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Old 08-28-2012, 12:08 PM   #11
geekmaster
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT View Post
PDFs will rarely convert well. PDF is not an eBook format, but a digital representation of a printed page. A PDF file doesn't contain "text", but instructions of the form "draw such-and-such a shape at these coordinates".

If you really MUST convert a PDF file into another format, an OCR program will generally achieve the best results.
Text searching in a PDF reader does not do OCR. It searches the embedded text in the PDF file. Of course that fails for "image only" PDF files (such as some zero-day pirate ebooks). PDF files can contain embedded fonts in which to render the embedded text.

The "digital representation" of the printed page is generally ASCII or one of its variants, such as Unicode. These representations of the printed page are called digital "text".

So a PDF is really just a "large format" ebook (especially when it REALLY IS the electronic version of a printed book distributed in PDF format), which can be viewed on a "large format" viewing device such as a host PC display monitor, or on a printed page (where it is no longer a PDF file).

And the PDF files that I often use, which contain thesis and research papers, generally DO convert nicely to other ebook formats. So your statement is rather limited in scope and does not apply in the general case as implied.

Some PDF viewer apps (such as one I used on my PDA), do a fine job of reflowing text and resizing images to fit the PDA screen. And some can split multi-column text into single columns when viewing PDF files. It all depends on the toolset that you choose to use.

Last edited by geekmaster; 08-28-2012 at 12:23 PM.
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