Converting Online Documentation

[tjlytle]

I'd like to convert the documentation I read online into ebook format. For example:

Zend Framework Reference
Doctrine Project

I've had moderate success grabbing documentation from the Zend source code (simpler HTML than the public site), and running that through Calibre as single book (from a directory of files). However, for documentation that isn't available in a 'plain' HTML format, I'm not quite sure what to do.

It seems that I might be able to treat it as a new source, and write a recipe that parses an 'index' page for all the 'chapters' and then strips all but the actual content from the individual pages.

Has anyone done this kind of recipe? Am I on the right track?

Also, is there any way to get a recipe to generate a multi-level TOC (main TOC links to individual section TOCs)?

[kovidgoyal]

I would suggest writing a recipe to generate an EPUB file. Then unzip thye EPUB file and use the Automatic TOC creation options to create a multilevel TOC. recipe TOCS are limited to two levels

[tjlytle]

I'll give that a shot. Another quick question - any references on converting docbook to ebook formats?

[donald1]

Originally Posted by tjlytle

I'd like to convert the documentation I read online into ebook format. For example:

Zend Framework Reference
Doctrine Project

I've had moderate success grabbing documentation from the Zend source code (simpler HTML than the public site), and running that through Calibre as single book (from a directory of files). However, for documentation that isn't available in a 'plain' HTML format, I'm not quite sure what to do.

It seems that I might be able to treat it as a new source, and write a recipe that parses an 'index' page for all the 'chapters' and then strips all but the actual content from the individual pages.

Has anyone done this kind of recipe? Am I on the right track?

Also, is there any way to get a recipe to generate a multi-level TOC (main TOC links to individual section TOCs)?

Did you write a recipe to convert online documentation ?
I could use this, it would be very helpfull.

Thanks for your reply in advance

[tjlytle]

Haven't had a chance to do anything yet. Got as far as reading documentation on how to use python in calibre to convert documentation so I could read it.

I'll post if/when I get somethign done.

[tjlytle]

Refreshing this old thread - hope that's not taboo. Finally got a chance to read up on python and modify a recipe. Here's a simple one that grabs the Doctrine2 documentation.

Now I'm wondering how to make calibre format this as a normal book and not a collection of 'articles'. While the article navigation makes sense for real periodicals/blogs/news feeds, I'd prefer a standard TOC for converted documentation.

[kovidgoyal]

yes you can override the method in basicnewsrecipe that creates the OPF and NCX files and create any kind of TOC you like.

[tjlytle]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

yes you can override the method in basicnewsrecipe that creates the OPF and NCX files and create any kind of TOC you like.

Is there a recipe that illustrates that? I see that the 'publication_type' is set to 'periodical:' (plus newspaper/magazine/blog). Is it as easy as changing that?

Sorry for what probably are simple questions, I really did check out the 'create_opf' method - it's all just a bit new to me.

[kovidgoyal]

No publication_type only sets a single field in the OPF. You have to override create_opf