How can I convert .epub files to plain text?

Question

I'm able to view an epub file in, say, okular, select all the text and copy-paste into a text editor. I'd like a command line method - anyone know of such a thing?

score 55 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 08 '12 at 08:22

I don't know if Calibre is worth installing for your job, but if you have it you could use the powerful ebook converter:

ebook-convert input.epub output.txt

Output format is deducted from output file extension

I imagine there could be some XML tools/scripts (XSLT) that can transform epub in text as epub is basically XHTML in ZIP archive

score 10 · Answer 2 · edited Jul 21 '19 at 18:10

10

An alternative is epub2txt by Kevin Boone, available on Github.

epub2html is a simple command-line utility for extracting text from EPUB documents and, optionally, re-flowing it to fit a text display of a particular number of columns. It is written entirely in ANSI-standard C.

Usage example:

epub2txt input.epub > output.txt

edited Jul 21 '19 at 18:10

Kulfy

18,154

answered May 08 '16 at 09:11

xebeche

371

score 9 · Answer 3 · edited Aug 14 '19 at 11:24

9

MuPDF can convert from epub to html and txt. To install it:

sudo apt install mupdf mupdf-tools

To use it:

mutool convert -o somefilename.txt somefilename.epub

It assumes txt output from the -o option.

See mutool convert documentation for more information.

edited Aug 14 '19 at 11:24

xiota

5,038

answered Jul 22 '19 at 06:02

pierrely

725

score 3 · Answer 4 · edited Aug 14 '19 at 11:23

3

Maybe Calibre can suit your needs.

See What formats does calibre support conversion to/from? for information on supported formats.

edited Aug 14 '19 at 11:23

Eliah Kagan

119,640

answered Feb 08 '12 at 08:20

Cmorales

1,318

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 27 '22 at 20:16

1

To convert an epub document to plain text from terminal:

pandoc input.epub | lynx --stdin --dump > output.txt

It is assumed that pandoc and lynx are already installed.

answered Jul 27 '22 at 20:16

Name

191

How can I convert .epub files to plain text?

5 Answers5