MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Non-Convert for PDF

tjung · 02-08-2011, 01:22 AM

I have a very strange problem with converting several PDF books. Yes I know PDF conversion isn't perfect and has issues. I have read all the stuff on PDF conversions and can't figure out the problems I am having.

I have several PDF books in a series that are done in stylized font. I only mention this in case this is somehow a known issue. The book has been OCR-ed for sure. It is a perfect OCR and matches the graphic image of the PDF without any problem. The PDF books are roughly 3.5 megs. The PDF does not have any DRM so that isn't an issue. I can copy all the text I want from the PDF file via Adobe PDF reader on Windows 7 (64-Bit). I have copied several chapters from the book this way and posted them in Sigil to create an EPUB version of the books manually. This takes forever given the headers and footers to be removed manually.

When I try and use Calibre to convert from PDF to EPUB all it ever does is convert each page into a resized graphic image for my iPhone format. This ends up making the book 35megs or so compared to the 3.5megs of the PDF.

It absolutely is not an issue of there not being any OCR-ed text, as I said I can copy and paste the text without any problem. So the actual ASCII text is in the PDF but for some reason Calibre is not able to see it and thinks it is just images. So it converts the PDF to a 35meg EPUB with images for each page.

Any idea why I can copy text from the PDF but it won't convert to EPUB as text/html?

02-08-2011, 01:22 AM	#1
tjung Junior Member Posts: 8 Karma: 10 Join Date: Feb 2011 Device: iPhone	Non-Convert for PDF I have a very strange problem with converting several PDF books. Yes I know PDF conversion isn't perfect and has issues. I have read all the stuff on PDF conversions and can't figure out the problems I am having. I have several PDF books in a series that are done in stylized font. I only mention this in case this is somehow a known issue. The book has been OCR-ed for sure. It is a perfect OCR and matches the graphic image of the PDF without any problem. The PDF books are roughly 3.5 megs. The PDF does not have any DRM so that isn't an issue. I can copy all the text I want from the PDF file via Adobe PDF reader on Windows 7 (64-Bit). I have copied several chapters from the book this way and posted them in Sigil to create an EPUB version of the books manually. This takes forever given the headers and footers to be removed manually. When I try and use Calibre to convert from PDF to EPUB all it ever does is convert each page into a resized graphic image for my iPhone format. This ends up making the book 35megs or so compared to the 3.5megs of the PDF. It absolutely is not an issue of there not being any OCR-ed text, as I said I can copy and paste the text without any problem. So the actual ASCII text is in the PDF but for some reason Calibre is not able to see it and thinks it is just images. So it converts the PDF to a 35meg EPUB with images for each page. Any idea why I can copy text from the PDF but it won't convert to EPUB as text/html?