I created a Book Scanner app for myself

Book Scanner is another little project I’ve been building lately: upload a PDF book and get an instant chapter-by-chapter breakdown.

I always wanted a tool that helps me understand a book before I actually read it. The closest thing was Blinkist, but I also wanted to explore books on my own terms, starting from the middle or jumping straight to the end.

A few things it does:

  • 📖 Upload any PDF and it auto-detects every chapter
  • ✨ AI summary for each chapter
  • 🖍️ Highlight text like on a Kindle
  • 🧭 Sidebar with table of contents for quick navigation
  • 📚 All books stay saved in a personal library

The fun part is being able to add those small details that make it feel personal. Like a soft marker-on-paper sound when you highlight something. Claude Code makes those small touches doable now, which I still find amazing.

Right now it lives on my laptop, but once it’s on a server I’ll share a beta version.

What a cool time to be alive.

Some tools I used in that project: Claude Code, Every’s Compound Engineering plugin.

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