EPUB links to PDF page numbers

[gonzalo_diaz]

Hello,

I wrote a book originally in EPUB flowable format, and now I am working on converting in to a PDF version.

At the end, the book has a custom alphabetical list of subjects. In the EPUB version, besides each item there is a link to the corresponding document and anchor, for example:

Alphabetical index

Subject A .......<a href="chapter1.xhtml#suba">Go</a>
Subject B .......<a href="chapter2.xhtml#subb">Go</a>

When converting to PDF, the "Go" hyperlinks are kept, and still point correctly to the right page. But I would like to change each Go for the actual page number resulting from the PDF conversion.

Alphabetical index

Subject A ....... page 1
Subject B ....... page 5

Is that possible? I plan to offer a printed version of the book's PDF, and the "Go" hyperlinks aren't that useful.

I see that, after the conversion from EPUB to PDF, Calibre "knows" the right page numbers, and stores them in anchors that look like, for example

<a href="#p20"></a>

But you can't specify that in the original EPUB to PDF Search & Replace page.

You can take the resulting PDF and do a second PDF to PDF conversion, in which you can do a regex replacement of the resulting of these <a href="#p20"> ... tags, but that type of conversion destroys the books format.

So, is there any wey to achieve this "link to page number" effect in one step?

I am pretty good with programming, HTML and JavaScript.
Thanks in advance for any comment or answer.

[kovidgoyal]

No not directly. You can have calibre insert a table of contents at the end of the pdf with page numbers specifically for print. See the relevant option under the PDF Output section of the conversion dialog. However there is no facility for calibre to replace link text with the page number of the link target.

[gonzalo_diaz]

OK, thanks for the answer.

[Quoth]

If you want publication quality PDF:
Export the epub (docx or if a problem use RTF) and edit in Word or LO Writer. Add page styles, header, footer, page numbers, contents, index etc.

If using Writer:
import the docx or RTF
Save As odt
Edit/save cycle only in odt
Export PDF direct from Writer.

If using Writer to make a PDF, then you do an extra Save As in docx as Calibre works better with docx than odt. Also don't user Writer2epub plugin (Writer 5.x) or built in epub export (later LO Writers) as Calibre is far better.