?

I would love to see a comparison run-down of the services regarding ease of use, capabilities, and final product.


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

From a similar thread back in September:

http://www.jutoh.com/

I know nothing about it, though. I use Scrivener.


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## Guest (Jan 24, 2016)

Thanks  I'll look into it. I really don't like anything about Scrivener I've seen so far, so the last thing I want to do is start trying to format books with it   And zero interest in Calibre. Of course, if none of these programs are easier than Calibra/better results, than there's no point


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

Jotoh is completely different. There's no equivalent that I know of.


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## Guest (Jan 24, 2016)

Just how easy is vellum to use? It is worth borrowing my husband's MAC to have this program over another?


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## NoLongerPosting (Apr 5, 2014)

Removed due to site owner's change of TOS.


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## elizabethsade (Feb 3, 2015)

TheForeverGirlSeries said:


> Just how easy is vellum to use? It is worth borrowing my husband's MAC to have this program over another?


I learned how to use Vellum in about two or three minutes, without any help.

It's that easy to use.


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## Guest (Jan 25, 2016)

Sounds worth it then. Thank you  I've used a Mac before but not for years. Sounds like getting reacquainted with macs would be the hardest part.


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

TheForeverGirlSeries said:


> Just how easy is vellum to use? It is worth borrowing my husband's MAC to have this program over another?


Borrow his Mac, download the sample version of the program, play with it, and find out for yourself. I got my own Mac both for Scrivener and Vellum and I had a much harder time figuring out how to use the "intuitive" Mac itself than either program. Of course I was a Scrivener fan from the Windows version. But I don't think anyone's recommendations necessarily are gold for another person. You don't like Scrivener; I do. If everyone liked the same programs, there wouldn't be so many of them.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

TheForeverGirlSeries said:


> Sounds worth it then. Thank you  I've used a Mac before but not for years. Sounds like getting reacquainted with macs would be the hardest part.


Nope. I got a Mac in December. I literally NEVER touched a Mac before. Whenever I encounter something I don't know how to do, I just google it, and the Apple site has awesome to-the-point help files for dunces like me. There is a lot more integration than I expected. I didn't for example, expect to be able to so easily access all the PCs in our home network, because when you add another PC to the network, it always involves a lot of mucking around with network crap. The Mac just reads the files.

Dropbox is awesome. Pages reads and writes Word files. Scrivener is nice and cheap, and Vellum is worth every cent you spend on it.

The only thing I gave up on was Safari. I just don't grok the program. But Chrome runs fine on a Mac. And it integrates between Mac and PC, too.


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## Guest (Jan 25, 2016)

ellenoc said:


> Borrow his Mac, download the sample version of the program, play with it, and find out for yourself. I got my own Mac both for Scrivener and Vellum and I had a much harder time figuring out how to use the "intuitive" Mac itself than either program. Of course I was a Scrivener fan from the Windows version. But I don't think anyone's recommendations necessarily are gold for another person. You don't like Scrivener; I do. If everyone liked the same programs, there wouldn't be so many of them.


What i don't like about scrivener is the interface. I like the interface or Vellum. If the general consensus is it's worth it, and it already looks like it can do what I want it to, then I should be fine. Thanks, though. ✌&#127995;️


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## Peter Spenser (Jan 26, 2012)

TheForeverGirlSeries said:


> Just how easy is vellum to use? It is worth borrowing my husband's MAC to have this program over another?


The fact that you have a Mac to borrow and try for free, and that you can use Vellum for free right up to the point just before actually getting a finished formatted e-book, should give you a good idea if you want to spend the money on either.

I bought the expensive full version of Vellum and have never looked back. It's great.


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

Oh, yeah, Vellum is AMAZING! I'm pretty much illiterate when it comes to anything technical, and I learned it right away. Makes the books look gorgeous, too. 

I echo Patty - getting a Mac is worth.every.penny. Seriously. There's a reason why they say "Once you go Mac, you never go back." I'll never own a PC again, Vellum or no Vellum, for a variety of reasons. Besides the fact that my Mac runs like the wind, and hasn't really slowed down in the year and a half that I've had it, it also is just so intuitive and integrates well with other Apple products. I also love the fact that I can upload to Apple direct, as opposed to paying 10% to an aggregator. 

I tried Scrivener, and I HATED it. I don't like anything that I have to learn, and if I have to buy a "Dummies" book to figure out a program, I won't use it. Sorry, my time is more valuable than that. I know other people swear by it, but it's not for me. 

If you have the money, seriously, buy a Mac. You won't regret it.


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## RinG (Mar 12, 2013)

From my quick look at the sample version of vellum, it's very easy to use. And macs are very similar to PCs these days, so not much of a learning curve there either. What I didn't like was the lack of customisation in Vellum. But if that's not what you're after, then it's all good.

I didn't like calibre or jutoh, I found both needlessly complex and hard to use.

Love sigil though. It's relatively simple if that's what you want, but you can easily dig down and modify the HTML if that's what you want. Switch between them easily, so I can check that it's not adding a whole lot of crap to my file (which only seems to happen when I copy and paste from word!) For PC, and it's free.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

I switched to Jutoh last year because Vellum doesn't play with DOC files or ODT files and I use Open Office. But then I learned that Vellum makes tidier files that play better in KU ... so I went that way when I started my KU sci-fi.

Vellum *IS* easy to use and their customer service is very helpful. If you have set up your doc right (use heading tags for chapter breaks and *** for section breaks) it is a breeze.

One problem I did have, I used a subtle line for section breaks in the formatting and it disappeared on old Nook devices. I got slammed in some of my early reviews because readers were justifiably confused. I have since switched to the *** section break ... it's possible that the more elaborate image breaks would have shown up just fine.

I know you do a lot of box sets--the box sets Vellum's create are BEAUTIFUL with collapsible folders for individual books so it is really easy to navigate the TOC.


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

There's Pressbooks. It allows free watermarked exports if you want to try it. I've never tried it myself though.

http://pressbooks.com/


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## Word Fan (Apr 15, 2015)

Rinelle Grey said:


> I didn't like calibre or jutoh, I found both needlessly complex and hard to use.


I have to jump in here and say that Calibre is not _"needlessly complex and hard to use."_ What it is, and unfortunately very much so, is _not_ intuitive&#8230; at all. It's not a program that most people can just play with a bit and easily figure out how to use.

The fact is, though, that the settings and controls that you have to set in Calibre to change a word processing file into an e-book are very few. Calibre has literally _dozens_ of settings on it that are _never_ used for regular e-book conversion. That's because Calibre does many other things besides regular e-book conversion. My father has timed himself using Calibre, and a person who is competent with a mouse and keyboard can fill in the needed blanks and tick the needed check boxes and get a finished, perfectly formatted e-book out of calibre in less than a minute.


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## RinG (Mar 12, 2013)

Sorry, been a while since I tried calibre, to be honest. From what you're saying, I'm guessing my problem with it was that I couldn't actually get in and edit/change the text, which was what I was after.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Rinelle Grey said:


> Sorry, been a while since I tried calibre, to be honest. From what you're saying, I'm guessing my problem with it was that I couldn't actually get in and edit/change the text, which was what I was after.


I tried it, too, and had the same issue. I couldn't find where to do that. "Not intuitive" doesn't even begin to describe it.


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## C. Rysalis (Feb 26, 2015)

Oh no... somehow I always assumed Vellum was available for Windows. Now I might have to hire a professional ebook formatter after all.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

I think what makes Calibre confusing for people is they hear that it's a program for converting things to ebook format and as a program to do that, nothing makes sense. Calibre is actually a library management software that as a secondary function can convert books from one form to another. It's more like an itunes for books.

None of the other options is really the same as Vellum though. Calibre and Scrivener, both of which I love, are designed to create KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid books. They will generate a really pleasant looking ebook, but if you want something to have fancy add ons like images for chapter heads or scene breaks, you're going to have to spend a lot of time experimenting because it's just not what their strength is.

Jutoh will do some fancy layout, but it is really more of a word processor for ebooks where you have to make the choices and insert and style everything yourself like you were using a Word processor. Vellum is mostly automated. You import the text. You make a few style decisions from the presets and it exports a book with graphic headers, multiple fonts, and so on. In addition, it limits what you can do to a few premade styles. This drives some people to distraction, but it guarantees that you're going to get a book with good typography even if you have terrible taste. 

In terms of the Mac. I use Macs at home and PCs at work. I barely notice the difference with the operating system.


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## Chrissy (Mar 31, 2014)

C. Rysalis said:


> Oh no... somehow I always assumed Vellum was available for Windows. Now I might have to hire a professional ebook formatter after all.


If you don't own a Mac you can always use:

http://www.macincloud.com/ + Vellum



> MacinCloud is a remote Mac rental service which can be accessed via computer or mobile device. You access rented Mac servers through the Internet to run Mac programs.
> 
> Using your web browser or a remote desktop program you will connect to the Apple manufactured Mac server. After logging in, you can remotely view and control the Mac as if you are sitting in front of the Mac screen.


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## CASD57 (May 3, 2014)

Speaker-To-Animals said:


> I think what makes Calibre confusing for people is they hear that it's a program for converting things to ebook format and as a program to do that, nothing makes sense. Calibre is actually a library management software that as a secondary function can convert books from one form to another. It's more like an itunes for books.
> 
> None of the other options is really the same as Vellum though. Calibre and Scrivener, both of which I love, are designed to create KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid books. They will generate a really pleasant looking ebook, but if you want something to have fancy add ons like images for chapter heads or scene breaks, you're going to have to spend a lot of time experimenting because it's just not what their strength is.
> 
> ...


So what do you recommend ?


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

> So what do you recommend ?


I recommend you buy a Mac and get Vellum!

But for Windows, I always used Scrivener and kept it simple. Do your formatting in the editor because there are weaknesses with Win-Scriv's compile. Actually, on second thought, now that I'm doing full length novels, since I need to export to Word for editing, I'd run a docx through Calibre.

Either way, you'll get a decent book. There's nothing really wrong with simple books.


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## mikeclark797 (May 8, 2017)

The main reason to use vellum is that the way it structures the data, KDP does not have to estimate the amount of text they should count as your book, that is the page counts are more accurate and usually a bit higher. The ease of use is also a good selling point but the page count difference means more money in the read for amazon. It's also a much cleaner file and better support for readers.


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