Produce EPUB Books

Generate complete EPUB e-books with chapters, table of contents, and rich text formatting.

Who this is for

Technical publishers and self-publishing platforms use this recipe to generate polished EPUB e-books from structured content. Define chapters with headings, paragraphs, and a table of contents — the API handles formatting and packaging into a valid EPUB file ready for distribution.

curl -X POST https://api.iterationlayer.com/document-generation/v1/generate \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "format": "epub",
    "document": {
      "metadata": {
        "title": "Practical Guide to Event-Driven Architecture",
        "author": "Sarah Chen"
      },
      "page": {
        "size": { "preset": "A5" },
        "margins": { "top_in_pt": 54, "right_in_pt": 54, "bottom_in_pt": 54, "left_in_pt": 54 }
      },
      "styles": {
        "text": { "font_family": "Helvetica", "font_size_in_pt": 11.0, "line_height": 1.5, "color": "#333333" },
        "headline": { "font_family": "Helvetica", "font_size_in_pt": 24.0, "color": "#111111", "spacing_before_in_pt": 12.0, "spacing_after_in_pt": 6.0, "is_bold": true },
        "link": { "color": "#0066CC", "is_underlined": true },
        "list": { "text_style": { "font_family": "Helvetica", "font_size_in_pt": 11.0, "line_height": 1.5, "color": "#333333" }, "marker_color": "#333333", "marker_gap_in_pt": 8.0 },
        "table": { "header": { "background_color": "#333333", "text_color": "#FFFFFF", "font_size_in_pt": 11.0, "is_bold": true }, "body": { "background_color": "#FFFFFF", "text_color": "#333333", "font_size_in_pt": 11.0 }, "border": { "outer": { "top": { "color": "#CCCCCC", "width_in_pt": 1.0 }, "right": { "color": "#CCCCCC", "width_in_pt": 1.0 }, "bottom": { "color": "#CCCCCC", "width_in_pt": 1.0 }, "left": { "color": "#CCCCCC", "width_in_pt": 1.0 } }, "inner": { "horizontal": { "color": "#EEEEEE", "width_in_pt": 0.5 }, "vertical": { "color": "#EEEEEE", "width_in_pt": 0.5 } } } },
        "grid": { "background_color": "#FFFFFF", "border_color": "#CCCCCC", "border_width_in_pt": 0.0, "gap_in_pt": 12.0 },
        "separator": { "color": "#CCCCCC", "thickness_in_pt": 1.0, "spacing_before_in_pt": 12.0, "spacing_after_in_pt": 12.0 },
        "image": { "border_color": "#000000", "border_width_in_pt": 0.0 }
      },
      "content": [
        { "type": "headline", "level": "h1", "text": "Practical Guide to Event-Driven Architecture" },
        { "type": "paragraph", "markdown": "*By Sarah Chen*" },
        { "type": "separator" },
        { "type": "table-of-contents", "levels": ["h1", "h2"], "leader": "dots" },
        { "type": "page-break" },
        { "type": "headline", "level": "h1", "text": "Chapter 1: Core Concepts" },
        { "type": "paragraph", "markdown": "Event-driven architecture (EDA) is a software design pattern in which the flow of the program is determined by **events** — significant changes in state that the system needs to react to. Unlike traditional request-response models, EDA decouples producers from consumers, enabling systems to scale independently." },
        { "type": "paragraph", "markdown": "At its core, every event-driven system consists of three parts: **event producers**, which detect and publish state changes; **event channels**, which transport events between components; and **event consumers**, which react to incoming events by executing business logic." },
        { "type": "list", "variant": "unordered", "items": [
          { "text": "Loose coupling between services" },
          { "text": "Independent scalability of producers and consumers" },
          { "text": "Natural audit trail through event logs" },
          { "text": "Resilience through asynchronous processing" }
        ]},
        { "type": "page-break" },
        { "type": "headline", "level": "h1", "text": "Chapter 2: Messaging Patterns" },
        { "type": "paragraph", "markdown": "Choosing the right messaging pattern is critical to building a reliable event-driven system. The two most common approaches are **publish-subscribe** and **event streaming**. Publish-subscribe delivers events to all interested subscribers in real time, while event streaming persists events in an ordered log that consumers can replay at their own pace." },
        { "type": "paragraph", "markdown": "A robust messaging layer must handle **at-least-once delivery**, **idempotency**, and **ordering guarantees**. Without these properties, consumers may process duplicate events, miss events entirely, or see them out of order — all of which can corrupt downstream state." },
        { "type": "table", "column_widths_in_percent": [30, 35, 35], "header": { "cells": [
          { "text": "Pattern" },
          { "text": "Best For" },
          { "text": "Trade-off" }
        ]}, "rows": [
          { "cells": [
            { "text": "Publish-Subscribe" },
            { "text": "Real-time notifications" },
            { "text": "No replay capability" }
          ]},
          { "cells": [
            { "text": "Event Streaming" },
            { "text": "Audit logs, replay" },
            { "text": "Higher storage cost" }
          ]},
          { "cells": [
            { "text": "Request-Reply" },
            { "text": "Synchronous workflows" },
            { "text": "Tight coupling" }
          ]}
        ]},
        { "type": "page-break" },
        { "type": "headline", "level": "h1", "text": "Chapter 3: Implementation Strategies" },
        { "type": "paragraph", "markdown": "When implementing event-driven architecture in production, start with a **single event bus** and a small number of well-defined event types. Resist the temptation to model every state change as an event. Instead, focus on domain events that carry business meaning — an order was placed, a payment was processed, a shipment was dispatched." },
        { "type": "paragraph", "markdown": "Adopt a **schema registry** early to enforce contracts between producers and consumers. Versioned schemas prevent breaking changes from propagating through the system and make it safe for teams to evolve their events independently." },
        { "type": "list", "variant": "ordered", "items": [
          { "text": "Define your domain events and their schemas" },
          { "text": "Set up a message broker with dead-letter queues" },
          { "text": "Implement idempotent consumers with deduplication" },
          { "text": "Add monitoring and alerting for consumer lag" },
          { "text": "Introduce event versioning and a schema registry" }
        ]}
      ]
    }
  }'
import { IterationLayer } from "iterationlayer";
const client = new IterationLayer({ apiKey: "YOUR_API_KEY" });

const result = await client.generateDocument({
  format: "epub",
  document: {
    metadata: {
      title: "Practical Guide to Event-Driven Architecture",
      author: "Sarah Chen",
    },
    page: {
      size: { preset: "A5" },
      margins: { top_in_pt: 54, right_in_pt: 54, bottom_in_pt: 54, left_in_pt: 54 },
    },
    styles: {
      text: { font_family: "Helvetica", font_size_in_pt: 11.0, line_height: 1.5, color: "#333333" },
      headline: { font_family: "Helvetica", font_size_in_pt: 24.0, color: "#111111", spacing_before_in_pt: 12.0, spacing_after_in_pt: 6.0, is_bold: true },
      link: { color: "#0066CC", is_underlined: true },
      list: { text_style: { font_family: "Helvetica", font_size_in_pt: 11.0, line_height: 1.5, color: "#333333" }, marker_color: "#333333", marker_gap_in_pt: 8.0 },
      table: { header: { background_color: "#333333", text_color: "#FFFFFF", font_size_in_pt: 11.0, is_bold: true }, body: { background_color: "#FFFFFF", text_color: "#333333", font_size_in_pt: 11.0 }, border: { outer: { top: { color: "#CCCCCC", width_in_pt: 1.0 }, right: { color: "#CCCCCC", width_in_pt: 1.0 }, bottom: { color: "#CCCCCC", width_in_pt: 1.0 }, left: { color: "#CCCCCC", width_in_pt: 1.0 } }, inner: { horizontal: { color: "#EEEEEE", width_in_pt: 0.5 }, vertical: { color: "#EEEEEE", width_in_pt: 0.5 } } } },
      grid: { background_color: "#FFFFFF", border_color: "#CCCCCC", border_width_in_pt: 0.0, gap_in_pt: 12.0 },
      separator: { color: "#CCCCCC", thickness_in_pt: 1.0, spacing_before_in_pt: 12.0, spacing_after_in_pt: 12.0 },
      image: { border_color: "#000000", border_width_in_pt: 0.0 },
    },
    content: [
      { type: "headline", level: "h1", text: "Practical Guide to Event-Driven Architecture" },
      { type: "paragraph", markdown: "*By Sarah Chen*" },
      { type: "separator" },
      { type: "table-of-contents", levels: ["h1", "h2"], leader: "dots" },
      { type: "page-break" },
      { type: "headline", level: "h1", text: "Chapter 1: Core Concepts" },
      { type: "paragraph", markdown: "Event-driven architecture (EDA) is a software design pattern in which the flow of the program is determined by **events** — significant changes in state that the system needs to react to. Unlike traditional request-response models, EDA decouples producers from consumers, enabling systems to scale independently." },
      { type: "paragraph", markdown: "At its core, every event-driven system consists of three parts: **event producers**, which detect and publish state changes; **event channels**, which transport events between components; and **event consumers**, which react to incoming events by executing business logic." },
      { type: "list", variant: "unordered", items: [
        { text: "Loose coupling between services" },
        { text: "Independent scalability of producers and consumers" },
        { text: "Natural audit trail through event logs" },
        { text: "Resilience through asynchronous processing" },
      ]},
      { type: "page-break" },
      { type: "headline", level: "h1", text: "Chapter 2: Messaging Patterns" },
      { type: "paragraph", markdown: "Choosing the right messaging pattern is critical to building a reliable event-driven system. The two most common approaches are **publish-subscribe** and **event streaming**. Publish-subscribe delivers events to all interested subscribers in real time, while event streaming persists events in an ordered log that consumers can replay at their own pace." },
      { type: "paragraph", markdown: "A robust messaging layer must handle **at-least-once delivery**, **idempotency**, and **ordering guarantees**. Without these properties, consumers may process duplicate events, miss events entirely, or see them out of order — all of which can corrupt downstream state." },
      { type: "table", column_widths_in_percent: [30, 35, 35], header: { cells: [
        { text: "Pattern" },
        { text: "Best For" },
        { text: "Trade-off" },
      ]}, rows: [
        { cells: [
          { text: "Publish-Subscribe" },
          { text: "Real-time notifications" },
          { text: "No replay capability" },
        ]},
        { cells: [
          { text: "Event Streaming" },
          { text: "Audit logs, replay" },
          { text: "Higher storage cost" },
        ]},
        { cells: [
          { text: "Request-Reply" },
          { text: "Synchronous workflows" },
          { text: "Tight coupling" },
        ]},
      ]},
      { type: "page-break" },
      { type: "headline", level: "h1", text: "Chapter 3: Implementation Strategies" },
      { type: "paragraph", markdown: "When implementing event-driven architecture in production, start with a **single event bus** and a small number of well-defined event types. Resist the temptation to model every state change as an event. Instead, focus on domain events that carry business meaning — an order was placed, a payment was processed, a shipment was dispatched." },
      { type: "paragraph", markdown: "Adopt a **schema registry** early to enforce contracts between producers and consumers. Versioned schemas prevent breaking changes from propagating through the system and make it safe for teams to evolve their events independently." },
      { type: "list", variant: "ordered", items: [
        { text: "Define your domain events and their schemas" },
        { text: "Set up a message broker with dead-letter queues" },
        { text: "Implement idempotent consumers with deduplication" },
        { text: "Add monitoring and alerting for consumer lag" },
        { text: "Introduce event versioning and a schema registry" },
      ]},
    ],
  },
});

console.log(result);
from iterationlayer import IterationLayer
client = IterationLayer(api_key="YOUR_API_KEY")

result = client.generate_document(
    format="epub",
    document={
        "metadata": {
            "title": "Practical Guide to Event-Driven Architecture",
            "author": "Sarah Chen",
        },
        "page": {
            "size": {"preset": "A5"},
            "margins": {"top_in_pt": 54, "right_in_pt": 54, "bottom_in_pt": 54, "left_in_pt": 54},
        },
        "styles": {
            "text": {"font_family": "Helvetica", "font_size_in_pt": 11.0, "line_height": 1.5, "color": "#333333"},
            "headline": {"font_family": "Helvetica", "font_size_in_pt": 24.0, "color": "#111111", "spacing_before_in_pt": 12.0, "spacing_after_in_pt": 6.0, "is_bold": True},
            "link": {"color": "#0066CC", "is_underlined": True},
            "list": {"text_style": {"font_family": "Helvetica", "font_size_in_pt": 11.0, "line_height": 1.5, "color": "#333333"}, "marker_color": "#333333", "marker_gap_in_pt": 8.0},
            "table": {"header": {"background_color": "#333333", "text_color": "#FFFFFF", "font_size_in_pt": 11.0, "is_bold": True}, "body": {"background_color": "#FFFFFF", "text_color": "#333333", "font_size_in_pt": 11.0}, "border": {"outer": {"top": {"color": "#CCCCCC", "width_in_pt": 1.0}, "right": {"color": "#CCCCCC", "width_in_pt": 1.0}, "bottom": {"color": "#CCCCCC", "width_in_pt": 1.0}, "left": {"color": "#CCCCCC", "width_in_pt": 1.0}}, "inner": {"horizontal": {"color": "#EEEEEE", "width_in_pt": 0.5}, "vertical": {"color": "#EEEEEE", "width_in_pt": 0.5}}}},
            "grid": {"background_color": "#FFFFFF", "border_color": "#CCCCCC", "border_width_in_pt": 0.0, "gap_in_pt": 12.0},
            "separator": {"color": "#CCCCCC", "thickness_in_pt": 1.0, "spacing_before_in_pt": 12.0, "spacing_after_in_pt": 12.0},
            "image": {"border_color": "#000000", "border_width_in_pt": 0.0},
        },
        "content": [
            {"type": "headline", "level": "h1", "text": "Practical Guide to Event-Driven Architecture"},
            {"type": "paragraph", "markdown": "*By Sarah Chen*"},
            {"type": "separator"},
            {"type": "table-of-contents", "levels": ["h1", "h2"], "leader": "dots"},
            {"type": "page-break"},
            {"type": "headline", "level": "h1", "text": "Chapter 1: Core Concepts"},
            {"type": "paragraph", "markdown": "Event-driven architecture (EDA) is a software design pattern in which the flow of the program is determined by **events** — significant changes in state that the system needs to react to. Unlike traditional request-response models, EDA decouples producers from consumers, enabling systems to scale independently."},
            {"type": "paragraph", "markdown": "At its core, every event-driven system consists of three parts: **event producers**, which detect and publish state changes; **event channels**, which transport events between components; and **event consumers**, which react to incoming events by executing business logic."},
            {"type": "list", "variant": "unordered", "items": [
                {"text": "Loose coupling between services"},
                {"text": "Independent scalability of producers and consumers"},
                {"text": "Natural audit trail through event logs"},
                {"text": "Resilience through asynchronous processing"},
            ]},
            {"type": "page-break"},
            {"type": "headline", "level": "h1", "text": "Chapter 2: Messaging Patterns"},
            {"type": "paragraph", "markdown": "Choosing the right messaging pattern is critical to building a reliable event-driven system. The two most common approaches are **publish-subscribe** and **event streaming**. Publish-subscribe delivers events to all interested subscribers in real time, while event streaming persists events in an ordered log that consumers can replay at their own pace."},
            {"type": "paragraph", "markdown": "A robust messaging layer must handle **at-least-once delivery**, **idempotency**, and **ordering guarantees**. Without these properties, consumers may process duplicate events, miss events entirely, or see them out of order — all of which can corrupt downstream state."},
            {"type": "table", "column_widths_in_percent": [30, 35, 35], "header": {"cells": [
                {"text": "Pattern"},
                {"text": "Best For"},
                {"text": "Trade-off"},
            ]}, "rows": [
                {"cells": [
                    {"text": "Publish-Subscribe"},
                    {"text": "Real-time notifications"},
                    {"text": "No replay capability"},
                ]},
                {"cells": [
                    {"text": "Event Streaming"},
                    {"text": "Audit logs, replay"},
                    {"text": "Higher storage cost"},
                ]},
                {"cells": [
                    {"text": "Request-Reply"},
                    {"text": "Synchronous workflows"},
                    {"text": "Tight coupling"},
                ]},
            ]},
            {"type": "page-break"},
            {"type": "headline", "level": "h1", "text": "Chapter 3: Implementation Strategies"},
            {"type": "paragraph", "markdown": "When implementing event-driven architecture in production, start with a **single event bus** and a small number of well-defined event types. Resist the temptation to model every state change as an event. Instead, focus on domain events that carry business meaning — an order was placed, a payment was processed, a shipment was dispatched."},
            {"type": "paragraph", "markdown": "Adopt a **schema registry** early to enforce contracts between producers and consumers. Versioned schemas prevent breaking changes from propagating through the system and make it safe for teams to evolve their events independently."},
            {"type": "list", "variant": "ordered", "items": [
                {"text": "Define your domain events and their schemas"},
                {"text": "Set up a message broker with dead-letter queues"},
                {"text": "Implement idempotent consumers with deduplication"},
                {"text": "Add monitoring and alerting for consumer lag"},
                {"text": "Introduce event versioning and a schema registry"},
            ]},
        ],
    },
)

print(result)
package main

import il "github.com/iterationlayer/sdk-go"

client := il.NewClient("YOUR_API_KEY")

result, err := client.GenerateDocument(il.GenerateDocumentRequest{
    Format: "epub",
    Document: il.DocumentDefinition{
        Metadata: il.DocumentMetadata{Title: "Practical Guide to Event-Driven Architecture", Author: "Sarah Chen"},
        Content: []il.ContentBlock{
            il.NewHeadlineBlock("h1", "Practical Guide to Event-Driven Architecture"),
            il.ParagraphBlock{Type: "paragraph", Markdown: "*By Sarah Chen*"},
            il.NewSeparatorBlock(),
            il.NewPageBreakBlock(),
            il.NewHeadlineBlock("h1", "Chapter 1: Core Concepts"),
            il.ParagraphBlock{Type: "paragraph", Markdown: "Event-driven architecture (EDA) is a software design pattern..."},
            il.NewHeadlineBlock("h1", "Chapter 2: Messaging Patterns"),
            il.ParagraphBlock{Type: "paragraph", Markdown: "Choosing the right messaging pattern is critical..."},
            il.NewHeadlineBlock("h1", "Chapter 3: Implementation Strategies"),
            il.ParagraphBlock{Type: "paragraph", Markdown: "When implementing event-driven architecture in production..."},
        },
    },
})

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