book-to-images

Capture EPUB pages from Apple Books as PNG images by running a Python automation pipeline that screenshots the Books app, trims black UI side bars, and splits pages into A/B pairs for OCR dataset preparation.

EPUB to image extraction is macOS exclusive. It relies on AppleScript to control the native Apple Books app for screen capture, meaning Windows and Linux environments lack the required application and automation bridge.

You can rerun the image splitting step independently. The workflow supports split-only reruns, allowing you to process previously captured PNGs with configurable split thresholds and worker counts without triggering screen capture again.

Automate trimming black UI bars from captured book images using the integrated Python script with Pillow. It automatically detects and removes side bars during the split stage, outputting clean A/B PNG pairs for OCR indexing.

You need Python and the Pillow dependency installed to convert Apple Books EPUBs to PNG. Python executes the pipeline scripts while Pillow handles the image processing required to trim black bars and generate A/B pairs.

Splitting captured book pages into A/B PNG images halves the page for efficient OCR indexing. It creates standardized, smaller image files that OCR engines can process faster, yielding cleaner text extraction results for datasets.