Publishing Tools for Corel Ventura
A modern WordPress publishing bridge for people who still rely on Ventura for serious long-document work.
Ventura marked text and RTF · Book Builder · TOC and index marker preparation · EPUB/HTML/Markdown · migration tools
Free and open source. WordPress.org submission build in preparation.
Release candidate
Version 2.1.2 is being prepared for WordPress.org review.
6.2 or later
7.4 or later
WordPress 7.1
GPL-2.0-or-later
Ventura remains unusually capable at long, structured publications. This plugin connects that older production environment to WordPress and to modern publishing formats without pretending Ventura is a contemporary web application.
Four publishing workflows in one plugin
Export to Ventura
Convert selected WordPress content to Ventura-ready marked text or RTF, with paragraph/tag mapping, ordering controls, character handling, and preflight.
Book Builder
Assemble longer works, order front matter and chapters, prepare table-of-contents structure, and insert Ventura index-reference markers before the text reaches final pagination.
Modern publishing
Build EPUB, HTML, and Markdown outputs from the same book project when the publication also needs modern distribution formats.
Migration Studio
Bring Ventura marked text back into a structured modern workflow, map tags, inspect the conversion, and prepare content for WordPress or other destinations.
Indexing: what the plugin does and what Ventura does
The plugin can mark index terms in the text before export. Ventura itself remains responsible for the finished alphabetical index and the page numbers, because those page numbers do not exist until the book has been flowed and paginated in Ventura. That division keeps the index tied to the final layout instead of guessing pagination upstream.
Designed for real book production
The plugin is intended for books, journals, manuals, archives, and other structured publications rather than one-off copy-and-paste jobs. It supports reusable tag mapping, saved projects, preflight feedback, content ordering, and multi-format output so a WordPress archive can function as a source system rather than a dead end.
Ventura marked text
Ventura’s tagged-text model is one reason the application has remained useful for structured publishing. The exporter preserves that model by generating paragraph tags and inline codes that Ventura can interpret. The plugin also includes a migration parser for bringing marked text back the other direction.
EPUB, HTML, and Markdown
Ventura may be the final layout environment for print, but it does not have to be the only destination. The Modern Publishing tools can generate an EPUB package, an HTML document, or Markdown from a book project. EPUB output uses WordPress media and can localize images referenced by the source content.
Optional AI-assisted cover generation
On WordPress 7 or later, cover-image generation uses the WordPress AI Client. Provider choice and credentials stay in WordPress’s connector system rather than being stored by this plugin. The feature is optional; Ventura export, book building, migration, and modern publishing do not require AI.
Privacy and external services
The plugin includes no analytics or telemetry. Normal Ventura export and migration are local to the WordPress site. EPUB creation may retrieve remote images referenced by the selected content so they can be packaged into the book. Optional AI cover generation sends the user-approved prompt through the WordPress AI Client to the connector configured by the site administrator.
Requirements
- WordPress 6.2 or later
- PHP 7.4 or later
- ZIP support for EPUB/book ZIP creation
- DOM support for EPUB processing
- WordPress 7+ only for the optional AI Client cover workflow
Who is this for?
It is deliberately niche software. It is for people who still value Ventura’s long-document workflow, organizations with Ventura-based publishing processes, and publishers who want WordPress to feed an established Ventura production system instead of forcing a complete platform change.
Why Open Arts Press built it
Open Arts Press develops publishing tools from problems encountered in actual editorial and production work. Ventura is old software, but the problem it solves—keeping a large, structured publication consistent—has not disappeared. This plugin keeps that workflow connected to a modern content system while leaving the final typographic work where Ventura remains strongest.
Ventura resources
Guides on running Ventura, marked text, indexing, migration, and recovering old publications.