epub-tools

about

epub-tools is a suite of command-line utilities for creating and manipulating epub book files. Included are: epubmeta, epubname, epubzip. This software uses the epub-metadata library, also available on Hackage.

epubmeta is a command-line utility for examining and editing epub book metadata. With it you can export, import and edit the raw OPF Package XML document for a given book. Or simply dump the metadata to stdout for viewing in a friendly format.

Here's an example of epubmeta output:

$ epubmeta Kelly_Kessel_Lethem-NinetyPercentOfEverything.epub

package
   version: 2.0
   unique-identifier: calibre_id
title: Ninety Percent of Everything
creator
   role: aut
   file-as: Kelly, James Patrick
   text: James Patrick Kelly
creator
   role: aut
   text: John Kessel
creator
   role: aut
   text: Jonathan Lethem
contributor
   role: bkp
   file-as: calibre
   text: calibre (0.5.1) [http://calibre.kovidgoyal.net]
date: 2001-03-25T00:00:00
identifier
   id: calibre_id
   scheme: calibre
   text: b1026732-69a5-4a05-a8d9-a1701685f6fa
identifier
   id: [WARNING: missing required id attribute]
   scheme: ISBN
   text: 1-590620-00-3
subject: Science Fiction/Fantasy
publisher: www.Fictionwise.com
language: en-us

epubname is a command-line utility for renaming epub ebook files based on their OPF Package metadata. It tries to use author names and title info to construct a sensible name.

Using it looks like this:

$ epubname poorly-named-book.epub

poorly-named-book.epub -> WattsPeter-Blindsight_2006.epub

$ epubname another-poorly-named-book.epub

another-poorly-named-book.epub -> Kelly_Kessel_Lethem-NinetyPercentOfEverything.epub

epubzip is a handy utility for zipping up the files that comprise an epub into an .epub zip file. Using the same technology as epubname, it can try to make a meaningful filename for the book.

The software in epub-tools is written in Haskell. It's known to build under GHC 7.6.2

news

2013-04-14 (v2.2)

• Updated to build against recent changes and bug fixes in epub-metadata 3.0
• All support data files have been brought into the binaries now. This makes these tools more tolerant to being moved to a different location than what they were configured for build with.
• Some documentation additions and changes

2013-02-03 (v2.1.1)

• Fixed a stack overflow problem with some epub documents

2013-02-01 (v2.1.0)

• Added new subjectMatch command to the DSL, similar to authorMatch. This is being primarily used to detect anthology publications.
• Removed some rules that are now handled by anthology detection, and fixed relevant unit tests
• Clarified DSL documentation for authorMatch a little more
• Modified rules for some magazines to reflect changes to recent editions
• Fixed an error in the DSL documentation
• Fixed a bug in epubzip where no epub file will be created if none already exists

2012-10-31 (v2.0.0)

• Major redesign of the formatting rules system. Renaming machinery is now described in a domain-specific language, NOT in statically compiled code. Users are able to extend the functionality with custom naming rules in conf files.
• Added interactive mode to ask about each file rename as they happen, this is like darcs now!
• Added ability to specify target directory for books to be moved to as part of renaming. Includes code to check that target directory exists.
• Removed --overwrite option. Turns out, renameFile has always been smart enough to not overwrite existing.
• Added / character to filters, a big no-no character for file paths on most sane filesystems
• Publication year was looking for publication before original-publication, causing problems in books that have both tags
• Miscellaneous rules changes for various publications

2012-01-29 (v1.1.2)

• Changed how this code provides epub zip file contents as a ByteString to the epub-metadata library. Need to read this data strictly to avoid dangling open files.
• Corrected for breakage due to change in title format of Eclipse magazine
• Some work done on the utility script for deploying Windows binaries of these tools
• Added parsing support and test cases for more date formats
• Minor usage info changes

2011-11-15 (v1.1.1)

• Changed how publication date is found to more closely follow the OPF spec recommendations
• Changed the switches related to publication date
• Redesigned unit test code and added more tests for new date code

2011-11-04 (v1.1.0)

• Huge redesign of how formatting works, dramatically shortening the code needed to handle any given book type. Code is much more monadic now and consolidated into one module.
• Many changes/additions to magazine and compilation book name formatting
• Fixed a group of bugs that occur when a creator has only a single word for their name
• Extensive changes/additions to unit testing for above

2011-10-27 (v1.0.0.1)

• Extensive changes to the cabal build of this project to bring it up to Cabal 1.10
• Unit tests now use the test-suite cabal stanza

2011-04-23 (v1.0.0.0)

• Initial release

getting it

• Download pre-built Windows binary from here
• Build and install with cabal-install:
  $ cabal update ; cabal install epub-tools
• Download the cabalized package from Hackage
• Download the cabalized source tarball from here
• Get source with darcs:
  $ darcs get http://ui3.info/darcs/epub-tools
• Or browse the source on the web
• epub-tools may be available for Arch Linux from the AUR

last modified 2013-04-14