[HN Gopher] EpubPress, turn web content into ebooks
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EpubPress, turn web content into ebooks
Author : Dangeranger
Score : 105 points
Date : 2022-04-15 14:26 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (epub.press)
(TXT) w3m dump (epub.press)
| arikrak wrote:
| I sometimes like to read on paper so I've used this to collect
| articles into an epub and then I can convert it to a PDF for
| printing. However it would be nice to find a faster solution for
| collecting articles and removing unnecessary pictures.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| This is probably a good scripting task, suitable for either a
| beginner or to outsource to a freelancer. Ideally just activate
| a browser extension and have it go through the conversion steps
| and pop open the print dialog.
| assbuttbuttass wrote:
| Cool I've used Calibre in the past to convert a webpage to epub
| but the quality is always poor. I'll need to give this a try.
| Ancient wrote:
| Thanks for releasing this cool tool.
|
| Some feedback: The plugin (via Chrome v100) could not render this
| HN post, thus the epub download was not useful.
|
| Screenshot feedback: https://i.imgur.com/q1T0Hd0.png
| mdaniel wrote:
| Err, did you also email support@epub.press as they requested? I
| know "support via HN" is a thing, but ...
| KaoruAoiShiho wrote:
| Would really love to get this working on my site:
| https://fiction.live
|
| A lot of my users have been requesting this.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| Somewhat related: Push to Kindle
| https://www.fivefilters.org/push-to-kindle/
| davidandgoliath wrote:
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/sendtokindle
| blondin wrote:
| this looks useful! will definitely give it a try.
|
| for those who made that decision recently, what ebook reader did
| you get? i am quite torn between: kindle, i-pad, and e-ink
| devices (remarkable 2, boox note air 2, kobo elipsa, quaderno.)
|
| i heard e-inks are good on your eyes, which is always good.
| kindles would not support uploading your own PDFs or taking notes
| on them. the quaderno looks fantastic but quite big (i like a
| book-sized device). the remarkable 2 wants you to subscribe to
| services...
|
| so, have you got one of these recently? which one?
| JasonFruit wrote:
| I have the Boox Note Air 2, and it's great. Only complaint:
| time from picking it up to reading is too long, because it has
| to boot up and doesn't remember which book you were reading,
| though it does remember your place. Other than that, I enjoy
| everything about it. The display is beautiful and the software
| has been stable for me, despite what I've read in reviews.
| goosedragons wrote:
| That's easily fixed. In the power settings just change Power-
| off timeout to a day or never then it will just sleep and you
| can easily be back at whatever you're doing. I haven't had a
| huge power drain while sleeping so I'm not sure why they're
| so aggressive about turning it off by default.
| JasonFruit wrote:
| I just assumed that they set it to such a short timeout by
| default for a reason, so I never tried it. Huh.
| kodt wrote:
| You can put your own PDFs on Kindles using Calibre.
| bytematic wrote:
| I have a remarkable. Know that the device is designed almost
| exclusively for writing. It is extremely bare bones when it
| comes to reading. PDF's an eBooks with code can become a
| formatting nightmare and it lacks many of the tools that most
| e-readers come with. It is however, fantastic for writing, and
| decent at reading if you hack in some custom apps like
| koreader. You have to remove DRM from amazon epubs though,
| which I haven't yet done. and can't comment on.
| phil294 wrote:
| I bought a Pocketbook 301 from 2007 for 13EUR recently, as it
| is one of the few ebooks without internet connection. It has
| buttons, an SD card slot, it reads all common formats (FB2
| works best), and it has an audio jack plug. You can use it for
| reading, and that's it. Probably the best product I ever
| bought.
|
| No note taking obviously.
| raadore wrote:
| Kindle Paperwhite continues to serve me well for ten years of
| daily reading. I upload pdfs, various doc formats and all my
| ebooks to it all the time by simply emailing the file to
| Amazon's whisper service which you get automatically with the
| kindle purchase.
|
| No, it is not a note-taking device although short notes for
| highlighted text may be done. It is a reading device. And I
| highly recommend it.
| dgarrett wrote:
| If you're the kind of person who likes the ability to tweak
| your environment and get things set up just right for you, I'd
| recommend getting a Kobo and putting KOReader[1] on it. It has
| the classic OSS problem of bad defaults, but it's very flexible
| and can be a uniquely nice experience once you get it
| configured in a way you like. It's mostly written in Lua and
| has responsive maintainers, so if you're a developer you can
| extend it even further.
|
| It has great PDF support, including good reflow and note taking
| support (highlights and text notes). And export support to
| text/json/html/Readwise.io for those notes.
|
| It also has the best UI I've seen to visualize the structure of
| a book you're reading.[2]
|
| The biggest downside is that you have to do more file
| management of your ebooks, since it isn't hooked into a nice
| cloud like Kindle. I use Calibre for this, and set up an OPDS
| server for some basic cloud downloading.
|
| [1] https://koreader.rocks/
|
| [2] Book Map and Page Browser:
| https://github.com/koreader/koreader/releases/tag/v2022.01
| goosedragons wrote:
| You can also put KOReader on Android devices (or jail broken
| Kindles). Personally I'm not a fan though. It like every
| other open ePub reader I've tried also has limited to no
| support for ePub 3, so no vertical writing, no right to left
| page turns in manga, etc. I'd rather use Kobo's renderer than
| KOReader, better UI and better rendering IMO.
| mdaniel wrote:
| > It like every other open ePub reader I've tried also has
| limited to no support for ePub 3
|
| Is there an open issue for that feature gap in KOReader?
| I'm always curious whether it's just "we haven't gotten
| there yet" versus "we don't want to do that"
| goosedragons wrote:
| Yeah there is for vertical writing
| (https://github.com/koreader/koreader/issues/4353) at
| least. It seems like it's a limitation of their engines
| so I don't blame them.
| goosedragons wrote:
| I have a couple Boox devices right now and have had Kobo and
| Kindle devices in the past as well as iPads but I kinda feel
| those go in their own category.
|
| The Boox devices are fast, easily the fastest eInk devices I've
| used and are extremely flexible thanks to the fact that they
| just run Android. You do have to fiddle a bit with the app
| optimization settings because apps aren't typically designed
| with eInk in mind so you need to filter out animations and set
| refresh modes. But it is super nice to just have whatever
| available. The Kindle app, Libby, Google Play books,
| Pressreader, etc. The built in software is very good for PDFs
| especially in comparison to the junk Amazon and Kobo put on
| theirs. It's OKAY for ePubs/AZW3 but it has some rough edges
| and bugs but you can just use another 3rd party app so it's not
| a huge deal. Note taking software works well IMO too.
|
| Kobo still has a better built in ePub reader in terms of
| rendering but devices are slower and it's more annoying to get
| books on and off. As for Kindle there's very little reason to
| buy one unless you're certain you're going to play in their
| store and are happy with their limited font and formatting
| options. Send to Kindle is probably the best feature but you
| can only send ancient KF7 mobis or like txt files. You can put
| PDFs on a Kindle but it's a horrid experience, Kobo is slightly
| better especially on the new models.
|
| I've heard Remarkable's suck at ePubs and it seems like it from
| videos and I wouldn't use an iPad for reading books as it's
| just too distracting IMO.
|
| If you mainly want PDF support or want flexibility with regards
| to what you can do and are okay with some rough edges get a
| Boox, if you want good ePub support and it to "just work" get a
| Kobo.
| throwanem wrote:
| I have a reMarkable, but can't recommend it for this or any
| other use case. The hardware's great, and deserves better
| than the software it has - which barely exists, and mostly
| doesn't work well.
| zwayhowder wrote:
| I second all of this. I've had a B&N Nook, Kindles from basic
| ones in 2010 through to the 2019 Oasis and for the last 18
| months I've had a Boox Note 2. I have no regrets. My use
| cases other than recreational reading for 30-60 minutes a day
| is academic research and/or whitepaper reviewing.
|
| I run the Kindle app on it, as well as an Adobe reader and
| the main reader is great for anything without DRM. I use an
| Android App (Autosync) to sync instead of the built in sync
| client. My ebook folder in NextCloud is in sync on the Boox
| and my laptop, both ways so annotated PDFs come straight back
| to my PC.
|
| I read a lot of PDFs of A4/Letter pages so the larger size
| screen is a godsend. I can't imagine going back to a smaller
| device now.
| nestorD wrote:
| I love the eink technology and have been happy with a reader
| bought about ten years ago. However, nowadays, I find myself
| mostly using the ReadEra app[0] on my phone (no affiliation).
|
| It being an app on my phone means that I always have my book
| with me and can read during any break time in the day. Plus, it
| deals with pdfs very nicely which turns out to be surprisingly
| useful when reading other things such as scientific papers and
| technical books.
|
| [0]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.readera
| RheingoldRiver wrote:
| I have a Kindle Oasis. I _mostly_ like it. The yellow light
| feature that they added is amazing, and I like the page turn
| buttons.
|
| My biggest complaints are: (1) the battery life is terrible,
| compared to my previous Kindle - recently I've been reading a
| _lot_ but I have to charge it every couple days rather than
| like once a week, and it 's absolutely mandatory to keep it in
| airplane mode. (2) the metal casing is an extremely
| questionable product design choice, it gets VERY cold in the
| winter, though I suppose if I bought a case to go with it this
| would be less of a problem (I don't want a case, the point is
| to have a lightweight device). Would much prefer a plastic
| chassis. (3) This one is a bit more esoteric, but: while you
| can switch the buttons between page forward & back, you cannot
| map them BOTH to forward, so if you like to frequently
| reposition how you hold the device, too bad, it's very
| inconvenient to remap the buttons as you move your hands.
| (Since you rarely press page back, I'd rather use the touch
| screen as designed for page back, and have both buttons be page
| forward.)
| goosedragons wrote:
| I feel like you might like the Kobo Libra 2. Bigger battery,
| similar size and shape with same screen resolution and size,
| still has yellow light, plastic case, there's a patch to make
| both buttons go forward. Weighs 30 grams more though.
| criddell wrote:
| Get a Kindle or Kobo _and_ a 13" iPad or Quaderno. The Kindle
| or Kobo is ideal for reading books and the 13" tablet is what
| you want for PDFs. The Remarkable and other 10" devices are
| nice but it's too small for PDFs. If they made a 13"
| Remarkable, I would probably recommend that.
| mackrevinack wrote:
| im using a boox nova 3 at the moment. i mainly went with this
| device because it uses android as the OS which makes it easy to
| install syncthing and sync my books folder to it. i can add or
| remove books / long form articles to the syncthing folder on my
| phone or laptop and everything is synced across later on
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| There's really not a one-size-fits-all solution for everyone.
| The options you listed seem to be larger devices with pen
| support, so is that what you're in the market for? I ask
| because the best pure ebook reader device is not necessarily
| the best device for PDF reading/annotation. Bigger screens are
| better for those--you really need at least a 10-inch screen if
| you want to comfortably read or edit PDFs. As close to a
| standard 8.5x11" piece of paper as you can get, ideally,
| because the majority of PDFs that you would be annotating will
| likely be physical paper scans.
|
| But if all you're reading are ebooks in formats that support
| text reflow (EPUB,MOBI,etc.), you can get away with the normal
| 6" readers, with the advantage that they're smaller and more
| portable, and cause less fatigue to hold in your hands for
| extended periods.
|
| Of the smaller e-readers, I personally favor the Kobo. The
| Clara HD had slightly better specs than the equivalent Kindle
| Paperwhite when it came out, in addition to better supporting
| the things I care about (like STANDARD ebook formats, Pocket
| integration, and Overdrive integration). So that was the right
| decision for me. But for my family, I've just recommended they
| get the Kindle Paperwhite, because most of them don't care
| about trying to pull their books out of the Amazon ecosystem.
| acabal wrote:
| Kobo has the best eink renderer and has the best support for
| modern standards. iBooks is the best renderer on tablet/iOS.
| Kindle is an ereader made by people who hate books.
| trebor wrote:
| I have needed this for years! Thank you for this site/tool!
| cleverkayaking wrote:
| I have used a similar tool before: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
| US/firefox/addon/saveasebook/
| bayouborne wrote:
| I've used the dotEPUB extension for Chrome now for several years
| and its generally excellent. Can be config'ed to save to epub or
| mobi.
| rg111 wrote:
| Looks really cool and fits my use-case. Will definitely install
| and try it.
| blondin wrote:
| OMG, i am so disappointed!
|
| apologies for the double comment. the other one is still useful
| to me. but this plugin fails miserably with the javascript's
| "please accept these cookies" prompts.
|
| try it on this link i had on my unread bookmarks:
| https://web.dev/streams
| longnguyen wrote:
| Shameless plug: I'm building something similar and looks like
| it's working correctly. Can you give it a try, link below:
|
| https://ktool.io/read-on-kindle?url=https://web.dev/streams/
| sundarurfriend wrote:
| I haven't installed the extension yet, but perhaps you could
| try https://remove-js.com/https://web.dev/streams/ instead? I'd
| guess that that would work, but I'd be curious to know.
| maoserr wrote:
| I wrote something similar: https://github.com/maoserr/epublifier
|
| It's more geared towards longer web novels with 50+ chapters
| (I've used it on novels with 500 chapters before). Instead of
| opening each page as a tab, it fetches chapters from a Table of
| Contents page.
|
| It was written for jnovel/cnovel/knovel site, but it can handle
| any generic page that has a list of links.
| gfaster wrote:
| I also wrote an alternative solution (not a public repo), but I
| found that relying on site maps and other link lists generally
| gave unsatisfactory results. Instead, my solution navigated as
| a user and actually used next chapter links. While that slowed
| it down (+ 10 seconds between requests to be polite), it could
| handle very large books, with the largest I used being 700+
| chapters at the time (5000 pages).
| TakerofVita wrote:
| I've written similar scripts to do this, but lncrawl replaced
| most of them https://github.com/dipu-bd/lightnovel-crawler/
| criddell wrote:
| If you are looking for a good site to test it on, try
| https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_toc.html
| leke wrote:
| Definitely some good use cases for this.
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(page generated 2022-04-15 23:00 UTC)