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Matsendrasana · 11-19-2012, 02:55 PM

Another program is no option.

I tried to write a batch script that would import my documents to Calibre.

First it uses LibreOffice to create the PDF and Calibre's ebook_convert to create an EPUB from an ODT (LibreOffice Writer file).

Code:

> soffice.exe  --headless --convert-to pdf --outdir /path/to/output /path/to/file.odt
> ebook-convert.exe /path/to/file.odt /path/to/output/file.epub

We can also use LibreOffice's EPUB conversion, which I presume employs epub2writer since I have this tool installed. However, I found that ebook-convert.exe creates nicer output that looks much like the original.

So the conversion part was suprisingly simple. Of course my batch-file is a bit more complex since I use an abstract subroutine for this task that dequotes pathnames, extracts the file basenames etc.

The next thing I had to do was to update Calibre's database. The essential command is:

Code:

calibredb.exe add --with-library /path/to/calibre-lib /path/to/output/file.epub

Alas, this works only the first time. Then it complains that the book already exists in the database. The --duplicate option is no help because it will just add a 2nd, 3rd etc. instance of the same book! calibredb misses a replace command. The remove command is not flexible enough since it expects some unknown numerical ids. The list command will shows these ids in a human-readable form only, i.e. I see no way to extract the id in question from its output. Since calibredb notices that the book is a duplicate, however, it should be very easy to replace it.

So please, can anybody help out here?

11-19-2012, 02:55 PM	#7
Matsendrasana Member Posts: 12 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2012 Device: none	Another program is no option. I tried to write a batch script that would import my documents to Calibre. First it uses LibreOffice to create the PDF and Calibre's ebook_convert to create an EPUB from an ODT (LibreOffice Writer file). Code: > soffice.exe --headless --convert-to pdf --outdir /path/to/output /path/to/file.odt > ebook-convert.exe /path/to/file.odt /path/to/output/file.epub We can also use LibreOffice's EPUB conversion, which I presume employs epub2writer since I have this tool installed. However, I found that ebook-convert.exe creates nicer output that looks much like the original. So the conversion part was suprisingly simple. Of course my batch-file is a bit more complex since I use an abstract subroutine for this task that dequotes pathnames, extracts the file basenames etc. The next thing I had to do was to update Calibre's database. The essential command is: Code: calibredb.exe add --with-library /path/to/calibre-lib /path/to/output/file.epub Alas, this works only the first time. Then it complains that the book already exists in the database. The --duplicate option is no help because it will just add a 2nd, 3rd etc. instance of the same book! calibredb misses a replace command. The remove command is not flexible enough since it expects some unknown numerical ids. The list command will shows these ids in a human-readable form only, i.e. I see no way to extract the id in question from its output. Since calibredb notices that the book is a duplicate, however, it should be very easy to replace it. So please, can anybody help out here? Last edited by Matsendrasana; 11-19-2012 at 03:01 PM.