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gildas-lormeau / SingleFile

Web Extension for saving a faithful copy of a complete web page in a single HTML file
GNU Affero General Public License v3.0
15.71k stars 1.02k forks source link

Add option to export web pages to single EPUB Format #1566

Open spectas opened 2 months ago

spectas commented 2 months ago

First, I want to start by thanking you for this fantastic browser extension! It has been such a helpful tool in my daily workflow, and I really appreciate all the hard work that has gone into its development. The ability to save any website into a single HTML file, including all linked images, is a game-changer, and I use it frequently.

Problem

I often save web pages to read later on my e-ink devices, which are excellent for reading but struggle with displaying PDFs due to their limited resolution. While I can save a web page as HTML, there's no easy way to export it as an EPUB file directly. EPUB is much better suited for e-ink readers, as it's designed for reflowable content and is more compatible with their displays. Unfortunately, there's currently no straightforward way to export web content from the browser to an EPUB format, which can be frustrating for those who rely on e-ink readers for a comfortable reading experience.

Solution

It would be fantastic if your extension could include the option to export saved web pages as a single EPUB file. Since EPUB is essentially HTML-based, much like how the current export to a single HTML file works, this would be a natural extension of the existing functionality. This would allow users to take full advantage of EPUB readers with e-ink technology, which excel at displaying this format.

Adding this feature would not only make the extension even more versatile but also cater to those of us who prefer reading on e-ink devices and struggle with PDFs. Having this option would significantly improve the reading experience for a broader range of users.

Alternatives

I've explored several workarounds, including converting HTML or PDF files to EPUB using third-party tools. However, these solutions are often clunky, require multiple steps, and can result in formatting issues. Also there are web service like dotEpub, but they render the URLs on their own server, which offers less privacy, ignores possibly necessary log-ins for accessing an URL and does not include ad blockers which leave out all the unnnecessary ads like SingleFile does. It would be much more convenient to have the option to export directly to EPUB from the browser, streamlining the process and ensuring that the web page's content remains intact during the conversion.

Thank you again for this wonderful extension and for considering this feature request. It would be an amazing addition for those who use e-ink devices and prefer the EPUB format for reading web content.

gildas-lormeau commented 2 months ago

Thanks for the suggestion and the kind words Basically, I'm not against generating EPUB files. The problem is that converting any web page to the EPUB format is not technically straightforward, as far as I know. That's maybe why the tools you've tested aren't entirely satisfactory. I'll try to read the EPUB3 specification to see what restrictions it imposes. With EPUB2, this was virtually impossible.

gildas-lormeau commented 4 weeks ago

Did you try epublifier? See https://github.com/maoserr/epublifier

Victor239 commented 4 weeks ago

That's specifically for certain web novel sites, it doesn't work with arbitrary webpages.