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So, after quite some time of reading stories from BCTS and wishing I had an easy way to read completely offline I have finally taken it upon myself to figure out how to make EPUB's (An open-source ebook format) of BCTS stories (since there is no tool for this currently available)
At the moment it is still a manual process but I already have some EPUB's of stories I really like, including some long runners (>150 Chapters), in my buffer. I'm just waiting for authorisation from various authors to post the EPUB's.
Additionally, if your story is complete, a long runner, or is just flat out popular, please don't hesitate to ask for me to make an EPUB of it, I probably will.
If anyone is interested in how my script currently works please contact me. (As I said, still requires manual work, just not nearly as much.)
Selena Twinkle
P.S. All content is obtained from the Print-Friendly View. Images are included assuming I can currently download them.
Clarification edit: I am not looking for a script, I already have one, I was merely posting that if you wrote a story and want it made into an EPUB then you can contact me. (Also that I may be contacting you to get permission to make an ebook of your story if it is particularly notable.)
Sorry admins...
I just wanted to add that yes it was I that just requested for the entire "Easy as Falling off a Bike" story to be made into a printer friendly version... That probably logged a warning somewhere on the server due to the unusual time possessing the page. (I was mainly trying to stress test my script. I got a few warnings from image names that I am going to look into, but it did (sorta) work...)
Again, sorry about that.
Have you tried Calibre?
Calibre offers automated html to epub.
I have used Calibre
to convert some free Epub books from Epub to Mobi format that works in Kindle.
Mainly so I only have to have one E-reader program.
Conversion
Whilte calibre actually works pretty well (once you at least halfway understand what you're doing) and scripts in general are a nice idea, it's never done without (lots and lots and long nights of) hands on work!
If you take a closer look at the source, most all stories are not formatted in a way that you could just go and let a script do it AND come up with a proper ebook.
23 different instances of scenebreaks might not look all too different on a web page using html and over the course of a few years, but they'll be glaringly obvious in an ebook for instance...
Chapters that aren't recognised as such will leave you with an empty table of contents...
Half spaces usually sprinkle the final book with loads of question marks in odd spaces (i.e. mid sentence)...
Blockquotes need to be formatted in a certain way...
Just to name a few and then we haven't talked about typos and punctuation... OR the ungainly code garbage you end up with, if you rely too much on scripts.
If you just plain want to read stories offline and don't care much about how things end up, I guess you might be fine. If you want a proper ebook, it usually takes around 8 hours to hammer things into obedience.
Actually...
Since I am pulling from the printer friendly version it provides all the formatting as HTML tags, so it come out of my script with all the formatting untouched. And since an EPUB is just a fancy ZIP archive with HTML, CSS, Images and Metadata files inside it, it works out fine.
At the moment I am ignoring the typos and punctuation since I am not editing it, just converting it. The garbage Unicode is a bit of a problem. (Currently, I just delete it since it almost always happens after a quotation mark.)
The chapters is the one issue that I doubt I will be able to automate.
But yah, assuming I skip a few of the issues you stated it only takes me 30-45 minutes to get a decent copy. (It's not like I'm trying to make money off this.)
The issue with Calibre...
The issue with Calibre is that I would still have to edit most stories since it would leave a lot of extra content that should be removed from the pages.
As soon as an author gets back to my PM's (I think most people don't know they exist) with a green light, I will post an example.
Side Note: An EPUB is just a ZIP archive with HTML files for each chapter and some special metadata files, So converting it is not complex, formatting stuff like the Table Of Contents is currently the only thing that takes any time.
I've used Calibre but also
Stanza - a program that is hard to find after Amazon bought the company and killed it.
Atlantis word processor does a great job of exporting as epub including cool things like adding a cover picture.
If you can handle manually editing stuff...
Then you should look at sigil. It's free and open source.
My script leaves me with mostly-good HTML and all the images which can be imported directly into sigil
Epub > PDF anyday!
A website called 'dotEPUB' has a bit of free javascript you can put into a bookmark that lets you one-click download webpages as epubs in either immersive (text only) or non-immersive (images included up to a certain limit of size) for free.
I've used it for years with no problems, works on printer friendly mode too, just takes few seconds to finish generating the file if your doing a double digit length or longer series lol.
Not sure of the rules on blog posts but if you PM me I can give you either the script or the site link Selena.
Hope that helps.
Nessa
It's fine...
I took an afternoon to customize this script for BCTS. It is actually really fast and I can get through most stories in a day or two.
But thank you for the recommendation.
If your goal is "an easy way
If your goal is "an easy way to read completely offline", and you aren't completely wedded to the epub idea, might I suggest...
... Send to Kindle. It's a Chrome browser extension that I believe is available for other browsers, too. Even if you don't have a Kindle you can install the free Kindle reader app on most any phone, tablet, or computer.
Kris
{I leave a trail of Kudos as I browse the site. Be careful where you step!}
And for Firefox users
there is
"Send to Kindle for Mozilla Firefox"
Last updated in 2016
Wrinkle on using Send to Kindle
Look for the things you've sent under Docs, not Books. :) If you download free ebooks from Baen Books, that's where they go, too.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Good point, Erin.
Good point, Erin.
So what I said might not be entirely correct. I don't think you can send Kindle docs to Kindle for PC or the Kindle Cloud Reader, only to the Kindle app on a device (phone or tablet) or an actual Kindle or Kindle Fire.
Kris
{I leave a trail of Kudos as I browse the site. Be careful where you step!}
Kindle archive
You can send them to the Kindle archive and download them from there to any Kindle reader, device, browser or cloud.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Several solutions
I send things to my Kindle but sometimes they aren't in a format that easily converts or if they do convert are not adjustable for easier reading. I often use this site to convert stories into a form I can send to the Kindle or simply read on Wordpad:
http://www.zamzar.com/
and it can do a lot more. I generally use it to convert PDF's to RTFs to send to my Kindle but it does a lot more and better than Calibre or anything else I've tried.
Commentator
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ePub with Firefox
I use the Firefox extension "GrabMyBooks" to save webpages and sites for archiving and off-line reading. I just go to the title page of a story, click on the expanding icon in the contents side bar and select the option "Grab selected links". Some times it will not correctly grab the title page. In wich case I have to select the relevant parts of the to add manually. If a chapter is organized on a level below another chapter, then I have to grab that separately and move it to the correct order in the ePub.
Once saved, I can move the story to my Android tablet and read it with Moon+Reader. Makes for very nice bedtime story reading.
Jessica