kscribbler

Sync your Kobo highlights to hardcover.app!

Here is an example for the book Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo:

K - Kobo|kepub Scribe - Someone who writes stuff to a new location

ps. add me on hardcover 🤓 https://hardcover.app/@countmancy

Installation

1. Download and install nickelmenu
2. Download the latest release of kscribbler from the releases page
3. Install kscribbler on your Kobo:
   • Connect your Kobo to your computer and mount the device
   • Navigate to the .kobo directory on your Kobo (might need to show hidden files)
   • Copy the KoboRoot.tgz into this directory and unmount the device safely. This will trigger a reboot and upgrade.
4. Remount the device and navigate to /mnt/onboard/.adds/kscribbler.

• If you don't see this directory check for /mnt/onboard/.adds/kscribbler

5. Copy the example config file and add your token:
   • cp config.env.example config.env
   • vi config.env

Upgrade

Same process as installation for now. You should not need to re-add your hardcover token.

I would like to make this over-the-air (OTA) updatable in the future, but the ways I've tested so far have been too hands-on techy for general users.

Usage

Once installed nickelmenu should have a new entry in the right corner of reading view that will trigger a sync when clicked. To save some battery and resources the sync is only ran against the current/last opened book.

The quotes are uploaded to hardcover.app based on the book's ISBN. See the note below or the troubleshooting section if quotes are not being uploaded.

• If your book doesn't have an ISBN saved to the kobo device's database you can highlight the book's ISBN on its copyright page and kscribbler will attempt to parse it and save it to the book's metadata.
  • A note with kscrib:<you isbn number with no angle brackets can be added anywhere in the book to manually set the ISBN
  • Can be useful for sideloaded books

Troubleshooting

• Logs are stored in /mnt/onboard/.adds/kscribbler/kscribbler.log
• If you are having issues with the quotes not being uploaded, check that hardcover.app has an edition for the ISBN.
• This project depends on the KoboReader.sqlite database to be up to date. This typically means a successful sync is required for the DB to actually write from memory to disk.
  • This leads to some annoying timing issues. I would recommend running the program after a sync and reboot if you are having trouble uploading quotes.
• For the savvy the sqlite db is located at/mnt/onboard/.kobo/KoboReader.sqlite
  • You can modify this database to add an ISBN to a book if you know what you're doing
  • telnet/ssh into the kobo is possible and allows for manually running kscribbler if so desired

Contributing

• File bug reports
• Submit pull requests
• Suggest improvements
• Share the project with others if you find it useful

Check out my other ebook-related projects

• hardcover-quotes -> Display hardcover reading journal quotes in your terminal or on a trmnl e-ink display
• simpleISBN -> A simple library to parse and convert ISBNs