this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2023
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[–] Isoprenoid@programming.dev 12 points 11 months ago (4 children)

The creator is working on an epub-to-text-file converter here:

https://github.com/joeycastillo/libros-convert

[–] WaDef7@kbin.social 77 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I'm not sure I understand, epub is both the industry standard and an open format, as far as I know. Why not work on using it or build it around epub from the get-go?

I have to admit I'll have to wait for the project to start implementing epub to consider getting on board, but it's still a great effort.

[–] runefehay@kbin.social 15 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It looks like it is powered by a microcontroller. Maybe it isn't powerful enough to support epub?

[–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 15 points 11 months ago

It's a 120mhz Arm CPU. That's more than enough for epub. For comparison the 25 Mhz 68030 in the Next computer used Adobe Postcript (PDF) as it's GUI.

[–] ricdeh@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Probably because the computational hardware is not powerful enough to implement a (proto) web browser

[–] mesamunefire@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

It's a raspberry pi pico. Ebooks could probably work with it on the new version.

[–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It said it's a 120mhz SAMD51 ARM Cortex-M4.

[–] Hyperreality@kbin.social 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Doesn't calibre also have a built in converter?

It used to be able to strip DRM from stuff too, but I think they got rid of that for legal reasons.

[–] jayandp@sh.itjust.works 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yes, Calibre can convert to most formats.

DRM removal is not a feature of Calibre, but of plugins you can add to it. Kobo and Adobe DRM have plugins available. Amazon DRM plugin is in a poor state as Amazon cracked down on a major method earlier this year.

[–] Hyperreality@kbin.social 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Think I did it that way for some books.

I also seem to remember there being another workaround, by exporting it to my old sony e-reader via the official sony app, which is so old it doesn't have proper DRM, but I did have to sign up for adobe digital editions or some or other BS. Something like that. End result was a DRM free epub.

Huge waste of time, especially for something I'd paid full price for, so after that I gave up on buying ebooks, and simply pirated them.

Just like with DVDs back in the day and streaming now, you get a shittier experience if you pay full price. Better to pirate.

[–] mesamunefire@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago

Calibre already does this but cool we have options.

[–] solrize@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Epub to text is very easy and Pandoc can do it. I end up using lynx -dump because that's faster though.

[–] MonkderZweite@feddit.ch 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Technically, epub is basically a wepage and thus everything but easy.

[–] mesamunefire@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You can unzip an epub and find out. Ive done it a couple of times to remove some images from books.

unzip book.epub

[–] JaymesRS@literature.cafe 1 points 11 months ago

Last time someone told me I could find out if I would just unzip it didn’t go so well…