Preparo

Preparo is a Markdown editor designed to prepare texts before book layout or EPUB export. It enables the conversion, structuring, and enrichment of a manuscript by automatically generating the Markdown files, metadata, and bibliography required for the editorial workflow.

It is a lightweight web application built with the Svelte JavaScript framework, designed for structuring Markdown manuscripts for publishing—without requiring any server dependency. It uses an API and a Pandoc server for document conversion (Word, EPUB, PDF), Zotero for bibliographic management, CSL styles for automated citation and footnote formatting, and a Git versioning system to track changes over time. Preparo thus facilitates the structuring, correction, and export of manuscripts to professional publishing pipelines.

1. Manuscript Editing

Enriched Markdown editor.
Clean writing interface, free of unnecessary distractions.
Support for essential typographic shortcuts (italics, bold, footnotes, blockquotes).

2. Automatic Structuring and Splitting

Automatic detection of level-1 headings (#) to split the manuscript into individual chapters.
Automatic creation of one .md file per chapter (e.g., 00-preface.md, 01-introduction.md, etc.).
Generation of a metadata.yaml file including:
- Title, subtitle, author, translator, publisher, ISBN, rights, description.
- Ordered list of chapters (input-files).

3. Bibliography and Footnotes

Synchronization with a Zotero bibliography (via API or by importing a .bib file).
Association of a .csl bibliographic style file to format citations and footnotes.
Use of citeproc-js to preview and apply the CSL style in real time.

4. Word → Markdown Conversion

Convert a .docx Word document into clean Markdown using Pandoc.

5. One-Click Full Export

All split .md chapter files.
metadata.yaml file.
Bibliography file (.bib or .json).
Associated CSL style file.

6. Lightweight and Independent Design

Fully browser-based operation.
Designed to be easily portable to a Tauri (desktop) version if needed.