Images-only comic-book PDF output

[Snorkledorf]

calibre's PDF output is (not unreasonably) optimized for "regular" books, which generally have images appearing within HTML files. But for comics/manga, I prefer PDFs with literally nothing but the images (so they go fullscreen on the iPad nicely).

Currently I use a semi-manual process to convert my comic-ebooks into PDF, but i'd like to be able to automate it in calibre if possible. Is this possible?

Here's what I currently do:

Overview:

• Get all the book files (including the cover) into one folder
• Make an images-only PDF from that folder
• Add the PDF to the book's entry in calibre

Detailed:

• Convert the book to ZIP in calibre
• Manually unzip the zip file, find the images folder with files 00001.jpg etc.
• Rename the cover file (which is in the parent folder above images) to 00000.jpg
• Drag the cover file into the Images folder. Now I finally have a folder with all of the comic-book pages, and no HTML or CSS files or anything else.
• Use an OS X Automator process I made to brute-force combine all the image files in the Images folder into one big PDF (with the action "New PDF from Images" at its core).
• Drag that PDF onto the book-details page in calibre to add it to the library.

Is there a way to set things up to do this in calibre now? If not, it seems like it would theoretically(?) be pretty straightforward to implement, since it's just throwing all the formatting stuff out the window. I don't know if it could be part of the PDF output plugin or would have to be its own PDF-comics plugin though.

Any ideas?

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by Snorkledorf

Currently I use a semi-manual process to convert my comic-ebooks into PDF, but i'd like to be able to automate it in calibre if possible. Is this possible?

Here's what I currently do:

Overview:

• Get all the book files (including the cover) into one folder
• Make an images-only PDF from that folder
• Add the PDF to the book's entry in calibre

I would skip the PDF phase and simply add a zip of images or CBZ to calibre. I believe if the zip file contains only images it will become a cbz file when added to calibre. Now just find a decent CBZ reader for the Ipad. All of the PDF steps seem overly complicated to me when there is already a standard CBR/CBZ comic book format.

[Snorkledorf]

Over the years I've looked at a bunch of readers for CBZ/CBRs (I liked Comic Zeal the best of those), but including all the books that I've scanned myself, comics and otherwise, I've found that the Japanese app iBunkoHD fits all my needs the best. It can handle left- and right-bindings, bump the 2-page spreads left or right a page to compensate for wonky pagination, and is overall quite nifty.

So PDF it is. I'm just trying to find a way to make the conversion process more streamlined.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by Snorkledorf

So PDF it is. I'm just trying to find a way to make the conversion process more streamlined.

I understand, hopefully someone with first hand knowledge will drop by with some pertinent advice.

[kovidgoyal]

If you convert a comic book format like cbz or cbr to PDF the resulting PDF is optimized for use as a comic.

[Snorkledorf]

Actually this thread got me thinking about the whole thing more, and I'm now thinking that CBZ is indeed the better format for my situation. "PDF it is" indeed...

That app that I use also now supports CBZ (maybe I should read the update notes more often...) so there's no longer that advantage to PDF, and the un-zip-ability of CBZ is nice. Flexibility is good!

So my new workflow is now:

• Use KindleUnpack to bust open the purchased book
• Navigate to the ~/Desktop/mobi8/OEBPS/Images folder
• Run my newly created Automator action to make a cbz file out of that folder of images (the cover's in there too, yay)
• Drag the cbz back into calibre's book info pane.

This is also nicer because I can just casually cbz-ify the folders of books that I've scanned, even if they're the ones with yellowing pages that I intend to eventually use Photoshop's batch function to color-correct. Since PDF is a final-destination format, up till now I've been correcting my books one by one before adding them to calibre, but with cbz I can always fix 'em later.

So things are going much faster now. Thanks for helping me clear my thoughts about all this — some of these scanned books go back to 2008...

(I've also attached the two OS X Automator workflows below, for CBZ & PDF(*), just in case anyone else has folders of images they need to wrangle. Install them into ~/Library/Services, and when you right-click a single folder they'll be available in the Services sub-menu. Just do one folder at a time and wait for it to finish. A Finder label will be applied to let you know when it's done.)

* Edit: I've repaired the PDF workflow so it should work correctly now. Sorry about dumping all the images onto the Desktop like that!