kcc/README.md

KindleComicConverter

KindleComicConverter is a Python script wrapped by a MacOS X AppleScript droplet to convert image folders to a comic-type Mobipocket ebook to take advantage of the new Panel View mode on Amazon's Kindle.

REQUIREMENTS

• Python (included in MacOS and Linux, follow the official documentation to install on Windows)
• kindlegen in /usr/local/bin/

for standalone comic2ebook.py script:

• unrar and rarfile.py for calibre2ebook.py automatic CBR extracting.

You are strongly encouraged to get the Python Imaging Library that, altough optional, provides a bunch of 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

Drop a folder or a CBZ/CBR file over the droplet, 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.

standalone comic2ebook.py usage:

1. Launch

   python comic2ebook.py <profile> <directory|file> <title>

   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.

2. 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.

3. Remove the SRCS record to reduce the .mobi filesize in half. You can use Kindlestrip.

4. Copy the .mobi file to your Kindle!

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 KindleStrip script © 2010-2012 by Paul Durrant and released in public domain (mobileread forum thread)
• the rarfile.py script © 2005-2011 Marko Kreen markokr@gmail.com, released with ISC License
• 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 Mangle

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!

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
• Create a GUI to allow user control more options

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 2012 Ciro Mattia Gonano. See LICENSE.txt for further details.