4 ms·

Show HN: Printed Books from WhatsApp with Python and LaTeX

114 points by bkmn 10y ago

asenna 10y ago
This would make an awesome gift. I've been planning on doing exactly this with my girlfriend's conversation for quite some time now, but just haven't been able to get to it. Also, my chat history is so large, it craps out while exporting the chat. I'll try to see if I can do something about it. Thanks for sharing!
- bkmn 10y ago
  Happy you liked it!
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spikewilliams 10y ago
I could see an application for this in the field of disaster risk management. After a hurricane for example, WhatsApp channels are becoming used to coordinate response and recovery efforts between multiple different organizations. There is a need for a tool that can extract all the information that gets shared into a report that can be used for analysis of the big picture.
RaSoJo 10y ago
This is going to be a great Christmas gift for the family. Thanks for posting this in September. Gives me enough time to put in the effort :)
- bkmn 10y ago
  Haha, yeah that is a great christmas gift!
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matteblack 10y ago
I once created a little python script that would find an input search term in a WhatsApp chat archive. I have a similar chat with friends with almost 4 years of history, and a lot of daily activity, so it was cool to get a snapshot of what we spoke about. But this is a much more useful, and novel, tool.
m_eiman 10y ago
If neither Blurb nor Publit appeal to you, I've been using Lulu.com for making hard copies of our blog about our kids. Seems to be the same price as Blurb, and has a UK division. To generate the PDF, I use a nasty Python script to scrape the blog entries and images and massage then into LaTeX. Nasty code, but at least it works :P
- bkmn 10y ago
  Thanks, I hadn’t heard of Lulu!
motdiem 10y ago
This looks good. It's a great way to keep a memory of long running WhatsApp chats. Even without printing, this makes for a neat memento.
neogenix 10y ago
Take a look at peecho.com, they ship worldwide, are cheaper and don't require you to make it PDF/X-3 compatible.
- bkmn 10y ago
  I’ll take a look! Thanks!
  - neogenix 10y ago
    By the way, this is if you want to sell books through their API's. If you just want to order something for yourself they have a separate service where you can upload & buy: http://www.simpleprintservice.com/ http://www.simpleprintservice.com/
    - bkmn 10y ago
      Have you tried them? Good results?
      - neogenix 10y ago
        They aggregate volume to leverage big printing facilities, so the products you get are really high quality. (I've worked for them a couple of years ago).
0XAFFE 10y ago
An example would be very cool.
- bkmn 10y ago
  Agree! I’m working on it, books hopefully delivered within two or three weeks.
  - 0XAFFE 10y ago
    What I meant was, adding a generated PDF with demo content.
    - bkmn 10y ago
      Ah, ok. That should be doable.
n4r9 10y ago
I'm curious: how do you decide where to end the book? Did you make the cut based on length, or did you go in and look for a "natural" endpoint?
- bkmn 10y ago
  I try to keep them to 12 months each, ending at the last day of a specific month. I’ve printed three books so far; you’d think the thickness of individual books would vary a lot per year, but for our group it seems the amount of chatting is constant :)
  - n4r9 10y ago
    Ah okay, thanks. I'm thinking of doing something similar with a Hangouts group. You can use "Google Takeout" to export your entire Hangouts activities in JSON... so it looks like I'll need to do a bunch of my own parsing. It's a fantastic idea though!
zakki 10y ago
Thanks for sharing. Do you put censoring things in your program? I need to hide somethings :)
- bkmn 10y ago
  Haha, that’s a great idea!
PanMan 10y ago
I have to say this looks really nice. We have build a similar service with https://www.whappbook.com https://www.whappbook.com where we've automated the whole workflow, and give it a bit more whatsapp-like design. /end plug :). (I'm running the technical part at Whappbook).
g3orge 10y ago
You should expand to facebook messenger.
- bkmn 10y ago
  Yeah, Messenger is on my list.
g3orge 10y ago
You should expand to facebook messenger.
tetraodonpuffer 10y ago
> Our conversations range from lolcats to the very personal — just like life itself I am not sure I'd feel comfortable sending a "very personal" conversation to a printing service, maybe I am too paranoid, but I'd rather investigate into getting some sort of home-book-binding kit and doing that as opposed to sending it off to be printed
- bkmn 10y ago
  That’s reasonable. In our case ”the very personal” usually mean opinions on events and other people, stuff that is only sensitive if you know us. I wouldn’t print logs that included bank statements, and I probably wouldn’t print this kind of thing if I were a public figure.

114 points by bkmn 10y ago

This would make an awesome gift. I've been planning on doing exactly this with my girlfriend's conversation for quite some time now, but just haven't been able to get to it. Also, my chat history is so large, it craps out while exporting the chat. I'll try to see if I can do something about it. Thanks for sharing!

bkmn 10y ago
Happy you liked it!
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spikewilliams 10y ago

I could see an application for this in the field of disaster risk management. After a hurricane for example, WhatsApp channels are becoming used to coordinate response and recovery efforts between multiple different organizations. There is a need for a tool that can extract all the information that gets shared into a report that can be used for analysis of the big picture.

RaSoJo 10y ago

This is going to be a great Christmas gift for the family. Thanks for posting this in September. Gives me enough time to put in the effort :)

bkmn 10y ago
Haha, yeah that is a great christmas gift!
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

matteblack 10y ago

I once created a little python script that would find an input search term in a WhatsApp chat archive. I have a similar chat with friends with almost 4 years of history, and a lot of daily activity, so it was cool to get a snapshot of what we spoke about. But this is a much more useful, and novel, tool.

m_eiman 10y ago

If neither Blurb nor Publit appeal to you, I've been using Lulu.com for making hard copies of our blog about our kids. Seems to be the same price as Blurb, and has a UK division. To generate the PDF, I use a nasty Python script to scrape the blog entries and images and massage then into LaTeX. Nasty code, but at least it works :P

bkmn 10y ago
Thanks, I hadn’t heard of Lulu!

motdiem 10y ago

This looks good. It's a great way to keep a memory of long running WhatsApp chats. Even without printing, this makes for a neat memento.

neogenix 10y ago

Take a look at peecho.com, they ship worldwide, are cheaper and don't require you to make it PDF/X-3 compatible.

bkmn 10y ago
I’ll take a look! Thanks!
- neogenix 10y ago
  By the way, this is if you want to sell books through their API's. If you just want to order something for yourself they have a separate service where you can upload & buy: http://www.simpleprintservice.com/ http://www.simpleprintservice.com/
  - bkmn 10y ago
    Have you tried them? Good results?
    - neogenix 10y ago
      They aggregate volume to leverage big printing facilities, so the products you get are really high quality. (I've worked for them a couple of years ago).

0XAFFE 10y ago

An example would be very cool.

bkmn 10y ago
Agree! I’m working on it, books hopefully delivered within two or three weeks.
- 0XAFFE 10y ago
  What I meant was, adding a generated PDF with demo content.
  - bkmn 10y ago
    Ah, ok. That should be doable.

n4r9 10y ago

I'm curious: how do you decide where to end the book? Did you make the cut based on length, or did you go in and look for a "natural" endpoint?

bkmn 10y ago
I try to keep them to 12 months each, ending at the last day of a specific month. I’ve printed three books so far; you’d think the thickness of individual books would vary a lot per year, but for our group it seems the amount of chatting is constant :)
- n4r9 10y ago
  Ah okay, thanks. I'm thinking of doing something similar with a Hangouts group. You can use "Google Takeout" to export your entire Hangouts activities in JSON... so it looks like I'll need to do a bunch of my own parsing. It's a fantastic idea though!

zakki 10y ago

Thanks for sharing. Do you put censoring things in your program? I need to hide somethings :)

bkmn 10y ago
Haha, that’s a great idea!

PanMan 10y ago

I have to say this looks really nice. We have build a similar service with https://www.whappbook.com https://www.whappbook.com where we've automated the whole workflow, and give it a bit more whatsapp-like design. /end plug :). (I'm running the technical part at Whappbook).

g3orge 10y ago

You should expand to facebook messenger.

bkmn 10y ago
Yeah, Messenger is on my list.

g3orge 10y ago

You should expand to facebook messenger.

tetraodonpuffer 10y ago

> Our conversations range from lolcats to the very personal — just like life itself I am not sure I'd feel comfortable sending a "very personal" conversation to a printing service, maybe I am too paranoid, but I'd rather investigate into getting some sort of home-book-binding kit and doing that as opposed to sending it off to be printed

bkmn 10y ago
That’s reasonable. In our case ”the very personal” usually mean opinions on events and other people, stuff that is only sensitive if you know us. I wouldn’t print logs that included bank statements, and I probably wouldn’t print this kind of thing if I were a public figure.