10-16-2008, 11:11 AM | #1 |
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What should I convert my .pdf files to?
so far I've been opening them in acrobat and saving as a .rtf, then importing into caliber then converting to epub.
But it takes 40 minutes to convert a single book. And the formatting is only ok, not nearly as nice as .lit to .epub Also I'm stuck with a file that is 5 times larger at least if I want to keep a format other then the .epub is there an export or save option in acrobat that is more efficient? Would I be better off using a converter like PDFRead? or is that more for converting scanned PDF files that are all images? Would saving to html work better, and should I clean it up after that? if I save it to HTML should I use 3.32 or 4.0? Is there anywhere with an indepth explanation of how to use caliber command line? every time I use it I get lost or it does nothing. Is there anywhere with a good resource for starting to dig into the ebook conversion and so on information? I've tried searching here but its hard to find things. Last edited by JGB; 10-16-2008 at 11:45 AM. |
10-16-2008, 11:44 AM | #2 |
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Just keep the ePUB. If you rename the extension to zip you will find you can unzip your ePUB and get to html if you ever need to.
Dale |
10-16-2008, 12:05 PM | #3 | ||||
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Quote:
For extracting text, I've had GREAT success using Mobipocket Creator to convert a (Word created) .pdf directly into .prc as explained in this (similar) thread. Then you can use calibre's mobi2lrf to convert from .prc to .lrf. Quote:
Quote:
Code:
html2lrf -o Outputfilename.lrf -t "My Title" -a "My author" --category="My Cat" --publisher="NR" --verbose Inputfilename.html Quote:
Last edited by nrapallo; 10-16-2008 at 02:46 PM. Reason: typo |
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10-17-2008, 04:24 AM | #4 | |
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Hi, There is a good discussion on converting PDFs (and the problems they have on word wrapping) to other format including a link to tools, and options here: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30263 Hope this helps Jaffa |
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10-17-2008, 07:35 AM | #5 | |
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Quote:
In summary, type lit2oeb [options] "f:/folder1/folder2/folder3/file.lit" and then it does stuff for a while, and says output to directory . Unfortunately this uses the current directory (short form of this is just a dot "."). However, the calibre command lit2oeb has [options] that may go between the command's name and the inputfilename. When I say may, I mean it's optional (short form of this is just to put square brackets "[ ]" around what is optional). So putting all this together, open the cmd prompt and change to the calibre install directory i.e. issue: Code:
C:\> cd "C:/Program Files/calibre" Code:
C:\Program Files\calibre>lit2oeb Usage: lit2oeb [options] LITFILE Whenever you pass arguments to lit2oeb that have spaces in them, enclose the arg uments in quotation marks. Options: --version show program's version number and exit -h, --help show this help message and exit -o OUTPUT_DIR, --output-dir=OUTPUT_DIR Output directory. Defaults to current directory. -p, --pretty-print Legibly format extracted markup. May modify meaningful whitespace. --verbose Useful for debugging. Created by Kovid Goyal <kovid@kovidgoyal.net> Code:
C:\Program Files\calibre>lit2oeb -o "MyDirectory" --verbose f:/folder1/folder2/folder3/file.lit Just try the above lit2oeb command and see if it created "MyDirectory" in the calibre install directory with your contents/results therein. Be sure to surround any inputfilename with quotes if it uses spaces in the filename! (also holds true for any option you may use i.e. -o "New Directory of mine"!) You really need to understand how the dos/command prompt (terminal in linux) works to truly harvest the power that lies in the calibre command line tools. Last edited by nrapallo; 10-17-2008 at 11:44 AM. Reason: typo |
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10-17-2008, 07:50 AM | #6 | |
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GREAT NEWS! Just work in your local directory; you can issue the calibre command line tools from anywhere! |
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11-12-2008, 04:22 AM | #7 | |
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On the other hand, once PDF to Epub is fully functional, it should be quite straightforward to convert these files and save some memory. You can take a look to the link below called "Libro" it is in Spanish, but will give you an idea of what you can achieve and how it performs. Font type, size paragraphs and the like are edited to my liking. Anything different will work equally well. |
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11-23-2008, 01:02 AM | #8 | |
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you'd have to reconvert them all over again(I'm thinking in the next 2-3 years we will see some screen size changes) |
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11-23-2008, 05:38 AM | #9 | |
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Keeping the doc file, almost all corrections are minor changes. (When changing sizes or fonts, you have to recheck the page jumps, but that is about it). |
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11-23-2008, 09:51 PM | #10 |
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Why not convert them to LRF?
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11-23-2008, 10:57 PM | #11 |
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To convert PDFs to anything the best tool I have found is ABBYY PDF Transformer. At $99 it will convert text based PDFs (like those made with Word) as well as graphic based PDFs (such as scans) to RTF files. I can then use these files as they are or convert these files to HTML (3.2, never 4), DOC, TXT, or whatever format I need for their future use. I keep a copy in RTF as I like to have a copy as close as possible to the original source. (Disk space is cheap these days and I can always burn a CD or DVD of the project later.) Once I have cleaned the file (to correct OCR errors for example), I may delete the work files. Sometimes I keep these if I feel that I may someday revisit the files to do more work on them. (For example I keep threatening to revise the Harvard Classics to correct formatting error that others or I have found since they were published. Nick has offered to convert these to the multiple forms of IMP for me when I do complete the next series but I am still backlogged and this has just not come to the surface yet.)
As Nick mentioned, PDFread should be a last resort. I have used it a few times for things that I wanted to read but not keep or convert. To me ePub sounds nice but I have no use for it as my reader does not support it. I do keep the LRF of many of the files I create; however, I view it as a terminal format rather than one that I would use to archive or create other things from. |
11-23-2008, 11:01 PM | #12 | |
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Quote:
I'll set the "nag" reminder clock ahead a few months now... |
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11-24-2008, 02:44 AM | #13 |
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First, because you'll lose a big part of the edition.
Second you'll lose the embedded fonts, and if you get them embedded you'll lose page turn speed. You can embed your favorite fonts on the reader itself thanks to Valloric, but you'll only improve this lost page turn speed and you'll still have just three fonts. And the edition will remain all but lost. That LRF will only work in your Sony and if you replace it by another brand, you won't be able to read them even if they are 6" screens. I really don't know what's so hot about lrf any more. |
11-24-2008, 09:59 AM | #14 |
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My apologies,
I saw you had the Sony PRS-505, and assumed you wanted to convert documents for that reader. |
11-24-2008, 11:30 AM | #15 |
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Of course. That is what I am doing. But the PDFs I create for the 505 happen to work in any e-reader with the same screen size. That is another advantage, but not the reason for me to use PDF.
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