Drop a PDF (or a link to one) here to get an audiobook

What you do

Put the PDF in this folder (_incoming/). In Gitea: open _incoming, choose Add file > Upload file, drop the PDF, commit to main. Or drop a link instead: create a small text file here, for example science-of-breath.url (or .txt), whose content is just the web address of the PDF, like https://example.org/books/science-of-breath.pdf. A Windows internet shortcut (.url with a URL= line) works too. An arXiv page address (https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.01234) is turned into the PDF address automatically.
That is all. Nothing else to click, nobody to ask.

What happens next (automatic, no bot)

A job on the 5060 machine (for a link: first downloads the PDF, follows redirects, refuses anything over 300 MB, and checks it really is a PDF) reads the PDF, cleans the text, finds every chapter, writes the narration script and the license note, speaks every chapter in the locked voice (Michael, Chatterbox), builds one MP3 per chapter plus opening credits, closing credits and a retail sample, checks every file against the Audible/ACX numbers, and commits the finished book back to main. The PDF (or the link file) moves out of _incoming/ in that same commit. For a link, the downloaded PDF is stored in the book folder and the address is recorded in book.json as source_url.

Where the audio appears

books/<author-surname-first>/<book-title>/audio/ (one MP3 per chapter, credits, retail sample, run.log with the ACX check table). Next to it: text/, script/, figures/skipped_figures.md, book.json, warnings.log, LICENSE_STATUS.md, and the PDF. Example: books/clark-glenn/the-man-who-tapped-the-secrets-of-the-universe/audio/

How to see progress

Open the repo's Actions tab (https://gitea.vps1.afterthedemo.com/Ty_Tech/old-books/actions). The run named audiobook is yours. Green = finished and committed. Red = it stopped, and the log says which step failed and why (for a link: bad address, server error, not a PDF, too large, timed out). A red run commits nothing and leaves the PDF or link file here; fix the cause, then push anything that touches the PDF again, or use Run workflow on the Actions page and give it the PDF path. Long books take hours. About 1 hour of audio takes about 30 minutes to render.

Good to know

Title and author never stop a run. They are found in this order, and book.json records where each came from (metadata_sources):
1. A small file next to the PDF with the same name and .json, e.g. my-book.json containing {"title": "My Book", "author": "First Last"}. This always wins.
2. Title: the PDF's own Title property. Author: a "By First Last" line on the first pages (this beats the PDF's Author property, which is often a typesetter or "admin"), then the PDF's Author property.
3. If the first pages are scans, they are read by OCR (up to 10 pages), and a name printed right under the title also counts as the author.
4. The file name: Some Title - by First Last.pdf, or just the cleaned name (2015.47927.Science-Of-Breath.pdf becomes "Science Of Breath"). For a link, the name from the web address is used (and then the link file's own name).
5. No author anywhere: the author is "Unknown" and the book goes to books/unknown/<title>/. Nothing at all: the title comes from the file name. Whenever a fallback is used, a line is added to warnings.log (ingest-metadata). To fix a wrong guess later, add the .json file and drop the PDF again.
Scanned pages with no text layer are OCRed automatically (copy-protected PDFs are unlocked in the scratch copy only; your original is stored untouched). OCR mistakes are listed in warnings.log.
Dropping the same PDF again skips audio that already exists.
License status defaults to unknown and never blocks anything. Nothing is published anywhere outside this repo.
Summaries (chapter preview, chapter-end summary, mid-chapter summary) are off. Turn them on per book in book.json under summaries.