dotEPUB
December 23, 2011 8:26 PM   Subscribe

Here is dotEPUB, a Chrome extension that will convert any web page into an EPUB document, able to be viewed in most ereaders.  Other browsers can use it via bookmarklets, including mobile Safari.
posted by JHarris (23 comments total) 56 users marked this as a favorite
 
I sure would be more excited about an extension that does exactly the opposite transformation.
posted by FLAG (BASTARD WATER.) (Acorus Adulterinus.) at 8:44 PM on December 23, 2011 [2 favorites]


Text Fixer features text and html making, changing, converting, generating tools designed to save you time making web pages or preparing text for web publication or other uses.

Convert Word to HTML
Remove Line Breaks
Text to HTML
Alphabetize Text
CSV to HTML Table
posted by netbros at 8:57 PM on December 23, 2011 [3 favorites]


Oh my god they have a widget for content producers. I envision a MetaFilter where at the bottom of every discussion there's a link called "send this article and its comments to my e-reader for offline reading."
posted by komara at 8:58 PM on December 23, 2011 [4 favorites]


Also, I've already used it to digitize a Peter Watts short on Clarkesworld that I've not yet gotten around to reading because I dislike reading that much on a computer screen. I'm impressed with how it grabbed just the story and none of the surrounding cruft.
posted by komara at 9:06 PM on December 23, 2011 [1 favorite]


dotMOBI anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
posted by Jimbob at 9:08 PM on December 23, 2011 [2 favorites]


"dotEPUB is software in the cloud that allows you to convert any webpage into an e-book."

By "software in the cloud" I guess they mean it's a website, yeah?
posted by Jimbob at 9:09 PM on December 23, 2011 [2 favorites]


I envision a MetaFilter where at the bottom of every discussion there's a link called "send this article and its comments to my e-reader for offline reading."

I would love this. Even if it was only on locked pages that are no longer getting posts or something.... Instapaper does it fairly well now, but by doing the EPUB conversion directly as part of the site, you gain a lot more control over the output.

Not sure it would work well for threaded discussions, but\ Metafilter is probably close to the optimal case.
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:20 PM on December 23, 2011


This is awesome! I bookmark alot of stuff that I don't ever end up reading. If I can convert it to an epub, I can read it on my nook.

(And weirdly, the sample text is the opening of the last ebook I bought.)
posted by drezdn at 9:31 PM on December 23, 2011


Jimbob: "dotMOBI anyone? Anyone? Bueller?"

An easy way to to yse dotEPUB and load it into Calibre. Having recently purchased the cheapest Kindle I could buy, I've gotten good use out of the EPUB to MOBI conversion.
posted by narwhal bacon at 9:39 PM on December 23, 2011


"…easy way to use…" I'm not sure what my fingers were attempting to type there.
posted by narwhal bacon at 9:41 PM on December 23, 2011


I like Calibre for managing my ebook library, and I do like a nice GUI, but for making ad hoc Kindle-friendly mobis out of what amount to articles and odd clippings, I reckon it's hard to beat KindleGen paired with with an Automator script, if you're a Mac person, to run it as a contextual menu item. But I digress.
posted by mumkin at 11:02 PM on December 23, 2011


The kindle can read html files renamed as txt. It's worked ok for me.
posted by catwash at 12:04 AM on December 24, 2011


Instapaper seems better - I can group a bunch of articles together into one file and it keeps them in an archive so I can find them again easily. What am I missing?
posted by twsf at 12:11 AM on December 24, 2011


For kindle users, http://sendtoreader.com/ looks like a good alternative.

Just set up a new email address in your amazon settings to allow the site to send docs on your behalf, just click once on a bookmarklet when viewing the page you want to send. A couple of minutes later the page is available to view on your kindle with no calibre conversion required.
posted by choppyes at 4:53 AM on December 24, 2011 [2 favorites]


Nice. I like this.
posted by OmieWise at 5:20 AM on December 24, 2011


By "software in the cloud" I guess they mean it's a website, yeah?

If they said it is a website that can do conversions, it would lead people to believe that they had to visit said website to do the conversion, because the is in essence what we mean when we say website. This may use a website, but it uses it as a service so that you don't need to visit the site and can do it from the site you are on without switching locations.

So, no, I don't think they mean it's a website.
posted by Bovine Love at 6:26 AM on December 24, 2011


I've been working on my own implementation of this. My solution isn't as elegant, since it involves manually prepping the ePub, but I will also get a cleaner ePub.

I run a stupid site and one of the things I've been wanting is the ability for people to download a PDF or ePub of each post to send to others. My brain says "What's the point though? Just forward the link."

I am also surprised that there isn't something that reads ePubs to web, since they are essentially nothing more than a compressed website. There are online readers, but why not crawl that content and let people look inside?
posted by cjorgensen at 6:57 AM on December 24, 2011


My rule of thumb: For "cloud" read "someone else's computer".
posted by mendel at 9:08 AM on December 24, 2011 [2 favorites]


For a somewhat more full-featured tool, Firefox users have GrabMyBooks -- it will add web pages to a "book", that you can then pop out as an EPub. You also get some editing capabilities.

The Beta also will do native MOBI creation.
posted by Asim at 11:30 AM on December 24, 2011 [2 favorites]


sendtoreader looks very promising.
posted by hwestiii at 12:05 PM on December 24, 2011


Klip.me 's Send to Kindle extension for Chrome has been working a treat for me. The last changelog even a Metafilter specific optimization.
posted by hindmost at 7:14 PM on December 24, 2011 [2 favorites]


So, no, I don't think they mean it's a website.

So the HTTP protocol is now a cloud? Cool. Just want to keep up with what the cool kids are doing, yo.
posted by Jimbob at 9:23 PM on December 26, 2011


"HTTP Protocol" is redundant. The P already indicates it is a protocol.

HTTP is generally used to access information stored on another computer. Using mendel's rule of thumb, that would qualify it as a cloud. There's no need to get snarky about a new term being applied to something that already exists. In this case, it helps some people understand the concept better.
posted by soelo at 8:00 AM on December 27, 2011


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