[HN Gopher] Show HN: eInk optimized manga with Kindle Comic Conv...
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Show HN: eInk optimized manga with Kindle Comic Converter
(+Kobo/ReMarkable)
Kindle Comic Converter optimizes comics and manga for eink readers
like Kindle, Kobo, ReMarkable, and more. Pages display in
fullscreen without margins, with proper fixed layout support. Its
main feature is various optional image processing steps to look
good on eink screens, which have different requirements than normal
LCD screens. It also does filesize optimization by downscaling to
your specific device's screen resolution, which can improve
performance on underpowered ereaders. Supported input formats
include folders/CBZ/CBR/PDF of JPG/PNG files and more. Supported
output formats include MOBI/AZW3, EPUB, KEPUB, and CBZ. Hey
everyone! I'm the current maintainer of KCC since 2023, thanks for
using it! I've been reading manga on Kindle ever since I got the
big 9.7" Kindle DX from 2010 using mangle, and upgraded to the even
bigger 10.2" Kindle Scribe 2022 using KCC. The biggest
contributions I've made to KCC are: - added modern macOS support
and removed homebrew requirement - ported code to run on native
Apple silicon M1 chip and later for a 2x speed boost (qt5->qt6) -
free open source windows codesign with SignPath - fixed Kindle
Scribe support - and tons of other various features and bug fixes
and developer friendly changes - created a legacy Windows 7 build
with 300+ downloads... The biggest community PRs were: - huge 2x
speed boosts due to various CPU/IO optimizations - Kobo/Remarkable
support Enjoy using KCC and let me know if you have any questions!
Author : seam_carver
Score : 183 points
Date : 2025-05-07 15:26 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| looperhacks wrote:
| This sounds great!
|
| I never got to reading manga on my Paperwhite 4(?) because the
| scaling made the text terrible to read (that was with KOReader a
| few years ago). Does this tool handle this better?
| seam_carver wrote:
| A recent feature I implemented a few weeks ago was virtual
| panel view.
|
| You can enable it in the Kindle Aa menu.
|
| You can double tap a corner to zoom into the corner in portrait
| mode 150% zoom.
|
| Or you can turn the Kindle sideways to read half a page at a
| time.
|
| and KCC scaling using the LANCOZ algorithm, which looks great.
| shiandow wrote:
| Are there any plans to integrate this with calibre? Or is it
| integrated already?
|
| The combination would be quite powerful IMHO.
| seam_carver wrote:
| I personally just do boring USB transfer of files instead.
| Users have reported issues with Calibre modifying KCC files and
| breaking the formatting, fixed layout books like comics/manga
| are different than normal reflowable ebooks.
|
| I only use Calibre for normal ebooks.
|
| Maybe in the future, KCC has command line versions as well.
| It's all Python.
| shiandow wrote:
| I think calibre plugins are all python, in theory that should
| work. In practice, who knows.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| How do you do USB transfers without Calibre?
| seam_carver wrote:
| You just drag and drop the mobi file into the documents
| folder on the Kindle.
|
| If you are on macOS, you need the Amazon USB File Manager
| app to do that on newer MTP based Kindles. Older kindles
| just used ordinary USB mass storage protocol. Link in
| readme.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Thank you very much! I didn't know about this.
| koskanaiken wrote:
| https://standardebooks.org/help/how-to-use-our-ebooks
| npteljes wrote:
| Curious project! I'd love to check out the samples, but the links
| don't seem to be working in the README.
| seam_carver wrote:
| Oh... the sample links are all dead. They were made by previous
| KCC maintainer.
|
| For now, here's some kindle scribe samples. The mobi can be usb
| transferred, the epub can be sent via Send to Kindle. They
| might look fine on other Kindles, let me know! Otherwise I can
| put up more samples.
|
| https://www.mediafire.com/folder/ixh40veo6hrc5/kcc_samples
|
| Edit: added more kindles/kobos/remarkable, lmk if I made any
| errors! only difference is resolution
| joshdavham wrote:
| Hey thanks for posting this! I'll defintitely check it out.
|
| Also, as a somewhat unrelated question: how would you recommend
| someone go about learning pyqt? I've looked into it briefly and
| am not really sure what the recommended resources are for this
| framework.
| seam_carver wrote:
| This project was my first exposure to Qt, and I just read the
| official docs.
| joshdavham wrote:
| Are these the docs you're referring to?
| https://doc.qt.io/qtforpython-6/
| seam_carver wrote:
| Yes, but be aware I didn't write this from scratch, I
| ported pre-existing qt5 code to qt6. and made modifications
| to the UI
| sepositus wrote:
| Has anyone tried this on a Remarkable? It always seemed like the
| perfect size for reading comic books/magna.
| seam_carver wrote:
| Considering how ReMarkable support was added by a community
| member, it probably looks great.
|
| edit: added remarkable 1/2 sample file to link in other
| comment.
| ksynwa wrote:
| Normally I just use Koreader on my Kobo. It crops out the margin
| automatically which is necessary for the small screen. Then I
| play with the contrast to make the blacks look like they would on
| paper. Hate asking people to sell their hard work to me but is
| there something else that this tool does to make the experience
| even better?
| seam_carver wrote:
| The main audience of KCC doesn't have access to the powerful
| features of koreader, but filesize optimization is pretty nice
| and can get filesizes down significantly.
|
| Cropping whitespace between panels (not just margins on the
| edge) is also cool. And page number cropping.
| 7jjjjjjj wrote:
| This is a huge deal for me, last time I wanted to read manga
| on my kindle the filesize is what killed the idea.
| MilanTodorovic wrote:
| I got around this with Pillow and Python by reducing the
| image quality to like 20% which in my case didn't have any
| compromises, but reduced the image size quite
| substantially. Then I repackaged the images back into cbz
| and used KCC to make a proper file. As a disclaimer, I have
| done it only with the Kaiji Ultimate Survivor series to be
| able to fit the entire manga on my Kindle PW3 with 4GB of
| storage (I already used up like 1.5GB). Kaiji has less
| complex drawings, which most certainly plays a role.
| Mr_Eri_Atlov wrote:
| This looks incredibly well done. Thank you for this tool!
| janetmissed wrote:
| ty for maintaining kcc, I've used it heavily for close to a
| decade. I definitely noticed the performance boost on my macbook
| :)
| seam_carver wrote:
| KCC is developed on an M2 Mac Mini so I was highly incentivized
| to make it fast on Apple.
| tecleandor wrote:
| Looks nice! I'm gonna test it!
|
| Feature idea (that I think it doesn't have): a gamma/palette
| sampler. Takes one page of the source, and generates an output
| with multiple pages, all for the same source page, but each one
| using a different gamma and/or palette option. Useful when the
| source is "difficult" (weird shading, colors...) or it's an
| unknown device, to find the best configuration.
| seam_carver wrote:
| I usually leave it on auto or disable gamma by setting it to
| 1.0
| sabslikesobs wrote:
| Super cool. Thanks for maintaining this.
|
| I read manga extensively on my Kobo Forma with koreader. I wrote
| a script with imagemagick to scale, trim, adjust contrast, map to
| 16 colors, dither, and repack, all without me having to interact
| with it... something I'm hoping to open-source sometime, although
| it's very specific to my use case.
| seam_carver wrote:
| Can't wait to see it when you open source
| roskelld wrote:
| Bookmarking this for when I have some free time. It might get me
| back to finishing my read through of Berserk.
| royaltjames wrote:
| I just started this today and wow
| i_v wrote:
| What's the best screen size for reading manga on an eInk display?
| I've always had issues with the entry level Kindles cutting
| things off or requiring scrolling to get the bottom section of a
| page. It's been a long time since I tried this but I've always
| wanted to get my collection on a Kindle or other reader!
| seam_carver wrote:
| I use 10" kindles like the scribe and DX. Bigger than a
| physical paper volume
| w00ds wrote:
| Exactly what I've been looking for, amazing work!
| goosedragons wrote:
| Is it weird that I kind of want ePub to ePub support? I have many
| not Kobo compatible comics/manga from places like Humble Bundle
| that I need to fix. Ideally I'd like to keep metadata + reading
| direction and perhaps the table of contents. I suppose I could
| script something that unzips 'em and then processes them....
| seam_carver wrote:
| There's a FAQ in the readme about Humble Bundle. I've found
| that the PDF source is the absolute best quality with the least
| amount of resizing artifacts/moire compared to epub.
| goosedragons wrote:
| Yeah, not all the bundles offer books as PDF either. And
| they're not all from Humble Bundle.
| seam_carver wrote:
| Yea, that's true, but it's not as simple as just unzipping the
| epub, I've found sometimes that the pages aren't named in a
| sorted order, the order is defined in one of the opf file.
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(page generated 2025-05-07 23:00 UTC)