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

From the main menu of your Kobo device open nickelmenu and select Update Kscribbler to download and install the latest version.

Usage

Once installed nickelmenu should have a new entry in the right corner of reading view that will trigger a sync when clicked.

This will trigger kscribbler to generate its database of quotes and upload them to hardcover.app. WARNING: This will attempt to upload all quotes from all books on the device. If you want to tame this you will need to manipulate the kscribblerdb yourself. More info below.

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.

Advanced Usage

• The database of quotes is stored at /mnt/onboard/.adds/kscribbler/kscribblerdb
• This is a sqlite database with two tables: books and quotes
• You can manipulate this database directly if you want to control what gets uploaded by setting kscribbler_uploaded to 1 for quotes you don't want uploaded
• telnet/ssh into the kobo is possible and allows for manually running kscribbler if so desired
• From the main Kobo screen you can open nickelmenu and Toggle Visibility of Kscribbler Options to run the following commands:
  • kscribbler --init will initialize the database but not upload anything
  • kscribbler --mark-all-as-uploaded will initialize the database, mark all found quotes as upload but will not upload anything
    • Useful for testing/migrating
  • The initial output is displayed but truncated. Full output is in the log file

Contributing

• Star the repository ⭐
• 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