Quote:
Originally Posted by ColetteS
My question is, does anything exist as a work around, that would produce semi-decent conversions from PDF books to epub [...]?
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Another option is to use the fantastic:
This can take your complicated PDFs (like multi-column journal articles) and re-lay them out for a smaller device.
This may make reading PDFs on your current devices
much more bearable. (No panning/scanning!)
Quote:
Originally Posted by ColetteS
Is there a way to properly convert a PDF book file to an epub file, via an Android app or mobile website without massive loss of layout and image placement?
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Sadly, no.
PDF->EPUB is already a very manual+labor-intensive task.
If you have access to a computer, there are much more powerful PDF->whatever tools though.
For example, ABBYY Finereader is what I use.
This will OCR the document + spit out whatever formats you need. (Including DOCX, EPUB, etc.).
The much more expensive version would even allow you to drag/drop into a folder, and have Finereader do lots of automated steps for you... but, of course, this would lead to less-than-ideal output. Yes, better than 0, but... reading that automated EPUB would be rough.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ColetteS
I am willing to learn/take courses, if there is a more complex method that requires application design or development, as most of my injuries are permanent and this is likely to be a life long issue, but I wouldn't know where to start or what those courses/learning systems would even be.
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Sadly, a lot of this stuff would probably require LOTS of manual intervention/mobility.
But, I've written
hundreds of posts over the years about PDF->ebook conversion.
One of the latest was in the fantastic:
and:
I go over (and link to) a ton of tools/methods I've used over the years.
Mostly using Finereader + Sigil/Calibre.
- - -
For example, once I output PDF->EPUB out of Finereader, I run one set of "Saved Searches" (a list of Find/Replaces), and get a relatively readable EPUB out of it.
See the example PDF+EPUB documents in
Post #14 of the Archive.org thread above.
All I did was:
- Run Finereader on the original PDF.
- Output PDF->EPUB.
- Open EPUB in Sigil.
- Run the Saved Searches.
- Resave "Cleaned" EPUB.
Compared to the original PDF (and
especially the crappy "EPUB" version from Archive.org), I think my few-minute conversion is pretty usable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ColetteS
I don't know if this is even possible, but the frustration over the last year in trying to make it work has been incredibly demoralising. If anyone has any suggestions, I would hugely appreciate them. Thanks
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Your best bet would probably be PDF->PDF using k2pdfopt.
That wouldn't require any "conversion" to other formats, and hopefully it'll reflow your documents to use on your tablet.
Whatever magic Willus did with that tool, it works on all sorts of documents.
(I first tested it years ago on two-column journal articles, and was so surprised that it handled it perfectly!)