unipress

book

A trade book — long-form prose with chapters. Trade-6x9 trim, default typography (system fonts via Typst's built-in fall-back), title page, copyright spread, table of contents, roman-numeralled front matter. Compiles to PDF (Typst), Typst source bundle, Paged.js HTML, or EPUB.

Scaffold

unipress create my-book --template book --title "My Book" --author "Jane Doe"
cd my-book
unipress compile . --format pdf --out my-book.pdf

What you get

my-book/
├── document.yml          pinned to @unipress/book@<version>
├── content/
│   ├── 01-preface.md     type: BackMatter — unnumbered front matter
│   ├── 02-chapter-one.md
│   └── 03-chapter-two.md
└── README.md             starter notes

document.yml fields

FieldPurpose
book.titleThe title shown on the title page and in headers.
book.subtitleOptional subtitle, italic on the title page.
book.authorAuthor byline.
book.languageBCP-47 primary tag (en, fr, es, …) for label localization.
book.rights, .publisher, .isbnCopyright-page strings.
book.trimtrade-6x9 (default), trade-7x10, crown-octavo, royal-octavo, a5.
book.typography.bodySize, .leading, .firstLineIndentBody-copy spacing.
book.typography.bodyFont, .headingFont, .codeFontFont lists; null for Typst defaults.
book.structure.titlePage, .copyrightPage, .tocToggle front-matter blocks.
book.structure.tocDepthHow deep TOC entries nest (default 2).
book.structure.frontMatterNumberingnone / roman / arabic.
book.covers.front, .backPaths or URLs to cover artwork.

Add chapters

Drop a markdown file under content/ and add its base name (without .md) to document.yml's content: list in the order you want it to appear. Chapters need no frontmatter — the foundation's Chapter section handles them by default. For non-chapter pages (acknowledgments, colophon, appendices), use type: BackMatter in frontmatter to skip chapter numbering.

Common customizations

  • Larger trim for technical books: set book.trim: trade-7x10.
  • Classical typography: switch to the monograph template, which preconfigures EB Garamond + royal-octavo trim and a deeper TOC.
  • Cover artwork: drop image files under assets/, reference them via book.covers.front: /assets/cover.jpg.

Foundation reference

@unipress/book — see the foundation's README for the full list of section types, layout knobs, and theme variables: framework/unipress/foundations/book/README.md.