Conversion from PDF : missing initials

Yompan · 04-05-2009, 12:41 PM

Hi everyone,

Newbie here and proud owner since yesterday of a brand news PRS 505 (after tons of reading on my loyal PSP with Bookr). Naturally, I've installed Calibre to manage my ebooks collection and found it the perfect companion to my new best friend.

But...

I'm trying to convert a pdf file - a novel - formatted with a big initial at the beginning of each chapter, and Calibre just removes them. Of course, it's usually trivial to guess which letter it was, but I find it annoying.

I tried searching the forum and had a quick look at the FAQ without finding an answer. Is there any way to solve this problem ?

/Guillaume.

user_none · 04-05-2009, 05:34 PM

Short answer: No.

Long answer: pdf is a terrible format for conversion. Calibre uses pdftohtml internally to convert a text based pdf into an html document. From there it is converted into whatever format you want. This as with almost all pdf conversion issues in Calibre is due to the limitations of pdftohtml and the complexity of pulling text out of a pdf file. The only way to solve this issue is for someone to come up with something that works better than pdftohtml (this isn't nearly as easy as it sounds, I've tried and pdftohtml still produces better results).

kovidgoyal · 04-05-2009, 06:14 PM

@user_none have you looked at pdfminer it's in python and so may be easier to hack

user_none · 04-05-2009, 08:28 PM

@kovidgoyal, Looks like I have another project for my todo list. I'll look into pdfminer and I'll replacing pdftohtml with it.

@Yompan, can you email me (john@nachtimwald.com) the file your having the first letter issue with so I can try pdfminer and see if I can't get the file to convert correctly with it.

Yompan · 04-06-2009, 04:14 AM

@Everyone : thanks for your answers. I'll avoid pdf in the future and stick to txt files, as I always did with my psp.

@user_none : file sent.

In the meantime, i'll convert it to plain text and add the missing initials manually. Fortunately, I just realised that the chapters really long (only 10 of them) so it's going to be easy & fast. But the same problem is bound to happen with other books ; a 50+ chapters novel would be much more tedious.

pdurrant · 04-06-2009, 04:55 AM

This is almost certainly because the first letter isn't really a character at all, but a graphic instead.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yompan

I'm trying to convert a pdf file - a novel - formatted with a big initial at the beginning of each chapter, and Calibre just removes them. Of course, it's usually trivial to guess which letter it was, but I find it annoying.

04-05-2009, 12:41 PM	#1
Yompan Junior Member Posts: 4 Karma: 10 Join Date: Apr 2009 Device: Sony PRS 505	Conversion from PDF : missing initials Hi everyone, Newbie here and proud owner since yesterday of a brand news PRS 505 (after tons of reading on my loyal PSP with Bookr). Naturally, I've installed Calibre to manage my ebooks collection and found it the perfect companion to my new best friend. But... I'm trying to convert a pdf file - a novel - formatted with a big initial at the beginning of each chapter, and Calibre just removes them. Of course, it's usually trivial to guess which letter it was, but I find it annoying. I tried searching the forum and had a quick look at the FAQ without finding an answer. Is there any way to solve this problem ? /Guillaume.

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04-05-2009, 05:34 PM	#2
user_none Sigil & calibre developer Posts: 2,488 Karma: 1063785 Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Florida, USA Device: Nook STR	Short answer: No. Long answer: pdf is a terrible format for conversion. Calibre uses pdftohtml internally to convert a text based pdf into an html document. From there it is converted into whatever format you want. This as with almost all pdf conversion issues in Calibre is due to the limitations of pdftohtml and the complexity of pulling text out of a pdf file. The only way to solve this issue is for someone to come up with something that works better than pdftohtml (this isn't nearly as easy as it sounds, I've tried and pdftohtml still produces better results).

04-05-2009, 06:14 PM	#3
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 43,850 Karma: 22666666 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	@user_none have you looked at pdfminer it's in python and so may be easier to hack

04-05-2009, 08:28 PM	#4
user_none Sigil & calibre developer Posts: 2,488 Karma: 1063785 Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Florida, USA Device: Nook STR	@kovidgoyal, Looks like I have another project for my todo list. I'll look into pdfminer and I'll replacing pdftohtml with it. @Yompan, can you email me (john@nachtimwald.com) the file your having the first letter issue with so I can try pdfminer and see if I can't get the file to convert correctly with it.

04-06-2009, 04:14 AM	#5
Yompan Junior Member Posts: 4 Karma: 10 Join Date: Apr 2009 Device: Sony PRS 505	@Everyone : thanks for your answers. I'll avoid pdf in the future and stick to txt files, as I always did with my psp. @user_none : file sent. In the meantime, i'll convert it to plain text and add the missing initials manually. Fortunately, I just realised that the chapters really long (only 10 of them) so it's going to be easy & fast. But the same problem is bound to happen with other books ; a 50+ chapters novel would be much more tedious.

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