Bibliogon

Open-source book authoring platform. Write, organize, and export books as EPUB, PDF, or audiobook - offline-first, plugin-based, with Dark Mode.

Built on PluginForge, a reusable plugin framework based on pluggy.

Documentation | Issues

Features

• WYSIWYG and Markdown editor (TipTap with 15 extensions, 24 toolbar buttons)
• 26 chapter types (Preface, Foreword, Prologue, Dedication, Part, Epilogue, Afterword, Final Thoughts, Also by the Author, Excerpt, Call to Action, ...)
• 16 book genres (Novel, Non-Fiction, Technical, Biography, Poetry, ...)
• Drag-and-drop chapter ordering with collapsible sections
• EPUB, PDF, Word, HTML, Markdown export via manuscripta
• Audiobook generation with 5 TTS engines (Edge TTS, Google Cloud TTS, Google Translate, pyttsx3, ElevenLabs)
• Content-hash cache: unchanged chapters are not re-generated (saves money on paid engines)
• Cost estimation and savings tracking for paid TTS engines
• Dry-run mode: listen to a sample before committing to a full export
• Persistent audiobook storage with per-chapter and merged downloads
• Full-data backup and restore (.bgb) with images and optional audiobook files
• Book metadata: ISBN, ASIN, Publisher, Keywords, Cover, Custom CSS
• In-app help panel with Markdown rendering, search, and context-sensitive links
• Multi-provider AI assistant (Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, Mistral, LM Studio) with chapter review, marketing text generation, and context-aware suggestions
• Plugin system with ZIP installation for third-party plugins
• Encrypted credential storage (Fernet) for API keys and service accounts
• 6 themes (Warm Literary, Cool Modern, Nord, Classic, Studio, Notebook) x Light/Dark
• i18n: German, English, Spanish, French, Greek, Portuguese, Turkish, Japanese
• Responsive layout with hamburger menu on mobile

Install and Run

Prerequisites

• Docker (Docker Desktop or Docker Engine with Compose)

One-liner

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/astrapi69/bibliogon/main/install.sh | bash

This downloads Bibliogon to ~/bibliogon, builds the Docker images, and starts the app at http://localhost:7880.

Manual install

git clone https://github.com/astrapi69/bibliogon.git
cd bibliogon
./start.sh

Stop / Start / Uninstall

cd ~/bibliogon && ./stop.sh                      # Stop
cd ~/bibliogon && ./start.sh                      # Start again
cd ~/bibliogon && ./stop.sh && cd ~ && rm -rf ~/bibliogon  # Uninstall

Development

make install    # Install all dependencies (Poetry, npm, plugins)
make dev        # Start backend (8000) + frontend (5173) in parallel
make test       # Run all tests (backend + plugins + frontend)

See CLAUDE.md for full development documentation.

Documentation

The documentation is available in two forms:

• In-App: Click the help icon in the navigation bar to open the slide-over help panel with search, navigation tree, and Markdown rendering.
• Online: astrapi69.github.io/bibliogon - MkDocs Material site with full-text search, light/dark mode, and i18n.

Both read from the same Markdown files in docs/help/. To build the docs locally:

make docs-install   # Install MkDocs dependencies (separate venv)
make docs-serve     # Serve at http://localhost:8000 with hot-reload

Architecture

Browser --> nginx (static files + /api proxy) --> FastAPI (uvicorn)
                                                    |
                                              PluginForge
                                                    |
                              +----------+----------+----------+
                              |          |          |          |
                           Export     Help    Audiobook      ...

• Frontend: React 18, TypeScript, TipTap, Vite, Radix UI, @dnd-kit, react-markdown
• Backend: FastAPI, SQLAlchemy, SQLite, Pydantic v2
• Plugins: PluginForge (PyPI), pluggy-based, YAML-configured
• Export: manuscripta ^0.7.0 (PyPI), Pandoc, write-book-template
• TTS: manuscripta adapter layer with 5 engines (Edge TTS, Google Cloud, gTTS, pyttsx3, ElevenLabs)

Plugins

Plugin	License	Description
export	MIT	EPUB, PDF, Word, HTML, Markdown, Project ZIP
help	MIT	In-app help panel with docs, search, shortcuts
getstarted	MIT	Onboarding guide, sample book
ms-tools	MIT	Style checks, sanitization, text metrics
audiobook	MIT	TTS audiobook generation (5 engines)
translation	MIT	DeepL / LMStudio translation
grammar	MIT	LanguageTool grammar checking
kinderbuch	MIT	Children's book page layout
kdp	MIT	Amazon KDP metadata, cover validation

Third-party plugins can be installed as ZIP files via Settings > Plugins.

Configuration

Environment variables (set in .env):

Variable	Default	Description
BIBLIOGON_PORT	7880	Port for the web app
BIBLIOGON_DEBUG	false	Debug mode (enables test endpoints, API docs)
BIBLIOGON_SECRET_KEY	(generated)	Secret for license validation
BIBLIOGON_CREDENTIALS_SECRET	(generated)	Secret for encrypting API keys and service account files
BIBLIOGON_CORS_ORIGINS	localhost:7880	Allowed CORS origins
BIBLIOGON_DB_PATH	/app/data/bibliogon.db	SQLite database path

Related Projects

• pluginforge - Plugin framework (PyPI)
• manuscripta - Book export pipeline with TTS adapter layer (PyPI)
• write-book-template - Target directory structure for export

License

MIT. All plugins are free and open source.