C library for handling Mobipocket/Kindle (MOBI) ebook format documents.

For examples on how to use the library have a look at tools folder.

• reading and parsing:
  • some older text Palmdoc formats (pdb),
  • Mobipocket files (prc, mobi),
  • newer MOBI files including KF8 format (azw, azw3),
  • Replica Print files (azw4)
• recreating source files using indices
• reconstructing references (links and embedded) in html files
• reconstructing source structure that can be fed back to kindlegen
• reconstructing dictionary markup (orth, infl tags)
• writing back loaded documents
• metadata editing
• handling encrypted documents

• improve writing
• serialize rawml into raw records
• process RESC records

• functions,
• structures for the raw, unparsed records metadata and data,
• structures for the parsed records metadata and data,
• enums

• on github

[for git] $ ./autogen.sh
$ ./configure
$ make
[optionally] $ make test
$ sudo make install

On macOS, you can install via Homebrew with brew install libmobi.

• single include file: #include <mobi.h>
• linker flag: -lmobi
• basic usage:

#include <mobi.h>

/* Initialize main MOBIData structure */
/* Must be deallocated with mobi_free() when not needed */
MOBIData *m = mobi_init();
if (m == NULL) { 
  return ERROR; 
}

/* Open file for reading */
FILE *file = fopen(fullpath, "rb");
if (file == NULL) {
  mobi_free(m);
  return ERROR;
}

/* Load file into MOBIData structure */
/* This structure will hold raw data/metadata from mobi document */
MOBI_RET mobi_ret = mobi_load_file(m, file);
fclose(file);
if (mobi_ret != MOBI_SUCCESS) { 
  mobi_free(m);
  return ERROR;
}

/* Initialize MOBIRawml structure */
/* Must be deallocated with mobi_free_rawml() when not needed */
/* In the next step this structure will be filled with parsed data */
MOBIRawml *rawml = mobi_init_rawml(m);
if (rawml == NULL) {
  mobi_free(m);
  return ERROR;
}
/* Raw data from MOBIData will be converted to html, css, fonts, media resources */
/* Parsed data will be available in MOBIRawml structure */
mobi_ret = mobi_parse_rawml(rawml, m);
if (mobi_ret != MOBI_SUCCESS) {
  mobi_free(m);
  mobi_free_rawml(rawml);
  return ERROR;
}

/* Do something useful here */
/* ... */
/* For examples how to access data in MOBIRawml structure see mobitool.c */

/* Free MOBIRawml structure */
mobi_free_rawml(rawml);

/* Free MOBIData structure */
mobi_free(m);

return SUCCESS;

• for examples of usage, see tools

• compiler supporting C99
• zlib (optional, configure --with-zlib=no to use included miniz.c instead)
• libxml2 (optional, configure --with-libxml2=no to use internal xmlwriter)
• tested with gcc (>=4.2.4), clang (llvm >=3.4), sun c (>=5.13), MSVC++ (2015)
• builds on Linux, MacOS X, Windows (MSVC++, MinGW), Android, Solaris
• tested architectures: x86, x86-64, arm, ppc
• works cross-compiled on Kindle :)

• KyBook 2 Reader
• @Voice Aloud Reader
• QLMobi quicklook plugin
• Librera Reader
• ... (let me know to include your project)

• LGPL, either version 3, or any later

• The huffman decompression and KF8 parsing algorithms were learned by studying python source code of KindleUnpack.
• Thanks to all contributors of Mobileread MOBI wiki