Use calibre ebook-convert as a Python Module

[apducer]

Hi,
I'm building a tool that runs on the server and needs to convert ebooks to other formats. The problem is that I can't run the calibre CLI (and use the ebook-convert command) on the server, so I want to run the ebook conversion of calibre as a python module.
Is there an easy way to do this? Is there any documentation that I may have missed?
Also, I would like to upload to the server the least amount of code of the calibre source.

Thanks!

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by apducer

The problem is that I can't run the calibre CLI (and use the ebook-convert command) on the server

Why not?

, so I want to run the ebook conversion of calibre as a python module.
Is there an easy way to do this? Is there any documentation that I may have missed?
Also, I would like to upload to the server the least amount of code of the calibre source.

Why do you need to "upload the least amount of code"?

The biggest thing you'll be uploading isn't even calibre itself, it is Qt5 WebEngine, used in PDF output, and Qt5 Svg used for image transforms in any conversion, which means you need PyQt5 installed.

It's not possible to install only part of calibre, at any rate. And there isn't really much documentation for running the underlying bits yourself, but you could check out the usage of calibre.ebooks.conversion.plumber -> Plumber(). Or simply use the main() function from calibre.ebooks.conversion.cli which is what ebook-convert does...

[apducer]

Ok,
My mistake, I can run the calibre CLI but I need to upload it to the server. Am I right? In that case, should I upload the whole calibre source or what?
It would be awesome if you give me some steps on how to do it.

Why do you need to "upload the least amount of code"?

The biggest thing you'll be uploading isn't even calibre itself, it is Qt5 WebEngine, used in PDF output, and Qt5 Svg used for image transforms in any conversion, which means you need PyQt5 installed.

Because I am using a free server (in Heroku, it is a python application) with maximum capacity of 500MB. The calibre source code from the tarball provided uses 397.1MB. I want to have space for my code and probably a database. It's like a little to tight.