Why iBook PDF won't export?

[stefnestor]

👋 @bingryan, I appreciate your more Obsidian-direct automation of the ibooks_notes_exporter tool, cheers!

Request

I've been trying to figure why my iBook PDFs won't export via your tool. (Normal iBooks seem to work just fine.)

🙏 Would you mind reviewing if your tool works for exporting PDFs? And if not, will you kindly consider the feature request? If not able, will you kindly consider filtering out PDFs from your search since they won't work as a bug?

I'll go through manual scripting if needed as an alternative to munach/obsidian-extract-pdf-annotations and/or akaalias/obsidian-extract-pdf-highlights in order to customize back to the formatting you've defined which I prefer if expanding to include PDFs ends up not being within scope. TIA!

Example

Playing forward troubleshooting steps from #49, I checked

1. I highlighted the first text of example How to Make a Complete Map of Every Thought You Think.pdf (original URL reference) PDF has text highlighted(/annotated) on page#0. For good measure I also highlighted & left a comment on page#iii.
   
2. Your "Obsidian iBook" tool has workable settings for testing
   
3. Using ibook: export by search for "how to make a complete" shows my PDF title and submitting does not DevTool console error
   
   

   downloads$ echo "
   >         SELECT
   >             *
   >         FROM ZBKLIBRARYASSET
   >         WHERE ZASSETID == '3821D2BFD7B808DE03C5F042C99A2A55'
   >     " | sqlite3 ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iBooksX/Data/Documents/BKLibrary/BKLibrary-1-091020131601.sqlite -json
   [{"Z_PK":210,"Z_ENT":5,"Z_OPT":22,"ZCANREDOWNLOAD":1,"ZCOMBINEDSTATE":1,"ZCOMPUTEDRATING":null,"ZCONTENTTYPE":3,"ZDESKTOPSUPPORTLEVEL":0,"ZDIDRUNFORYOUENDOFBOOKEXPERIENCE":null,"ZDIDWARNABOUTDESKTOPSUPPORT":0,"ZFILESIZE":526770,"ZGENERATION":1,"ZHASRACSUPPORT":0,"ZISDEVELOPMENT":0,"ZISDOWNLOADINGSUPPLEMENTALCONTENT":null,"ZISEPHEMERAL":0,"ZISEXPLICIT":null,"ZISFINISHED":null,"ZISHIDDEN":0,"ZISLOCKED":0,"ZISNEW":1,"ZISPROOF":0,"ZISSAMPLE":0,"ZISSTOREAUDIOBOOK":null,"ZISSUPPLEMENTALCONTENT":0,"ZISTRACKEDASRECENT":null,"ZMETADATAMIGRATIONVERSION":null,"ZNOTFINISHED":null,"ZPAGECOUNT":0,"ZRATING":0,"ZSERIESISCLOUDONLY":null,"ZSERIESISHIDDEN":null,"ZSERIESNEXTFLAG":null,"ZSERIESSORTKEY":0,"ZSORTKEY":0,"ZSTATE":1,"ZTASTE":0,"ZTASTESYNCEDTOSTORE":0,"ZLOCALONLYSERIESITEMSPARENT":null,"ZPURCHASEDANDLOCALPARENT":null,"ZSERIESCONTAINER":null,"ZSUPPLEMENTALCONTENTPARENT":null,"ZASSETDETAILSMODIFICATIONDATE":719171132.39047099071,"ZBOOKHIGHWATERMARKPROGRESS":0.0,"ZBOOKMARKSSERVERMAXMODIFICATIONDATE":null,"ZCREATIONDATE":709921075.50168004337,"ZDATEFINISHED":null,"ZDURATION":0.0,"ZEXPECTEDDATE":null,"ZFILEONDISKLASTTOUCHDATE":null,"ZLASTENGAGEDDATE":null,"ZLASTOPENDATE":719171132.39014991421,"ZLOCATIONSERVERMAXMODIFICATIONDATE":null,"ZMODIFICATIONDATE":719171132.39014991421,"ZPURCHASEDATE":709921074.19790002609,"ZREADINGPROGRESS":0.0,"ZRELEASEDATE":null,"ZUPDATEDATE":719170411,"ZVERSIONNUMBER":0.0,"ZACCOUNTID":null,"ZASSETGUID":"23FCD756-0212-425D-AD20-1DF509E72D48","ZASSETID":"3821D2BFD7B808DE03C5F042C99A2A55","ZAUTHOR":"Lion Kimbro","ZBOOKDESCRIPTION":null,"ZBOOKMARKSSERVERVERSION":null,"ZCOMMENTS":null,"ZCOVERURL":null,"ZCOVERWRITINGMODE":null,"ZDATASOURCEIDENTIFIER":"com.apple.ibooks.datasource.ubiquity","ZDOWNLOADEDDSID":null,"ZEPUBID":"","ZFAMILYID":null,"ZGENRE":null,"ZGROUPING":null,"ZKIND":null,"ZLANGUAGE":null,"ZLOCATIONSERVERVERSION":null,"ZPAGEPROGRESSIONDIRECTION":null,"ZPATH":"/Users/stef/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~com~apple~iBooks/Documents/How to Make a Complete Map of Every Thought You Think.pdf","ZPERMLINK":null,"ZPURCHASEDDSID":null,"ZSEQUENCEDISPLAYNAME":null,"ZSERIESID":null,"ZSERIESSTACKIDS":null,"ZSORTAUTHOR":"Lion Kimbro","ZSORTTITLE":"How to Make a Complete Map of Every Thought You Think","ZSTOREID":null,"ZSTOREPLAYLISTID":null,"ZTEMPORARYASSETID":null,"ZTITLE":"How to Make a Complete Map of Every Thought You Think","ZVERSIONNUMBERHUMANREADABLE":null,"ZYEAR":null}]
   downloads$ echo "
   >         SELECT
   >             *
   >         FROM ZAEANNOTATION
   >         WHERE ZANNOTATIONASSETID == '3821D2BFD7B808DE03C5F042C99A2A55'
   >         ORDER BY ZPLLOCATIONRANGESTART,ZFUTUREPROOFING6
   >     " | sqlite3 ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iBooksX/Data/Documents/AEAnnotation/AEAnnotation_v10312011_1727_local.sqlite -json
   # NULL
   

4. Note in (3) that PDF JSON did export but no annotations returned in your second custom SQLite query, so the resulting page only has top-level PDF details but no annotations
   

[bingryan]

@stefnestor hey, stefnestor, In mac, pdf files are not opened using the ibook app. The pdf file is opened using the preview app.The ibook app add book info data at database. but annotation not save.

[bingryan]

BTW, On macOS, PDF annotation data in the preview app is stored in the PDF file. you can use :

strings xxxx.pdf | grep Annots