Sigil Review – Simple and Sophisticated eBook Editor

excellent
key review info
application features
  • Open, edit, and create ePub eBooks
  • (14 more, see all...)

Simplicity has always been an essential aspect when it comes to software, thanks to clear-cut interfaces and straightforward options that permit users to quickly get from point A to B. 

When it comes to eBook viewers and editors, Sigil stands out in this regard. It enables users to seamlessly create, open, edit, and save ePub files, while offering support for HTML, XML, and TXT files, images, and video. Although it puts emphasis on an elementary design and functions, the program also comes loaded with advanced features and configuration settings dedicated to experienced users.

Installation and interface

During the setup stage, users may associate ePub-formatted files with Sigil. The Microsoft Visual C++ 2013 Redistributable package is required for the application to work, and it is bundled with the installer.

We have already established that simplicity lies at its core. Sigil is packed in a classical-looking interface that contains a book browser with files and directories shown hierarchically and a clips panel that enables users to insert predefined HTML tags and CSS styles, in addition to custom-made clips, a Lorem Ipsum text filler, and various text formatting attributes (e.g. lowercase, uppercase).

The GUI also includes a preview panel for HTML design, table of contents, and a frame for verifying whether eBooks meet the ePub standards or not (via FlightCrew), for validating CSS stylesheets with the online W3C CSS validation service, as well as for ensuring the validation XHTML code and automatically cleaning or formatting it using HTML Tidy or Pretty Print Tidy (if necessary).

How to put together ePub files

When opening a new project, the book browser creates empty directories to fill them with text, CSS styles, images, fonts, audio, video, and other types of files. Multiple tabs are supported, so multiple files can be juggled at the same time. Apart from opening ePub, HTML (XHTML), and TXT files, it is possible to add blank stylesheets, HTML files, and SVG images to put together the ePub file. A very handy feature is represented by the ability to toggle book and code view with one click (or keyboard shortcut).

Browse book files and the table of contents
Browse book files and the table of contents

Content can be split into two files at the current cursor position, which means that all content before that position remains in the original file while the remaining part is placed in a new file automatically opened in a new tab. Likewise, users can insert split markers (horizontal lines) to later take their position into account and span multiple documents.

Another notable feature about Sigil is that it automatically records all clips and lets users paste any of them from the Clipboard history. Images, videos, and audio tracks can be inserted from external files, along with IDs, links, closing tags, and special characters after studying a map (e.g. non-breaking space, soft hyphen, omega, infinity).

Formatting and search options

There are several types of headings available with predefined attributes that can be applied to text, while the existing attributes can be preserved or discarded. Other standard formatting options can be found here, such as bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, subscript, and superscript, in addition to text alignment, bullet or numbered lists, indentation size, and text direction (left to right, or right to left).

Sigil's search function comes loaded with a few filters, such as minimal match, case sensitive, or regular expression mode, as well as direction (up or down). Plus, it can cover just the current file, all selected, or just HTML files, replace words automatically, and count all matches. Users may also set bookmarks, go to a specific link or style, and jump to lines.

Resort to practical tools

A cover can be assigned to the eBook with images, video, and audio, while its metadata can be edited in terms of title, author, language, and other basic properties and roles. It is possible to generate a table of contents by selecting headings or to edit the existing one, create, and edit an index and add new entries, enable a spellchecker that supports highlighting, validate the ePub and stylesheets, save searches to use them in future projects, as well as clean up ePub content and reduce file size by deleting unused media files or stylestheet classes.

Switch to split view mode to view code and design side-by-side
Switch to split view mode to view code and design side-by-side

As previously mentioned, the clips panel gives users the possibility to quickly insert HTML tags and CSS styles. However, these predefined clips can be edited or removed, while new ones can be added to the list, classified into different groups, as well as exported to INI format and later imported.

Reports can be easily compiled to find out various statistics for HTML, image and CSS files, style classes in HTML and CSS links, and characters in HTML. These include the total size, words, misspelled words, images, video, audio, and stylesheets in HTML, together with size, frequency, width, height, pixels, and color in images.

Program preferences

When it comes to appearance, Sigil can be customized in terms of font size and type for book and CSS view, in addition to font size and standard font when inserting special characters. All toolbars can be removed and it is possible to zoom in and out of content. When automatic cleaning is enabled, the tool can perform the formatting using either Pretty Print Tidy or HTML Tidy, depending on the user's preferences.

Keyboard shortcuts are supported for almost all commands and they can be remapped in any way. What's more, users can switch to another language for the UI, metadata, and spellchecker, add new spellcheck dictionaries, select the entities to preserve, as well as add plugins to enhance Sigil's functionality (made in Python).


The Good

The application worked well on Windows 8.1 Pro during our evaluation, without hanging, crashing, or popping up error messages. OS compatibility extends to older Windows versions, including XP.

It is multilingual, supports plugins and keyboard shortcuts for all important commands, and includes extensive help documentation for inexperienced users, along with several how-to guides.

The interface is clean and intuitive. CPU and RAM consumption is low.

Notable options include the Clipboard history that allows users to insert any recorded clips into text, the ability to split text into two documents at the cursor position or after inserting markers, as well as the dual view mode: book and code.

Users can edit the metadata of eBooks, create and design covers, enable an automatic spellchecker that supports highlighting and multiple languages, generate thorough reports with the types of content existing in the eBook, create a table of contents, as well as create shortcuts (clips) for long lines of text to quickly insert into the document with one click.

ePubs can be validated with FlightCrew, while stylesheets can be validated with W3C. Content can be cleaned up when it comes to unused media files and stylesheet classes to attempt to reduce the eBook file size. A search function can be run with applied filters, as well as saved to be run again later.

It is free to use.

The Bad

The simplicity of the program may trick users into thinking that Sigil can be handled by just about anyone, even beginners. However, it takes a while to get used to all of its features and configuration parameters (the help file is a good place to get started).

The Truth

All things considered, we found Sigil to be an excellent software application for creating and editing ePub eBooks, backed by a wide array of practical options and customization settings.

user interface 4
features 5
ease of use 4
pricing / value 5


final rating 5
Editor's review
excellent
 
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Sigil (22 Images)

Open, edit, and create ePub ebooksTake your time to explore the toolbar and buttonsBrowse book files and the table of contentsSwitch from book to code view and check out validation resultsInsert predefined clips into content
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