An Automator Service to Convert eBooks With Calibre

While I wait for all my iOS devices to update, here’s a thing I made this morning: an Automator converter to use Calibre to convert selected PDF/ePub/etc files to .mobi eBooks for the Kindle. Why use this when you could use Calibre’s interface to do the same? Because you’d have to use Calibre’s interface – a program so awful to use that it’s truly shocking.

Install the service by putting it into ~/Library/Services and then you’ll have a “calibre convert” item in your Services right click menu in the Finder. Relies on having calibre.app in /Applications folder or it won’t be able to find the needed binary.

If you want it to generate a different type of file (not .mobi), just open the workflow file in Automator and change the extension to another one that Calibre supports.