converting pdf to epub

[pdurrant]

You are unlikely to get much success with an automatic conversion of a scanned PDF. You will have to do lots of manual clean up/conversion yourself.

[ittiandro]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

You are unlikely to get much success with an automatic conversion of a scanned PDF. You will have to do lots of manual clean up/conversion yourself.

Yes, but could you tell me, if you know, in what consists the " lot of manual clean up/conversion" I am to do manually vs the automatic conversion? Would it be better to convert to Word .doc ( or docx) format and then reconvert to EPUB? This is what I often hear, but I am not too clear.
Or perhaps you can refer me to more precise instructions somewhere else on the Web?I couldn't find any.
Bottom line, I want to have a fully controllable page layout after converting to EPUB.

Thanks

Ittiandro

[mrmikel]

You are looking for what is pretty much impossible, fixed layout in an reflowable format. Some machines allow attempts at it.

When the reader presses the increase size button, the formatting will go out the window.

PDF is a format that is fixed and will work if laid out for the appropriate size of your device's screen. But it is not a format which is accepted by the major publishing houses for ebooks.

Any conversion from PDF as a Optical Character Recognition will have a least an error per page, often many more. Converting PDF to Word doesn't change that. Working from an original Word document which has not been OCR'ed will be much better and is supported by Toxaris's add in as well as Atlantis Word Processor. Even so, if you want fixed layout in epubs you are padding with a spoon upstream.

[JSWolf]

Print the PDF, with the pages by your computer keyboard, start typing. You will have to copy the graphics though.

Good luck!

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by ittiandro

Yes, but could you tell me, if you know, in what consists the " lot of manual clean up/conversion" I am to do manually vs the automatic conversion? Would it be better to convert to Word .doc ( or docx) format and then reconvert to EPUB? This is what I often hear, but I am not too clear.
Or perhaps you can refer me to more precise instructions somewhere else on the Web?I couldn't find any.
Bottom line, I want to have a fully controllable page layout after converting to EPUB.

You describe a poor quality scan of a book wrapped as a PDF. To get a reflowable ePub you'll need to do OCR on the scanned pages, and also extract the images from the scans, and then format the extracted text, fixing all the OCR errors and inserting the (cleaned up) images in the text at the right points.

I don't know the best software for doing the OCR. Extract the pages with graphics from the PDF with (say) Adobe Reader as actual image files (e.g. .PNG or .TIFF) and clean them up in your favorite image editing programme (e.g. Photoshop). I'd recommend Sigil for creating/editing the ePub

[mrmikel]

Right on, pdurrant. It is all tricks and no treat, except days or weeks later when done.

[ittiandro]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

First convert from the PDF into HTML and make sure you've fixed all of the errors in the HTML due to converting from PDF. I've never yet seen a PDF converter that does it 100% error free. So it could be the ePub is reflecting the errors in the conversion process from PDF.

I have a PDF physics book which I want to convert to EPUB for reading with my Android tablet. I am trying to convert with the ABBYY Fine Reader but I am having great problems in rendering non text areas in the EPUB conversion. such as diagrams, tables and sketches . Actually they are not rendered at all!
I almost ready to give up! Before that, I might take a last shot with HTML conversion but I don't know what to after it , because my aim is to get an EPUB file. How does an HTML conversion facilitate the EPUB conversion?

Thanks

Ittiandro

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ittiandro

I have a PDF physics book which I want to convert to EPUB for reading with my Android tablet. I am trying to convert with the ABBYY Fine Reader but I am having great problems in rendering non text areas in the EPUB conversion. such as diagrams, tables and sketches . Actually they are not rendered at all!
I almost ready to give up! Before that, I might take a last shot with HTML conversion but I don't know what to after it , because my aim is to get an EPUB file. How does an HTML conversion facilitate the EPUB conversion?

Thanks

Ittiandro

Since you do have a tablet, it would be much easier to just use the PDF as a PDF with your tablet. It would be much more hassle to convert then it is worth. Also, if you have any errors in anything important like formulas, you could be screwed. So just keep the PDF as PDF, find a good program to use to view the PDF and you are all set.

[ittiandro]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Since you do have a tablet, it would be much easier to just use the PDF as a PDF with your tablet. It would be much more hassle to convert then it is worth. Also, if you have any errors in anything important like formulas, you could be screwed. So just keep the PDF as PDF, find a good program to use to view the PDF and you are all set.

Yes, I might have no choice but keeping my current PDF format for reading in the tablet with EzPdfReader, because even a software like ABBYY Fine Reader which is very sophisticated, does not display non-text areas in the EPUB cponversion, such as diagrams, sketches or other images. I am sure there must be a way, but it is very time-consuming to do it.
The reason why I wanted to use EPUB instead of my current PDF format is that PDF has a fixed white bright page background which puts a strain on my eyes, whereas EPUB Readers such Cool Reader ( my favorite) and FBReader allow to change the page background and have a wider array of settings. Reading in night mode is an option I do not particularly like.

Thanks

Ittiandro

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by ittiandro

Yes, I might have no choice but keeping my current PDF format for reading in the tablet with EzPdfReader, because even a software like ABBYY Fine Reader which is very sophisticated, does not display non-text areas in the EPUB cponversion, such as diagrams, sketches or other images. I am sure there must be a way, but it is very time-consuming to do it.
The reason why I wanted to use EPUB instead of my current PDF format is that PDF has a fixed white bright page background which puts a strain on my eyes, whereas EPUB Readers such Cool Reader ( my favorite) and FBReader allow to change the page background and have a wider array of settings. Reading in night mode is an option I do not particularly like.

Thanks

Ittiandro

Ittiandro:

Did you try outputting Abbyy to WORD, instead of ePUB? That will retain images and graphics.

Hitch

[mrmikel]

Save To HTML does preserve images and tables also.

BUT you need to go through each page to see how it has analyzed in order to make sure you get complete pictures. It goes a little overboard if it finds text in a graphic. It also doesn't do so well if you have an image that seems to fade out too fast for its liking. But you can tell it where the image boundaries are in these cases and it will pick up the whole thing.

You can also do the same for tables, when it has mistaken them.

Then Read (recognize) and the output is much better.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by mrmikel

Save To HTML does preserve images and tables also.

BUT you need to go through each page to see how it has analyzed in order to make sure you get complete pictures. It goes a little overboard if it finds text in a graphic. It also doesn't do so well if you have an image that seems to fade out too fast for its liking. But you can tell it where the image boundaries are in these cases and it will pick up the whole thing.

You can also do the same for tables, when it has mistaken them.

Then Read (recognize) and the output is much better.

Absolutely. I think the issue/problem here is an expectation of going direct to ePUB, and skipping that step. Direct to ePUB shan't keep the images/figures, etc., as we all know (painfully too well). I think that Tex (Texanns002) has a fairly great lengthy post somewhere around here (hell, is it in this very thread?) about how to competently scan. Wherever it is, it's worth reading, both for newbs and even those of us with a few under our belts.

Hitch

[Shohreh]

Hello,

This is what an ePUB looks like after uploading the original PDF to http://ebook.online-convert.com:



Before I dive into Caliber… is there a quick, no-brainer way to get a readable ePUB file?

Thank you.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Shohreh

Hello,

This is what an ePUB looks like after uploading the original PDF to http://ebook.online-convert.com:



Before I dive into Caliber… is there a quick, no-brainer way to get a readable ePUB file?

Thank you.

Shohreh:

Please read the thread. The answer is: no. Now, some person will no doubt come along, and say how great using "save as Word" is, from Acrobat Pro, or using this or that, but my business does this very thing, ALL. DAY. LONG. We have NEVER found any shortcut that makes creating an eBook from a PDF easy or simple or short.

We do everything by HAND. We typically scan/ocr PDFs; then we do a double-proofing round. This is then saved to a Word file format, .doc or .docx. We then clean up the Word file, export that to HTML, clean up THAT, and then, and only then, do we use the HTML to build and ePUB.

That's how it's done.

Do you understand why the file looks that way?

Hitch

[Shohreh]

Thank you.