Help: pdf to epub conversion in Calibre splits paragraphs

leday · 12-03-2010, 03:27 PM

Every time I try to convert one of my PDF files to EPUB, I am getting output that splits every paragraph into separate paragraphs of 1-2 lines each.

For instance, a PDF file that looks like this:

Raw violence clawed at Lyon's self-control, his beast's instincts begging to rip the asshole's throat out. His control, battered by their increasingly critical situation, snapped. The tip of his fingers burned a moment before his claws sprang out. With a growl, he shifted both his blades to one hand while he whirled and sank the claws of his other in the man's neck as he slammed him against the rock.

Blood trickled down Jag's throat, but no fear flickered in his eyes, only a spark of malicious amusement that he'd pushed Lyon too far. Even if Lyon completely lost it, he'd be hard-pressed to do Jag any real damage. Physically, they were a match, Shape-shifters simply didn't break that easily.

ends up in EPUB looking like this:

Raw violence clawed at Lyon's self-control, his beast's instincts begging to rip the asshole's

throat out. His control, battered by their increasingly critical situation, snapped. The tip of his

fingers burned a moment before his claws sprang out. With a growl, he shifted both his blades to

one hand while he whirled and sank the claws of his other in the man's neck as he slammed him

against the rock.

Blood trickled down Jag's throat, but no fear flickered in his eyes, only a spark of malicious

amusement that he'd pushed Lyon too far. Even if Lyon completely lost it, he'd be hard-pressed

to do Jag any real damage. Physically, they were a match, Shape-shifters simply didn't break that

easily.

The code on the output epub shows <p> and </p> breaks were inserted after each separate "paragraph". Does anybody know what I'm doing wrong here? I have a LOT of pdf files that I need to convert. Help is appreciated.

Worldwalker · 12-03-2010, 03:35 PM

I can't address the pdf problem, but as for the duplicate post you couldn't delete, report your own second post to the mods (the little ! just to the right of the Karma button) and tell them you have an accidental duplicate you need deleted. I think they appreciate having simple duplicates to deal with instead of borderline spammers.

Starson17 · 12-03-2010, 03:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by leday

[B]Every time I try to convert one of my PDF files to EPUB, I am getting output that splits every paragraph into separate paragraphs of 1-2 lines each.

You need to adjust the pdf unwrap factor.

leday · 12-03-2010, 03:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Starson17

You need to adjust the pdf unwrap factor.

Sorry for being such a newbie about this, but how do I adjust this and what do I adjust this to?

DoctorOhh · 12-03-2010, 04:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by leday

Sorry for being such a newbie about this, but how do I adjust this and what do I adjust this to?

The PDF unwrap factor is under Preferences - Input Options - PDF input 0.45 is a good place to start.

leday · 12-03-2010, 04:15 PM

OK. Tried that, not working. Tried many different numbers from .5 all the way to 1.0 and it STILL inserted extraneous paragraph breaks in the middle of lines. No effect whatsoever. If there are any other ideas I could try I would be really grateful.

itimpi · 12-03-2010, 07:06 PM

I think that you need to consider reducing the value! I think as it gets smaller it is less likely to split lines. I could be wrong though!

ldolse · 12-03-2010, 08:53 PM

anything above 0.5 will probably not work. Values that will work are pretty much 0.01 up to 0.5.

That said, I think you may be changing this in the wrong place. The place Dwanthy pointed you too is the global setting - you should set 0.45 under the global settings. However, any time you convert a book it takes the global settings at that moment and hard-codes them for that book. I suspect your book is still hard-coded to 0.0. So start a new conversion, which will bring you to the conversion options for that book. NOW go to pdf input (inside that conversion settings window), and change the setting there to 0.45.

That said, if 0.45 didn't work in the book's own conversion settings there may be something weird with your document. You could open a bug at bugs.calibre-ebook.com for a look. Can't guarantee it will get addressed, a lot of the more obscure pdf bugs are getting punted to the next gen pdf engine, but there is a chance it's a simple fix.

mrmikel · 12-04-2010, 06:55 AM

If nothing seems to work, you might get a hold of Mobipocket Creator that will go from PDF to HTML. You can look at the HTML and see what is happening, correct it and then convert from the HTML.

leday · 12-04-2010, 10:48 AM

I tried changing it in the global place you mentioned, again not working. However, I think I have found a workaround, that has worked for 3 books now. I converted the pdf to a rtf file and opened it in Word, and that worked with the paragraph wrapping. I then corrected any spelling errors that were in the original file and saved, and reconverted it back to EPUB. Then opened that up in Sigil to create a TOC and any other tweaks that I might like, saved that and sent it to the Nook. (Of course I then had to tweak the epub file so that the cover art would be recognized, but that's another story in another thread.....). Lot of steps, but it works so far. I just can't figure out how to get Calibre to do this by itself without having to go to RTF/Word to get rid of the extra paragraph breaks that Calibre put in when converting the PDF file.

Rocksy · 04-04-2013, 10:42 PM

Not sure if this is too late, but I found the solution in case anyone is still interested. I was having the same problem where each paragraph became 1-2 lines
Solution:
When you select the book and click on convert, click on heuristic processing.
Select Enable heuristic processing
Make sure the unwrap lines is selected and change the factor to .20

theducks · 04-04-2013, 11:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rocksy

Not sure if this is too late, but I found the solution in case anyone is still interested. I was having the same problem where each paragraph became 1-2 lines
Solution:
When you select the book and click on convert, click on heuristic processing.
Select Enable heuristic processing
Make sure the unwrap lines is selected and change the factor to .20

.20 sounds way too aggressive for most books.
How much Calibre conversion experience do you have?

Rocksy · 04-05-2013, 08:45 AM

None whatsoever! I'm new to all of this, eBooks, eReaders, etc. My eBooks were very slow between pages and I figured maybe if I converted them from pdf to epub, that might help. When I converted them, the slowness was fixed but each paragraph was 1 to 2 lines. I saw this post when researching this issue and played around with the numbers in the settings. Since the default was .40, I thought I'd try to change it to half to see if it makes a difference. When that worked, I figured it's working now so I just let it be

VirgoGirl · 09-15-2013, 02:10 PM

Actually, .20 worked for me on some particularly difficult pdfs that were splitting the sentences into new paragraphs 1/2 way through them. Thanks for the help!

12-03-2010, 03:27 PM	#1
leday Groupie Posts: 171 Karma: 400 Join Date: Jun 2009 Device: Sony PRS-700, Nook Color	Help: pdf to epub conversion in Calibre splits paragraphs Every time I try to convert one of my PDF files to EPUB, I am getting output that splits every paragraph into separate paragraphs of 1-2 lines each. For instance, a PDF file that looks like this: Raw violence clawed at Lyon's self-control, his beast's instincts begging to rip the asshole's throat out. His control, battered by their increasingly critical situation, snapped. The tip of his fingers burned a moment before his claws sprang out. With a growl, he shifted both his blades to one hand while he whirled and sank the claws of his other in the man's neck as he slammed him against the rock. Blood trickled down Jag's throat, but no fear flickered in his eyes, only a spark of malicious amusement that he'd pushed Lyon too far. Even if Lyon completely lost it, he'd be hard-pressed to do Jag any real damage. Physically, they were a match, Shape-shifters simply didn't break that easily. ends up in EPUB looking like this: Raw violence clawed at Lyon's self-control, his beast's instincts begging to rip the asshole's throat out. His control, battered by their increasingly critical situation, snapped. The tip of his fingers burned a moment before his claws sprang out. With a growl, he shifted both his blades to one hand while he whirled and sank the claws of his other in the man's neck as he slammed him against the rock. Blood trickled down Jag's throat, but no fear flickered in his eyes, only a spark of malicious amusement that he'd pushed Lyon too far. Even if Lyon completely lost it, he'd be hard-pressed to do Jag any real damage. Physically, they were a match, Shape-shifters simply didn't break that easily. The code on the output epub shows <p> and </p> breaks were inserted after each separate "paragraph". Does anybody know what I'm doing wrong here? I have a LOT of pdf files that I need to convert. Help is appreciated.

12-03-2010, 08:53 PM	#8
ldolse Wizard Posts: 1,337 Karma: 123455 Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Malaysia Device: PRS-650, iPhone	anything above 0.5 will probably not work. Values that will work are pretty much 0.01 up to 0.5. That said, I think you may be changing this in the wrong place. The place Dwanthy pointed you too is the global setting - you should set 0.45 under the global settings. However, any time you convert a book it takes the global settings at that moment and hard-codes them for that book. I suspect your book is still hard-coded to 0.0. So start a new conversion, which will bring you to the conversion options for that book. NOW go to pdf input (inside that conversion settings window), and change the setting there to 0.45. That said, if 0.45 didn't work in the book's own conversion settings there may be something weird with your document. You could open a bug at bugs.calibre-ebook.com for a look. Can't guarantee it will get addressed, a lot of the more obscure pdf bugs are getting punted to the next gen pdf engine, but there is a chance it's a simple fix. Last edited by ldolse; 12-03-2010 at 08:56 PM.

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12-03-2010, 03:35 PM	#2
Worldwalker Curmudgeon Posts: 3,085 Karma: 722357 Join Date: Feb 2010 Device: PRS-505	I can't address the pdf problem, but as for the duplicate post you couldn't delete, report your own second post to the mods (the little ! just to the right of the Karma button) and tell them you have an accidental duplicate you need deleted. I think they appreciate having simple duplicates to deal with instead of borderline spammers.

12-03-2010, 04:15 PM	#6
leday Groupie Posts: 171 Karma: 400 Join Date: Jun 2009 Device: Sony PRS-700, Nook Color	OK. Tried that, not working. Tried many different numbers from .5 all the way to 1.0 and it STILL inserted extraneous paragraph breaks in the middle of lines. No effect whatsoever. If there are any other ideas I could try I would be really grateful.

12-03-2010, 07:06 PM	#7
itimpi Wizard Posts: 4,552 Karma: 950151 Join Date: Nov 2008 Device: Sony PRS-950, iphone/ipad (Marvin/iBooks/QuickReader)	I think that you need to consider reducing the value! I think as it gets smaller it is less likely to split lines. I could be wrong though!

12-04-2010, 06:55 AM	#9
mrmikel Color me gone Posts: 2,089 Karma: 1445295 Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Central Oregon Coast Device: PRS-300	If nothing seems to work, you might get a hold of Mobipocket Creator that will go from PDF to HTML. You can look at the HTML and see what is happening, correct it and then convert from the HTML.

12-04-2010, 10:48 AM	#10
leday Groupie Posts: 171 Karma: 400 Join Date: Jun 2009 Device: Sony PRS-700, Nook Color	I tried changing it in the global place you mentioned, again not working. However, I think I have found a workaround, that has worked for 3 books now. I converted the pdf to a rtf file and opened it in Word, and that worked with the paragraph wrapping. I then corrected any spelling errors that were in the original file and saved, and reconverted it back to EPUB. Then opened that up in Sigil to create a TOC and any other tweaks that I might like, saved that and sent it to the Nook. (Of course I then had to tweak the epub file so that the cover art would be recognized, but that's another story in another thread.....). Lot of steps, but it works so far. I just can't figure out how to get Calibre to do this by itself without having to go to RTF/Word to get rid of the extra paragraph breaks that Calibre put in when converting the PDF file.

04-04-2013, 10:42 PM	#11
Rocksy Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 2692 Join Date: Apr 2013 Device: Sony PRS-T1	Not sure if this is too late, but I found the solution in case anyone is still interested. I was having the same problem where each paragraph became 1-2 lines Solution: When you select the book and click on convert, click on heuristic processing. Select Enable heuristic processing Make sure the unwrap lines is selected and change the factor to .20

04-05-2013, 08:45 AM	#13
Rocksy Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 2692 Join Date: Apr 2013 Device: Sony PRS-T1	None whatsoever! I'm new to all of this, eBooks, eReaders, etc. My eBooks were very slow between pages and I figured maybe if I converted them from pdf to epub, that might help. When I converted them, the slowness was fixed but each paragraph was 1 to 2 lines. I saw this post when researching this issue and played around with the numbers in the settings. Since the default was .40, I thought I'd try to change it to half to see if it makes a difference. When that worked, I figured it's working now so I just let it be

09-15-2013, 02:10 PM	#14
VirgoGirl "Why is it doing that?" Posts: 322 Karma: 725344 Join Date: Sep 2011 Device: Black Kobo Touch & Glo, responsible for 2 PaperWhites	Actually, .20 worked for me on some particularly difficult pdfs that were splitting the sentences into new paragraphs 1/2 way through them. Thanks for the help!

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