!Kobo annot file to plain text.md

Converting Kobo annotations (.annot file) to plain text

Install

• Put convert.js into a folder
• npm i xml2js

Usage

Dump into stdout:

node convert.js path/to/file.annot

Save to a file:

node convert.js path/to/file.annot > annotations.txt

convert.js

const fs = require('fs');
const xml2js = require('xml2js');

const filePath = process.argv[2];
if (!filePath) {
    console.error('Please provide .annot file path as an argument');
    process.exit(1);
}

const fileContent = fs.readFileSync(filePath).toString();
const parser = new xml2js.Parser();

parser.parseString(fileContent, (err, result) => {
    if (err) {
        console.error(err);
        process.exit(1);
    }

    const fragments = result.annotationSet.annotation.map(a => a.target[0].fragment);
    const fragmentsSorted = fragments.sort((a, b) => {
        return parseFloat(a[0]['$']['progress']) - parseFloat(b[0]['$']['progress']);
    });

    const texts = fragmentsSorted.map(f => f[0]['text'][0]);
    console.log(texts.join('\n\n---\n\n'));
});