Readly

Convert WeChat articles to PDF and EPUB for reading on e-readers and any device.

What it does

Paste a WeChat article URL, get PDF and EPUB files. Simple as that.

• Works with any WeChat Official Account (公众号) article
• Outputs both PDF and EPUB formats
• Optimized for e-ink readers (Kindle, Kobo, etc.)
• No account required

Architecture

Frontend (Vercel/Cloudflare)     Backend (VPS)
┌─────────────────────┐          ┌─────────────────────────┐
│  Static HTML/JS     │  ──────> │  FastAPI + Playwright   │
│  URL input form     │          │  PDF/EPUB generation    │
│  Stripe payment     │          │                         │
└─────────────────────┘          └─────────────────────────┘

Tech Stack

Frontend:

• Static HTML/CSS/JS
• Hosted on Vercel or Cloudflare Pages

Backend:

• Python + FastAPI
• Playwright (headless browser for WeChat scraping)
• ebooklib (EPUB generation)
• Hosted on any VPS (Linode, DigitalOcean, etc.)

Payments:

• Stripe + Alipay

Local Development

Backend

cd backend
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate  # On Windows: venv\Scripts\activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
playwright install chromium
uvicorn main:app --reload --port 8000

The API will be available at http://localhost:8000

Frontend

Just open frontend/index.html in a browser, or:

cd frontend
python3 -m http.server 3000

Testing from Mobile Devices (iPhone/Android)

To test the frontend from a phone on your local network:

1. Start a local server on your Mac:

   cd frontend
   python3 -m http.server 8080

2. Find your Mac's local IP:

   ipconfig getifaddr en0

   This will return something like 192.168.1.100

3. On your phone, open: http://<mac-ip>:8080

   Example: http://192.168.1.100:8080

The frontend auto-detects local network IPs (192.168.x.x, 10.x.x.x, etc.) and will use the dev backend (dev-api.readly.space). You'll see "(dev)" on the Convert button to confirm.

When accessed from the public internet (e.g., readly.space), it uses the production backend (api.readly.space).

API Endpoints

Health Check

GET /health

Convert URL

POST /convert
Content-Type: application/json

{
    "url": "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/..."
}

Response:

{
    "job_id": "abc12345",
    "title": "Article Title",
    "pdf_url": "/download/abc12345/pdf",
    "epub_url": "/download/abc12345/epub"
}

Download File

GET /download/{job_id}/pdf
GET /download/{job_id}/epub

Production Deployment

Prerequisites

• A Linux VPS (Ubuntu/Debian recommended)
• Domain name pointed to your server
• nginx and certbot installed

1. Clone and setup

git clone https://github.com/Inturious-Labs/readly.git ~/readly
cd ~/readly/backend
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
playwright install chromium
playwright install-deps

2. Setup systemd service

Edit the service file and replace YOUR_USER with your Linux username:

sed -i 's/YOUR_USER/your_actual_username/g' ~/readly/deploy/readly.service

Copy and enable the service:

sudo cp ~/readly/deploy/readly.service /etc/systemd/system/
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable readly
sudo systemctl start readly

Check status:

sudo systemctl status readly

3. Setup nginx with SSL

Create nginx config:

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/readly

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name api.yourdomain.com;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8000;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    }
}

Enable and get SSL:

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/readly /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo nginx -t
sudo systemctl reload nginx
sudo certbot --nginx -d api.yourdomain.com

Common commands

# View logs
sudo journalctl -u readly -f

# Restart service
sudo systemctl restart readly

# After code updates
cd ~/readly && git pull && sudo systemctl restart readly

License

MIT