KindleComicConverter

KindleComicConverter is a Python app which aim is to convert comic files or folders to a comic-type (Mobipocket) ebook to take advantage of the new Panel View mode on Amazon's Kindle. It also optimizes comic images by:

enhancing contrast
cutting page numbering
cropping white borders
resizing larger images to device's native resolution
quantizing images to device's palette

INPUT FORMATS

kcc can understand and convert, at the moment, the following file types:

CBZ, ZIP
CBR, RAR (with unrar executable)
flat folders
PDF (extracting only contained JPG images)

~~For now the script does not understand folder depth, so it will work on flat folders/archives only.~~ As of v. 1.50, KCC supports subfolders!

REQUIREMENTS

kindlegen in /usr/local/bin/
unrar CBR support.

for compiling/running from source:

Python 2.7+ (included in MacOS and Linux, follow the official documentation to install on Windows)
Python Imaging Library for comic optimizations like split double pages, resize to optimal resolution, improve contrast and palette, etc. Please refer to official documentation for installing into your system.

USAGE

GUI

Should be pretty self-explanatory, just keep in mind that it's still in development ;)

Standalone `comic2ebook.py` usage:

comic2ebook.py [options] comic_file|comic_folder
  Options:
     --version             show program's version number and exit
     -h, --help            show this help message and exit
     -p PROFILE, --profile=PROFILE
                           Device profile (choose one among K1, K2, K3, K4, KDX, KDXG or KHD) [default=KHD]
     -t TITLE, --title=TITLE
                           Comic title [default=filename]
     -m, --manga-style     Split pages 'manga style' (right-to-left reading) [default=False]
     -v, --verbose         Verbose output [default=False]
     -i, --image-processing
                           Apply image preprocessing (page splitting and optimizations) [default=True]
     --upscale-images      Resize images smaller than device's resolution [default=False]
     --stretch-images      Stretch images to device's resolution [default=False]
     --cut-page-numbers    Try to cut page numbering on images [default=True]

The script takes care of unzipping/unrarring the file if it's an archive, creating a directory of images which should be then filled with a .opf, .ncx, and many .html files, then:

Run Kindlegen on content.opf. Depending on how many images you have, this may take awhile. Once completed, the .mobi file should be in the directory.
(optionally) remove the SRCS record to reduce the .mobi filesize in half. You can use Kindlestrip.
Copy the .mobi file to your Kindle!

AppleScript Droplet (may be outdated)

Drop a folder or a CBZ/CBR file over the app, after a while you'll get a comic-type .mobi to sideload on your Kindle. The script takes care of calling comic2ebook.py, kindlegen and kindlestrip.py.

WARNING: at the moment the droplet ALWAYS uses the KHD profile (Kindle Paperwhite). If you want to specify other profiles, please use the script from command line.

CREDITS

This script born as a cross-platform alternative to KindleComicParser by Dc5e (published in this mobileread forum thread)

The app relies and includes the following scripts/binaries:

the free version unrar executable (downloadable from here, refer to LICENSE_unrar.txt for further details)
the icon is by Nikolay Verin (http://ncrow.deviantart.com/) and released under CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
the image.py class from Alex Yatskov's Mangle with subsequent proDOOMman's and Birua's patches

Also, you need to have kindlegen v2.7 (with KF8 support) which is downloadable from Amazon website and installed in /usr/local/bin/

CHANGELOG

1.00 - Initial version
1.10 - Added support for CBZ/CBR files in comic2ebook.py
1.11 - Added support for CBZ/CBR files in KindleComicConverter
1.20 - Comic optimizations! Split pages not target-oriented (landscape with portrait target or portrait with landscape target), add palette and other image optimizations from Mangle. WARNING: PIL is required for all image mangling!
1.30 - Fixed an issue in OPF generation for device resolution Reworked options system (call with -h option to get the inline help)
1.40 - Added some options for controlling image optimization Further optimization (ImageOps, page numbering cut, autocontrast)
1.41 - Fixed a serious bug on resizing when img ratio was bigger than device one
1.50 - Added subfolder support for multiple chapters.
2.00 - GUI! AppleScript is gone and Tk is used to provide cross-platform GUI support.

TODO

Add gracefully exit for CBR if no rarfile.py and no unrar executable are found
Improve error reporting
Recurse into dirtree for multiple comics

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