tigris & euphrates: (Kindle) comic book archival utilities

EXAMPLE

Open Kindle to the start of your favorite comic book.

Use Window -> Full Screen Tile -> Left of Screen to tile Kindle into a left half-fullscreen orientation.

Then run our special archival utilities:

$ cd ~/Downloads

$ tigris

$ euphrates

$ zip -r euphrates.cbz euphrates

$ unzip -tvl euphrates.cbz
Archive:  euphrates.cbz
    testing: euphrates/   OK
    testing: euphrates/000.png   OK
    testing: euphrates/001.png   OK
    testing: euphrates/002.png   OK
...

ABOUT

tigris

tigris [<frames>] captures raw archival panels to ~/Downloads/tigris/

Adjust the frames to match the number of pages in your comic book.

euphrates

euphrates trims panel borders.

• -o <directory> customizes the output directory path, default <source directory>/../euphrates/
• -l <amount> trims pixels from the left, e.g. 104 (default 0)
• -t <amount> trims pixels from the top, e.g. 70 (default 0)
• -r <amount> trims pixels from the right, e.g. 103 (default 0)
• -b <amount> trims pixels from the bottom, e.g. 69420 (default 0)

See euphrates -h for more detail.

zip

Use a compressor, such as Archive Utility or the zip CLI tool, to bundle the desired panels into DRM-free comic ebooks.

zip -r <archive-path> <source-directory> compresses directories recursively into an archive. For comic books, use an archive path extension like .cbz.

unzip -tvl <archive-path>

DISCLAIMER

For personal archival purposes only.

LICENSE

BSD-2-Clause

RUNTIME REQUIREMENTS

• ImageMagick 7.1.1+
• Kindle 7.20+
• macOS 15+

Recommended

• Amphetamine
• zip

INSTALL

For more information on installing or uninstalling tigris & euphrates, see INSTALL.md.

APPLICATION PRIVILEGES

The first several runs of the application may trigger OS permission prompts, for the console emulator, Script Editor, and/or tigris.

Repeat until all permission prompts appear to be resolved:

1. Grant the permission to the respective application(s).
2. Quit and relaunch the console emulator.
3. Retry the operation.

Recommend prototyping archival scans with a small frame count (e.g. 3) in order to accelerate troubleshooting.

PREREQUISITES

1. Launch a console emulator, e.g. Terminal.
2. Open desired Kindle book to starting page.
3. Select Window -> Full Screen Tile -> Left of Screen.
4. Select console emulator as the right tile.

TIPS

• To end a console command early, foreground the console emulator and press Control + C
• To end a run in the macOS Script Editor application, press Command + Period (.)
• Queue tigris command in console emulator, then adjust the cursor to minimize Kindle HUD artifacts before submitting the command with the Return (Enter) key
• Temporarily silence browser and other application notifications during scans
• Keep backups of tigris/ images before altering images with euphrates

CONTRIBUTING

For more information on developing tigris itself, see DEVELOPMENT.md.

SEE ALSO

• bao, a PDF compressor
• buttery, an animated GIF editor
• harmonica, a comic book repackager
• nile, an ebook normalizer