tzikeh: kindle (kindle)
[personal profile] tzikeh
We all know that Archive of our Own can automatically convert any fanfiction hosted there into various different formats (mobi, epub, pdf, html). That is but one reason that AO3 is so freakin’ awesome.

Unfortunately, there is no such option for fanfiction that’s hosted at livejournal or dreamwidth.

However, there is an easy (and free!) method to do so at Instapaper!

First, go get a free account at Instapaper. You will automatically get a bookmark called “read later.” (I installed it on my toolbar and renamed it “saved to instapaper.”)

Now, the main purpose of Instapaper is simply to bookmark stuff you’ve found online that you really want to read, but don’t have the time or inclination once you first come across it. Clicking on the “read later” bookmark will save the article to your instapaper account. When you want to read it, go to your account and click it.

On your account page, to the right, you will see "FOLDERS." You want to create a folder named whatever the piece of fiction is named. (Actually you could name is FRED if you want, but whatever.) Move the piece of fanfiction to that folder. Then, open the folder, so that the only thing displayed in the main screen is that story.

Once you have the piece of fanfiction saved to the folder, go ahead and click the format you want to download it as (“Printable,” “Kindle,” or “ePub”), and blam: it downloads the story, in the chosen format, to your computer. Sync your ereader, and there it is. (Kindle 3 users can also have it emailed directly to their Kindle.) Once you’ve done that, click “archive” or “delete” on the article (piece of fanfiction), and you’re done.

But what if the story is multiple chapters in multiple entries?

No problem—it just takes a little longer.

Make a folder at Instapaper for the story, just like you would for a single-chapter story.

Go to each lj entry of the story, and save each one to your Instapaper account. Make sure you get them all.

Go to your Instapaper account.

There’s a “move” link under each saved entry. “Move” each part of the story to the folder you’ve created. This is the part where you want to be careful: you have to move the last chapter FIRST, then the second-to-last chapter, etc. This saves them the last chapter at the bottom, etc., and the first chapter will be at the top.

Select the folder. You should see all of the chapters listed.

Click on the format you want to download.

Done.

If this doesn't work for you (it's possible I've missed out a step just by dint of having done it so often that I haven't simplified it enough), let me know and I can walk you through it.

Enjoy!

(N.B.: This probably works at other fanfiction archives, but I haven’t personally tested it, so I can’t say for certain.)

Date: 2012-03-12 01:29 am (UTC)
serrico: Screencap of a waving scarecrow from the Doctor Who ep 'Human Nature'. (dwwaves)
From: [personal profile] serrico
Ooo, nifty! Thanks for this!

Date: 2012-03-18 06:45 am (UTC)
jo_lasalle: a sleeping panda (ikea man)
From: [personal profile] jo_lasalle
I came across this on network, and this is really useful. Thank you for putting that up complete with instructions!

Do you mind linking to them?

Date: 2012-03-18 06:39 pm (UTC)
billie: (books)
From: [personal profile] billie
If you use calibre, there's also a plugin called "fanfictiondownloader" that'll automatically download and convert stories from sites like ff.net etc. You put in the URL for the first chapter, and it will automatically get all available chapters and stick them into one e-book file. I haven't tried any archives other than ff.net and fictionpress.com yet, but it may be an even easier option.

Date: 2012-03-18 06:53 pm (UTC)
billie: (books)
From: [personal profile] billie
Good to know! :) I'm still trying to figure out how to get the instapaper-option to work with lj/dw (I'm having trouble staying logged in recently, so I tend to get an entire ebook's worth of "you must be logged in ..." or "please confirm that you are over 14/18/whatever years of age" messages), but other than that, I'm very, very happy with it and super grateful to you for sharing this workaround.

Btw, in case anyone else has trouble with instapaper-created epub files (for me, entire chapters would show up as "there", but were empty / had only one accessible page): converting them to .mobi and back did the trick.

Date: 2012-03-18 07:08 pm (UTC)
billie: (books)
From: [personal profile] billie
Thank you, that's really kind of you.
I think it's a problem with LJ, not with instapaper, as I cannot stay logged in (using firefox 10.0.2; I experienced the same bug for about two months with ff 9.0.x) to LJ for any period of time. I've submitted my help request, and they're looking into it, but I'm mostly just hoping that the next ff update will fix it. :/ Other than that, there's nothing much to be done -- and it works fine on DW. I'm looking forward to the day when most of the kinkmemes will have moved here. :) With all other pages, it works as you described, and again, I'm immensely grateful for that -- I'm currently in the middle of a 900+ page whopper that I'd previously only been able to read online and probably would never have managed to convert to epub without your pointer.

Oh, and I meant to ask -- are you reading on a kindle keyboard as pictured in your icon, or do you use something else? :) I've got a Sony (PRS-T1) myself, but I'm always interested to hear about other people's experiences.

Date: 2012-03-20 08:18 pm (UTC)
everbright: Eclipse of Saturn (Default)
From: [personal profile] everbright
Thank you so much! I got a plain ole' kindle for Christmas, and it's where I do most of my fic-reading now. This'll be SO helpful!

Date: 2012-04-01 03:16 pm (UTC)
kriszeth: (Default)
From: [personal profile] kriszeth
does it work with meme fics? i mean, if i download ane entry in comes with all the fic in comments expanded, or it's just caps of the page in pdf format?

Date: 2012-04-08 01:09 am (UTC)
busaikko: Something Wicked This Way Comes (Default)
From: [personal profile] busaikko
I feel like I'm hijacking your conversation, but I recently discovered the FireFox Grab My Books add-on, which can grab links and make them into a single e-book. So if there is a multi-comment work, you just right-click on the "Link" and the comment goes into the book. This also works for masterposts: just right-click the links to each part. Moving chapters around is very easy as well, just go into edit and choose Up or Down. /interrupting

Date: 2012-04-09 10:59 am (UTC)
daegaer: (Default)
From: [personal profile] daegaer
Thank you so much for this, it's really helpful!

(Here via [personal profile] copperbadge).

Date: 2014-04-14 08:33 pm (UTC)
inevitableentresol: a Victorian gentleman with the body of a carrot (Default)
From: [personal profile] inevitableentresol
Thank you. I shall be trying this.

Date: 2014-06-04 06:51 am (UTC)
ceares: cookie all grown up (Default)
From: [personal profile] ceares
thank you, I've practically stopped reading things on lj/dw because of it's such a hassle to get it to my ereader.
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