recipe-to-epub

Scan recipe cards via CUPS/SANE, OCR them with Tesseract, and compile into a richly styled EPUB recipe book.

Warning!!!! this is vibe coded

Workflow

Recipe card → [scanimage] → PNG → [tesseract] → raw text → [edit] → markdown → [compile] → EPUB

1. Scan — capture recipe cards using any SANE-compatible scanner
2. OCR — extract text with Tesseract, producing a markdown file with YAML frontmatter and raw OCR text
3. Edit — manually structure the raw text into Ingredients / Instructions sections
4. Compile — recipe markdown files into a styled EPUB with embedded scan images

Install

Nix (NixOS / Nix on any Linux)

nix run git+https://git.ascosilinux.com/vincent/recipe-to-epub.git -- --help

Or add to your flake inputs:

inputs.recipe-to-epub.url = "git+https://git.ascosilinux.com/vincent/recipe-to-epub.git";

From source

Requires Rust 2021+, tesseract (with eng trained data), and sane-backends (provides scanimage).

cargo install --path .

Usage

List available scanners

recipe-to-epub list-scanners

Scan a recipe card

recipe-to-epub scan --output scans/my_recipe.png

Options: --device, --resolution (default 300), --mode (Color/Gray/Lineart).

OCR a scanned image

recipe-to-epub ocr scans/my_recipe.png --output recipes/

Creates a markdown file with YAML frontmatter and raw OCR text. Open the file and organize the content under ## Ingredients and ## Instructions headings.

Batch OCR all images

recipe-to-epub process scans/ --output recipes/

Compile into EPUB

recipe-to-epub compile recipes/ --output cookbook.epub --title "Family Recipes" --author "Your Name"

Recipes are sorted alphabetically by title.

Full pipeline

recipe-to-epub all --output cookbook.epub --title "Family Recipes" --author "Your Name"

Recipe format

Each recipe is a markdown file with YAML frontmatter:

---
title: "Chocolate Chip Cookies"
source: "Family Recipe Box"
prep_time: "15 minutes"
cook_time: "10 minutes"
servings: "24 cookies"
date_scanned: "2026-06-07"
---

## Ingredients
- 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- ...

## Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. ...

All fields except title are optional. The image field (path to scanned PNG) is set automatically by ocr/process.

EPUB styling

The generated EPUB uses a warm, serif-based design:

• Georgia serif body text, warm brown headings
• Recipe metadata in a styled box (cream background, tan border)
• Square bullet markers for ingredients
• Embedded scan images centered with border

Project structure

src/
  main.rs    — CLI entry point with clap subcommands
  scanner.rs — scanimage subprocess wrapper
  ocr.rs     — image preprocessing + Tesseract CLI
  recipe.rs  — Recipe struct with YAML frontmatter serialization
  epub.rs    — EPUB assembly with epub-builder + CSS

License

MIT