I spend a lot of time every day reading online—blogs, long-form articles, and newsletters. My usual workflow is to curate interesting pieces throughout the day, then set aside a dedicated block of time to read them all at once.
At first, I relied on simple bookmarking, but my bookmarks quickly became an unmanageable mess.
Then I relied on [Omnivore](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41985118) to handle this. I have to say it was a great tool, but one day they suddenly announced they were shutting down the service, leaving us with very little time to migrate. That was the first time I truly felt like I was being kicked out. I spent so much time collecting content I loved, but in the end, it was stored in someone else’s repository—it felt as though those things never really belonged to me.
After that, I tried several alternatives like [EpubPress](https://epub.press), [dotepub](https://dotepub.com), etc. They were okay, but they all had limitations—like conversion limits, service interruptions, or being too complicated to use (they had way too many input fields; some parameters I didn’t even understand hahah... I just wanted to click a button and get it done). More importantly, my data was dependent on someone else’s servers.
So, I built my own tool: [Any2Ebook](https://any2ebook.com).
It consists of two main parts: a [browser extension](https://any2ebook.com/how-it-works) that captures open tabs or bookmarks, and a [desktop app](https://any2ebook.com/how-it-works) that converts them into clean, readable EPUBs. The two communicate via a local HTTP port. The entire conversion process happens right on your machine—no data ever leaves your computer.
**You use it, you own it.**
Since everything is processed locally, there are no artificial limits on how many files you can convert.
# What about PDFs?
I also work with a lot of academic papers, so I added a [PDF to EPUB](https://any2ebook.com/how-it-works) feature. It uses AI to handle complex math typesetting and OCR. It really put me through the mill. I would certainly prefer to handle PDF OCR locally as well, but current local models are not yet mature enough. Running a powerful OCR model requires a high-performance PC, making it difficult for me to strike a balance between recognition accuracy and hardware requirements. Therefore, it is currently implemented using well-known, high-quality LLMs such as Mistral and DeepSeek, so it is a paid feature.
If local OCR models become efficient enough to run on standard laptops in the future, I’ll be the first to switch it over to a fully local implementation.
But if you don't need the PDF feature, the web content conversion is—and will remain—completely free and private.
These days, I usually batch-convert my favorite articles to EPUB and send them to my Kindle. E-readers are a godsend for focused reading!
I sincerely hope this tool helps others who value their reading privacy and ownership as much as I do. I’m happy to answer any questions or hear your feedback!
Hope this helps!