Show HN: I built a JSON-to-PDF book generator because formatting was killing me
Posted 11 hours ago by mxprs
2 points
https://ebookforge.app/I write a lot of long-form content and the same problem kept slowing me down. Writing was fine, but turning it into a clean, consistent PDF always took more effort than the content itself. I kept fighting with margins, spacing, headers, templates, exports, and it became the part of the process I dreaded most.
I eventually stopped trying to force tools that weren’t built for this and started experimenting with a different approach: describe the structure in JSON and generate the PDF with a layout engine. I built it originally as a personal workflow, not as a product, but other people around me had the same pain so I cleaned it up and put a demo online.
It is still early and rough in places, but if anyone here writes ebooks, reports, guides, or technical documents, I would appreciate feedback on the idea, the rendering approach, or any pitfalls I might not be seeing.
Live demo: https://ebookforge.app/