Evading headers in PDF->EPUB conversion

davef · 08-25-2009, 05:01 PM

Some things are just only available in PDF. (boo!)
Calibre does a pretty good job converting basic text PDFs to EPUBs. (yea!)
Except for the freakin' headers/footers. (boo!)

If it was just the author's name over and over... Or the book title over and over.. I could easily do a global replace in the EPUB source and get rid of 'em.
But there always have to be page numbers which makes them all different.
Just eliminating the author/title leaves these numbers strewn through the book.

So I wondered... is there some way to get Calibre to ignore anything it finds in the top (or bottom) inch (or so) of the PDF page?

Or some other approach...

Thanks!
Dave

itimpi · 08-26-2009, 03:19 AM

In the latest 0.6.x series of Calibre there is the facility to provide a regular expression to identify the headers and/or footers.

This is bit esoteric in that many people do not udnerstand regular expressions, but I believe that there are plans to provide a GUI interfact to this at some time in the future.

HarryT · 08-26-2009, 04:46 AM

Another approach would be to use a tool like Book Designer (which does a better job at PDF import than Calibre, anyway). Import the PDF into BD, get rid of all the extraneous stuff, and then save as HTML, and import the HTML into Calibre.

davef · 08-26-2009, 11:30 AM

Thanks to both!
I downloaded Book Designer and will have to find some time to play.
I also grabbed Harry's Book Designer tutorial which I'm sure will be a huge help.
Thanks again...

igorsk · 08-28-2009, 07:20 PM

If you can afford it, get ABBYY Finereader or PDF Transformer. They do a great job of convering PDFs, both text- and image-based.

JvdW · 08-29-2009, 11:01 AM

Another good one is from Nuance (http://www.nuance.com/imaging/pdfcon...ofessional.asp). This one managed to convert a pdf to something that actually resembled the original. Tried the same pdf with Acrobat and it ended up as one big paragraph :-((

Regards,

Joop

JvdW · 08-29-2009, 03:26 PM

Just to let you know that I might have found something that might help you too regarding the removal of headers/footers.
The following is what I copied from the debug output of Calibre (.6.10) and that I want removed:

Code:

<br>
5<br>
<hr>
<A name=7></a>

After playing around with the remove footer regexp I came up with the following:

Code:

(?ims)<br>\s*\d{1,3}\s*<br>\s<hr>\s<a name=\d{1,3}></a>

This could probably be improved but it works for me.
It isn't perfect because sentences that continue on the other page aren't always strung together but it beats manually removing pagenumbers ;-)

Googling for some help I found two programs that really helped me, YMMV:
Regex Coach : http://weitz.de/regex-coach/
Kodos : http://kodos.sourceforge.net/
Where I found Regex Coach the better one with more possibilities and better info on what is happening.

Regards,

Joop

08-25-2009, 05:01 PM	#1
davef Member Posts: 13 Karma: 60 Join Date: Feb 2009 Device: PRS-700	Evading headers in PDF->EPUB conversion Some things are just only available in PDF. (boo!) Calibre does a pretty good job converting basic text PDFs to EPUBs. (yea!) Except for the freakin' headers/footers. (boo!) If it was just the author's name over and over... Or the book title over and over.. I could easily do a global replace in the EPUB source and get rid of 'em. But there always have to be page numbers which makes them all different. Just eliminating the author/title leaves these numbers strewn through the book. So I wondered... is there some way to get Calibre to ignore anything it finds in the top (or bottom) inch (or so) of the PDF page? Or some other approach... Thanks! Dave

08-29-2009, 03:26 PM	#7
JvdW Zealot Posts: 115 Karma: 150 Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Netherlands Veenendaal Device: Palm T5, Sony PRS-505, Nook Color	Just to let you know that I might have found something that might help you too regarding the removal of headers/footers. The following is what I copied from the debug output of Calibre (.6.10) and that I want removed: Code: <br> 5<br> <hr> <A name=7></a> After playing around with the remove footer regexp I came up with the following: Code: (?ims)<br>\s\d{1,3}\s<br>\s<hr>\s<a name=\d{1,3}></a> This could probably be improved but it works for me. It isn't perfect because sentences that continue on the other page aren't always strung together but it beats manually removing pagenumbers ;-) Googling for some help I found two programs that really helped me, YMMV: Regex Coach : http://weitz.de/regex-coach/ Kodos : http://kodos.sourceforge.net/ Where I found Regex Coach the better one with more possibilities and better info on what is happening. Regards, Joop

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08-26-2009, 03:19 AM	#2
itimpi Wizard Posts: 4,553 Karma: 950151 Join Date: Nov 2008 Device: Sony PRS-950, iphone/ipad (Marvin/iBooks/QuickReader)	In the latest 0.6.x series of Calibre there is the facility to provide a regular expression to identify the headers and/or footers. This is bit esoteric in that many people do not udnerstand regular expressions, but I believe that there are plans to provide a GUI interfact to this at some time in the future.

08-26-2009, 04:46 AM	#3
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,544 Karma: 93383043 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	Another approach would be to use a tool like Book Designer (which does a better job at PDF import than Calibre, anyway). Import the PDF into BD, get rid of all the extraneous stuff, and then save as HTML, and import the HTML into Calibre.

08-26-2009, 11:30 AM	#4
davef Member Posts: 13 Karma: 60 Join Date: Feb 2009 Device: PRS-700	Thanks to both! I downloaded Book Designer and will have to find some time to play. I also grabbed Harry's Book Designer tutorial which I'm sure will be a huge help. Thanks again...

08-28-2009, 07:20 PM	#5
igorsk Wizard Posts: 3,442 Karma: 300001 Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Belgium Device: PRS-500/505/700, Kindle, Cybook Gen3, Words Gear	If you can afford it, get ABBYY Finereader or PDF Transformer. They do a great job of convering PDFs, both text- and image-based.

08-29-2009, 11:01 AM	#6
JvdW Zealot Posts: 115 Karma: 150 Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Netherlands Veenendaal Device: Palm T5, Sony PRS-505, Nook Color	Another good one is from Nuance (http://www.nuance.com/imaging/pdfcon...ofessional.asp). This one managed to convert a pdf to something that actually resembled the original. Tried the same pdf with Acrobat and it ended up as one big paragraph :-(( Regards, Joop

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