Ebook Text Extractor

Overview

Extract plain text from EPUB, MOBI, and PDF files using Python scripts. No LLM calls - pure text extraction.

Supported Formats

Format	Tool Used	Notes
EPUB	ebooklib + BeautifulSoup	Direct parsing, preserves structure
MOBI	Calibre ebook-convert	Converts to EPUB first, then extracts
PDF	PyMuPDF (fitz)	Fast, handles most PDFs well

Usage

Unified extractor (auto-detects format):

python3 ~/.claude/skills/ebook-extractor/scripts/extract.py /path/to/book.epub
python3 ~/.claude/skills/ebook-extractor/scripts/extract.py /path/to/book.mobi
python3 ~/.claude/skills/ebook-extractor/scripts/extract.py /path/to/book.pdf

Output options:

# To stdout (default)
python3 scripts/extract.py book.epub

# To file
python3 scripts/extract.py book.epub -o output.txt
python3 scripts/extract.py book.epub > output.txt

Format-specific scripts:

python3 scripts/extract_epub.py book.epub
python3 scripts/extract_mobi.py book.mobi
python3 scripts/extract_pdf.py book.pdf

Setup

# One-command setup (installs all dependencies)
~/.claude/skills/ebook-extractor/setup.sh

# Or manually:
pip install -r ~/.claude/skills/ebook-extractor/requirements.txt
brew install calibre  # macOS, for MOBI support

Script Location

~/.claude/skills/ebook-extractor/scripts/

Common Issues

Problem	Solution
Missing package	Run setup.sh or pip install -r requirements.txt
MOBI fails	Ensure Calibre is installed: brew install calibre
PDF garbled	Some PDFs are image-based; OCR needed (not supported)