MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Text-based PDF to Mobi, etc./Kindle 3

jackie_w · 10-14-2010, 06:20 PM

@kidblue,

In the absence of a solution to your copy/paste problem in OSX you could try the following:

Import the screenplay PDF into Calibre.
Convert PDF to MOBI with the Convert - Debug feature enabled (ignore the resulting MOBI).
Go to the Debug directory's Input subdir. There is an HTML file called index.html. Copy this file to a temporary working area (or it will get overwritten if you run another conversion with debug enabled).
Open index.html in a text editor.
Change the <BODY bgcolor=... ...> tag to a simple <BODY>
Enter an opening <pre> tag on the line after the <BODY> tag

Enter a closing </pre> tag on the line before the closing </BODY> tag.
Then you need to do a number of find-and-replaces:
Find:   ReplaceAll: a single space
Find: <br> ReplaceAll: nothing
Find: <hr> ReplaceAll: nothing
Find: " ReplaceAll: " (a double quote)

Remove a fixed number of leading spaces on each line which represents the wasteful left margin (looks like 8). Remove any other "waste" (excessive blank lines) if you want.
Completely remove the lines that begin <A name=... ...
(You can do this in one hit if your text editor supports Regular Expressions.)
This HTML file should now look very much like the one I sent you earlier. Save it.

The above replaces steps 1-5 in the earlier instructions. Continue with step 6 onwards as before.

If this doesn't work I may start throwing things!

[Edit:] I'm joking - please report back with results.

10-14-2010, 06:20 PM	#23
jackie_w Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,252 Karma: 16544692 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: UK Device: ClaraHD, Forma, Libra2, Clara2E, LibraCol, PBTouchHD3	@kidblue, In the absence of a solution to your copy/paste problem in OSX you could try the following: Import the screenplay PDF into Calibre. Convert PDF to MOBI with the Convert - Debug feature enabled (ignore the resulting MOBI). Go to the Debug directory's Input subdir. There is an HTML file called index.html. Copy this file to a temporary working area (or it will get overwritten if you run another conversion with debug enabled). Open index.html in a text editor. Change the <BODY bgcolor=... ...> tag to a simple <BODY> Enter an opening <pre> tag on the line after the <BODY> tag Enter a closing </pre> tag on the line before the closing </BODY> tag. Then you need to do a number of find-and-replaces: Find:   ReplaceAll: a single space Find: <br> ReplaceAll: nothing Find: <hr> ReplaceAll: nothing Find: " ReplaceAll: " (a double quote) Remove a fixed number of leading spaces on each line which represents the wasteful left margin (looks like 8). Remove any other "waste" (excessive blank lines) if you want. Completely remove the lines that begin <A name=... ... (You can do this in one hit if your text editor supports Regular Expressions.) This HTML file should now look very much like the one I sent you earlier. Save it. The above replaces steps 1-5 in the earlier instructions. Continue with step 6 onwards as before. If this doesn't work I may start throwing things! [Edit:] I'm joking - please report back with results. Last edited by jackie_w; 10-14-2010 at 06:35 PM.