Merge chapters

[red-avtovo]

Once I download a list of chapters (issues), it would be amazing to be able to merge them together and have only 1 file that could be effortlessly imported.
Is that something that you could provide?

Especially in comics with lots of chapters it makes it cumbersome to work with tons of files instead of one really thick "book"

[sendhelpls]

I'm not sure about windows synates, but here we go:

Step 1: move every pdf file into one directory:
for %i in (*.pdf) do move "%i" \all - windows
find . -type f -exec mv -i {} all/ \; - linux

Step 2: rename each file to only chapter number.
for %i in (*-*.pdf) do move "%i" "%i" - windows
for file in *-*.pdf; do mv "$file" "${file##*-}";done - linux

Step 3: merge the pdf files.
for this, install the pypdf library

merger file attached as txt, but here is the code
comic merger.txt

import os
from pypdf import PdfMerger
import re

def find_pdf_files(directory):
    pdf_files = []
    for root, _, files in os.walk(directory):
        for file in files:
            if file.endswith('.pdf'):
                file_path = os.path.join(root, file)
                pdf_files.append(file_path)
                print(f'added {str(file)} to the list')
    return pdf_files

pdfs = find_pdf_files(os.getcwd())
pdfs = pdf_files_sorted = sorted(pdfs, key=lambda x: [int(s) if s.isdigit() else s.lower() for s in re.split(r'(\d+)', x)])

merger = PdfMerger()

print('merging...')
for pdf in pdfs:
    print(f'merged {pdf}.')
    merger.append(pdf)

merger.write("merged.pdf")
merger.close()

[Girbons]

That would be really cool @red-avtovo

[hollisticated-horse]

Once I download a list of chapters (issues), it would be amazing to be able to merge them together and have only 1 file that could be effortlessly imported. Is that something that you could provide?

Does this apply to mangas and comics both?

Especially in comics with lots of chapters it makes it cumbersome to work with tons of files instead of one really thick "book"

This might make a really, really THICK PDF/CBR/CBZ file, especially for series with numerous chapters. That being said, I'm assuming that it would fairly easy to add a new flag for building the THICK file.

One issue I can already see coming up is the exceptions I found in readallcomics.com, where a comic book series can use different names in the URLs used to download the issues. This means that two different folders are created. So the tool would have to keep track of the files created.

[red-avtovo]

I'm building thick cbz files myself what simplifies reading a tome with tons of chapters. It would be amazing to have it in one place through the web ui.
I believe that use case works both for manga and comics

[red-avtovo]

It is not an issue for the creation of multiple folders. I put chapter folders side by side and then archive them. It works perfectly fine.

Currently, this is my current semy-UI solution, that I use locally

#!/usr/bin/env python3
import tkinter as tk
from tkinter import messagebox
from tkinterdnd2 import TkinterDnD, DND_FILES
import os
import zipfile
import tempfile
from datetime import datetime


class CBZMergerGUI(TkinterDnD.Tk):
    def __init__(self):
        super().__init__()
        self.title("CBZ Merger")
        self.geometry("500x300")
        self.configure(bg="#f0f0f0")
        
        # Create drop zone
        self.drop_label = tk.Label(
            self, 
            text="Drag & Drop CBZ Files Here",
            bg="#ffffff", 
            fg="#333333",
            font=("Helvetica", 16),
            relief="groove",
            padx=20,
            pady=20
        )
        self.drop_label.pack(expand=True, fill="both", padx=20, pady=20)
        
        # Configure drag and drop
        self.drop_label.drop_target_register(DND_FILES)
        self.drop_label.dnd_bind("<<Drop>>", self.on_file_drop)

    def on_file_drop(self, event):
        """Handle dropped files"""
        files = self.parse_dropped_files(event.data)
        if not files:
            return

        print("Files Directory:", os.path.dirname(files[0]))
        print("File names dropped:", [os.path.basename(f) for f in files])

        try:
            output_path = self.merge_cbz_files(files)
            messagebox.showinfo(
                "Merge Complete",
                f"Created: {os.path.basename(output_path)}\n"
                f"Location: {os.path.dirname(output_path)}"
            )
        except Exception as e:
            messagebox.showerror("Merge Failed", str(e))

    def parse_dropped_files(self, data):
        """Convert dropped data to proper file paths"""
        # Handle macOS/Windows path formatting
        files = data.strip()
        cleaned_files = []
        files = files.split('} {')
        cleaned_files = [f.strip('{}') for f in files]

        return cleaned_files

    def merge_cbz_files(self, file_paths):
        """Core merging functionality"""
        # Filter and validate CBZ files
        cbz_files = [f for f in file_paths if f.lower().endswith(".cbz")]
        if not cbz_files:
            raise ValueError("No CBZ files found in dropped items")
            
        # Determine output directory (use first file's location)
        output_dir = os.path.dirname(cbz_files[0])
        dir_name = os.path.basename(output_dir)
        output_name = f"{dir_name}.cbz"
        output_path = os.path.join(output_dir, output_name)
        
        # Handle existing file
        if os.path.exists(output_path):
            timestamp = datetime.now().strftime("%Y%m%d-%H%M%S")
            output_name = f"all_{timestamp}.cbz"
            output_path = os.path.join(output_dir, output_name)
            
        # Temporary workspace
        with tempfile.TemporaryDirectory() as tmpdir:
            # Extract all CBZs to subfolders
            for cbz in cbz_files:
                folder_name = os.path.splitext(os.path.basename(cbz))[0]
                target_dir = os.path.join(tmpdir, folder_name)
                os.makedirs(target_dir, exist_ok=True)
                
                with zipfile.ZipFile(cbz, "r") as zf:
                    zf.extractall(target_dir)
            
            # Create new CBZ archive
            with zipfile.ZipFile(output_path, "w", zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED) as new_cbz:
                for root, dirs, files in os.walk(tmpdir):
                    for file in files:
                        file_path = os.path.join(root, file)
                        arcname = os.path.relpath(file_path, tmpdir)
                        new_cbz.write(file_path, arcname)
                        
        return output_path

if __name__ == "__main__":
    # Required for macOS bundle compatibility
    if os.environ.get("PYTHON_RUNNING_IN_BUNDLE") == "1":
        os.environ["TK_SILENCE_DEPRECATION"] = "1"
    
    app = CBZMergerGUI()
    app.mainloop()