Kindle to References (KTR)

The idea of this utility is to convert the highlights I've made in my Kindle to a format that I can use in my Zettelkasten (Obsidian).

Installation

Cargo

The cleanest way to install KTR is via cargo:

cargo install --git https://github.com/iambenzo/ktr.git --branch main ktr # for cli
cargo install --git https://github.com/iambenzo/ktr.git --branch main ktr_gui # for gui

Or via cargo-packager for the GUI:

cargo install cargo-packager
cargo packager --release

This will give you a package that you can install for your platform under ./target/release/.

GitHub Releases

There are Releases available. However, the programs are unsigned. This may mean you have to do some "unblocking" before you can run the apps on your machine. I haven't found this to be an issue on Linux.

I promise that I'm not doing anything nefarious on your machine, feel free to inspect the source code before using the unsigned binaries.

If this utility gains some level of popularity, I'll work out how to get the binaries signed.

Unblocking on Mac

Simply remove the quarantine flag that is put on the executable/dmg file:

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine <dmg_or_cli>

You may also need to:

chmod +x <dmg_or_cli>

Unblocking on Windows

There are two things you might need to do:

The below image is for the GUI installer.

For the CLI, you may also need to right-click on the .exe file and select "Properties". Under the "General" tab, you'll see a checkbox near the bottom of the window labelled "Unblock" - click it. Once you've done that, click "Apply" and then "Okay".

Usage

This application doesn't do anything too fancy. It takes a path to your 'My Clippings.txt' file, found on your Kindle under the documents directory.

You can optionally supply your own Tera template if you want to deviate from the default output/structure.

Finally, you need to provide a path to a directory for the output files to land in.

The output is a set of files, one per book, containing your Kindle highlights ready for augmenting into your Zettelkasten. Any Kindle notes attached to a highlight will also be included by the default template.

CLI

For the CLI, a default output directory will be created if one isn't supplied by you, the user.

The CLI will parse your entire clippings file every time.

Usage: ktr [OPTIONS] <CLIPPINGS_FILE>

Arguments:
  <CLIPPINGS_FILE>

Options:
  -t, --template <TEMPLATE_FILE>
  -o, --output <OUTPUT_DIR>
  -h, --help                      Print help
  -V, --version                   Print version

GUI

The GUI is a wizard style application.

The benefit of the GUI over the CLI is that it will allow you to select which books are processed into output files...though you will have to use your mouse.

Templating

For those of you comfortable reading a little Rust, you can take a look at this file to understand what objects are available to your custom template.

For those of you who like tables, here you go:

Object	Type	Notes
date	String	Today's date, excluding time
highlights	Vec	An iterable list of a book's highlights
quotes	Vec	An iterable list of a book's quotes

If you take a look at the model, you'll see that there's opportunity to make more objects available for templating. If there's demand, then I could look to expand the list of available objects for templating.