oreilly2pdf 0.1.0

Export O'Reilly books as high-quality PDF via headless Chrome

oreilly2pdf

Export O'Reilly Learning books as high-quality PDFs with working images, table of contents, and cross-chapter hyperlinks.

Features

• Full book export — cover, chapters, appendices, index, and all front/back matter.
• High-fidelity rendering — uses headless Chrome to capture the exact same layout you see in the browser, including mathematical equations, code blocks, tables, and figures.
• Images — lazy-loaded and dynamically-rendered images are fully resolved before printing.
• Cross-chapter links — internal references (e.g., "see Section 4.3", bibliography citations, index entries) are converted into clickable PDF links that jump to the correct page.
• Clean output — O'Reilly's navigation UI, cookie banners, sidebar menus, and overlays are stripped, leaving only the book content.

Prerequisites

• Python 3.10+
• Google Chrome (or Chromium) installed
• ChromeDriver matching your Chrome version — installed automatically by Selenium 4.20+
• A valid O'Reilly Learning subscription

Installation

From PyPI

pip install oreilly2pdf

From source

git clone https://github.com/cruzlorite/oreilly2pdf.git
cd oreilly2pdf
pip install .

Usage

# Using a cookies file (recommended)
oreilly2pdf 9781098150952 --cookie-file cookies.json

# Using inline cookies
oreilly2pdf 9781098150952 --cookies "BrowserCookie=abc123; logged_in=1; ..."

# Custom output path
oreilly2pdf 9781098150952 --cookie-file cookies.json -o my_book.pdf

# Keep individual chapter PDFs
oreilly2pdf 9781098150952 --cookie-file cookies.json --keep-chapters

Options

Flag	Description
book_id	The O'Reilly book identifier (ISBN).
--cookies	Session cookies as key=value pairs separated by semicolons.
--cookie-file	Path to a cookies file (JSON or plain text).
-o, --output	Output PDF file path (default: <book_id>.pdf).
--keep-chapters	Keep individual chapter PDFs in a directory alongside the output.

Getting Your Cookies

oreilly2pdf needs your O'Reilly session cookies to authenticate. Here's how to get them:

Option 1 — JSON file (recommended)

1. Log in to learning.oreilly.com in Chrome.
2. Open DevTools (F12) → Application tab → Cookies → https://learning.oreilly.com.
3. Create a JSON file with the cookie name/value pairs:

{
  "BrowserCookie": "your_value_here",
  "logged_in": "1",
  "orm-jwt": "your_jwt_token",
  "orm-rt": "your_refresh_token",
  "groot_sessionid": "your_session_id"
}

The exact cookies needed may vary, but orm-jwt and groot_sessionid are typically the most important. If export fails with authentication errors, try adding more cookies from your browser.

Tip — browser console: You can also grab all cookies at once by running this in the DevTools Console while on learning.oreilly.com:

JSON.stringify(Object.fromEntries(document.cookie.split('; ').map(c => c.split('='))))

Copy the output and save it as cookies.json.

Tip — extension: The Cookie-Editor browser extension can export all cookies as JSON with one click. Export as JSON, keep only the learning.oreilly.com entries, and reformat as {"name": "value"} pairs.

4. Save as cookies.json and pass it with --cookie-file cookies.json.

Option 2 — Plain text

Copy cookies as a semicolon-separated string:

oreilly2pdf 9781098150952 --cookies "BrowserCookie=abc; orm-jwt=eyJ...; groot_sessionid=xyz"

Finding the Book ID

The book ID is the ISBN that appears in the O'Reilly URL:

https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/book-title/9781098150952/
                                                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
                                                     This is the book_id

How It Works

1. Fetches the book spine from the O'Reilly API to get an ordered list of all content files (cover, chapters, appendices, index, etc.).
2. Renders each chapter in headless Chrome with your session cookies.
3. Waits for all images to fully load (handles lazy-loading, viewport-triggered loading, and dynamic image injection).
4. Cleans the page — removes the O'Reilly reading UI (header, sidebar, navigation, cookie banners, overlays) and keeps only the article content.
5. Creates PDF named destinations for every element with an id attribute, enabling cross-chapter link resolution.
6. Prints each chapter to PDF using the Chrome DevTools Protocol.
7. Merges all chapter PDFs into a single file and rewrites internal URI links as PDF GoTo links, so cross-chapter references, index entries, and bibliography citations all work as clickable links.

Acknowledgements

Inspired by oreilly-epub-downloader by @tctibbs.

License

MIT