Content Best way to convert pdf to kindle?

[fernandoch]

What is the best way to convert my PDFs to be read on my Kindle 3?

I converted a couple with Mobipocket Creator, but some images were lost. The text was all well converted.

Any advices?

[Replika]

I think the best way is cropping your PDFs.
See briss.sf.net

[neonbible]

I agree, Briss is the way to go.

Almost all of my PDF conversions needed some post processing as well. Here is my workflow:

1) Open in Briss and crop borders, headers, footers and page numbers. Save to new PDF.

2) Email and convert to AZW using my free Kindle email account.

3) Import to Calibre and convert to EPUB.

4) Open epub in Sigil to hand edit and tidy the book. Remove Calibre's title page. Build TOC.

5) Import again into Calibre, add meta-data and cover, reconvert to EPUB and then finally to MOBI ready to be loaded onto the Kindle.

[jeremy81]

You can email PDF files to your Kindle's email address to be converted by Amazon. I've found this works very well. If you don't know your address you can get it from your Kindle's Settings page or by going to Amazon and manage your Kindle. There are two ways to do this. First, you can send it directly to your device but it cost by sending to your Kindle's address with the word convert in the title of the email. Or if you want to do it for free and transfer it yourself by sending it to you@free.kindle.com with the word convert in the title. Amazon has a page regarding this at: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/custom...deId=200505520

[=X=]

Originally Posted by fernandoch

What is the best way to convert my PDFs to be read on my Kindle 3?

I converted a couple with Mobipocket Creator, but some images were lost. The text was all well converted.

Any advices?

The html + images in Mobipocket creator are stored in the same directory. You can re-insert the images by open up an HTML editor and insert the images.



My first attempt is always to just crop the PDF margins with a tool like BRISS or reformat the PDF with tools like PaperCrop(the final result is an images PDF--so they are much larger)


Unless it's a PDF I know I want to annotate, hence convert to MOBI or a text only PDF, then I do the following:

Here is my work process.
1) Generate the HTML with MobiPocket Creator.
2) Open up the HTML with firefox and cut-n-paste to BookCreator
3) Beautify the text, images, generate TOC
4) Create the book within BookCreator.

Text only PDF takes about 10min. Image/graphic based PDFs take about an hour.

Originally Posted by neonbible

I agree, Briss is the way to go.

Almost all of my PDF conversions needed some post processing as well. Here is my workflow:

1) Open in Briss and crop borders, headers, footers and page numbers. Save to new PDF.

2) Email and convert to AZW using my free Kindle email account.

3) Import to Calibre and convert to EPUB.

4) Open epub in Sigil to hand edit and tidy the book. Remove Calibre's title page. Build TOC.

5) Import again into Calibre, add meta-data and cover, reconvert to EPUB and then finally to MOBI ready to be loaded onto the Kindle.

BRISS does a "view" only crop, it actually does not truly crop the PDF. You would have to use tools like soPDF or Cute PDF to truly crop the margins.

[tomsem]

I have not discovered any automated conversion tool that works well enough that I find the result 'acceptable,' or in any way preferable to reading the PDF directly (after cropping).

It's true that sometimes conversion works 'well enough', but in less time than it takes to evaluate whether an automatic conversion is going to work 'well enough', I can crop a PDF and start reading. By contrast, any conversion workflow that achieves what I regard as good results seems to involve considerably more time, skill, effort and uncertainty (in general).

Quite possibly I'm less tolerant of conversion artifacts than most people, and I have a high tolerance for the small text that often results when trying to read squished PDFs, so I make no claims that the way I do things is 'best' for everyone.

And I nevertheless continue to explore conversion techniques, since it is an endlessly fascinating problem.

[fernandoch]

Thank you for the replies! It is a big and complex process!

What about pdfread? No good results?

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?p=159387

[jj2me]

Originally Posted by fernandoch

It is a big and complex process!

Just throwing in a lazy man's alternative, PDF Scissors.

Definitely not a big and complex process. But not as precise or feature-rich as the others, and is a Java app that doesn't have the correct digital signature, so there's some trust involved in using it (the author seems legit, made his own tool to solve this problem).

It basically breaks each page of the original PDF into halves (or thirds, or ...) So your 50 pages of small print is now 100 pages (or 150, or ...) of larger print. You can crop margins, too.

Easy as pie:

1. Start Java web app.
2. Open file. It'll stack the whole document in one view so you know where to crop.
3. Drag a box around the first part of the page, like the top half if you're halving.
4. Copy-paste that box (this one's labeled "2" for ordering the new pages) and drag to the lower half. If your boxes aren't the right size, then delete the second box and drag the edge of box 1 up or down as needed, and repeat.
5. Save file.

[DiapDealer]

What is the best way to convert my PDFs to be read on my Kindle 3

Just decide which one you like more... PDFs?... or the Kindle? Then throw one or the other away and never look back

[fernandoch]

Well thank you for the advice! Just bought my new kindle!

[FF2]

Used PDF Scissors - nice application. Of course the breadmaking recipes booklet was not set up for it. The table of contents was in 3 columns while the recipes were in two columns. I made two versions. Then opened both in pdf-edit and cut/copied the 3-column toc to the two-column recipe version and removed the misaligned toc from that version.

Unfortunately, a number of my multi-column manuals are copy/password protected, like there's a reason to protect the Garmin gps manual. pdf-scissors will not open such files.

[neonbible]

Originally Posted by =X=

BRISS does a "view" only crop, it actually does not truly crop the PDF. You would have to use tools like soPDF or Cute PDF to truly crop the margins.

Yes, I noticed that when I tried to re-print a cropped PDF. However in the case of converting in Calibre, it still acknowldges the crop.