Making books for Oasis Kindle

[rpitcairn]

I have used Calibre before to convert a pdf to an ebook for kindle. Recently purchased the Oasis reader and now when I make a book and transfer to my device (Oasis) the book will not be recognized, therefore can not be opened. I mean that Oasis does not recognize it after the file has been transferred. Have tried this with more than one book and same outcome.
Has anyone else seen this? Is there something about the Oasis I should know?
Thanks for any help.
— Richard

[Quoth]

Converting PDFs is a variable disaster depending on content.
1) Mostly Image: Really a waste of effort. Best to trim margins and resample/ resize. Do not convert.
2) Text Content: Don't convert directly. Somehow copy/paste or export to Word or LO Writer, Save As DocX, make an epub2 in Calibre and convert the epub2 to azw3.

On linux any decent PDF viewer will allow export. On Windows use Ghostview.

As last resort you can import an image based PDF into GIMP as a layer per page, make an mng in reverse layer order and then ImageMagick to adjust (enable PDF write in security). Then transfer via USB (sideload) as a PDF.

[rpitcairn]

Wow! I thought using Calibre would make it easiest. I think I will continue to use the Send to Kindle app. Does a very decent job.

[Quoth]

No, Send to Kindle is the worst solution. Zero control over conversion and giving content to a third party.
You need to know what kinds of PDFs you are dealing with. Also if they are current copyright go buy Kindle ebooks.

PDFs are NOT eBooks. They are a way of proofing or interchanging documents intended for paper. They are best viewed AS pdfs on a large enough screen.

[rpitcairn]

Thanks for the info. The pdf's I am converting this way are ones I have made or one's not available as Kindle books. I will try what you suggested before. I have an app that converts pdf to Pages. Might work.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by rpitcairn

Thanks for the info. The pdf's I am converting this way are ones I have made or one's not available as Kindle books. I will try what you suggested before. I have an app that converts pdf to Pages. Might work.

Might work?

It won't work. PDF conversions never work all that well. It's not worth the effort to fix all the problems. Is it ever worth the effort to convert PDF just to read on eInk? Never is it worth the effort/hassle.

[rpitcairn]

JS, the advantage to converting to Kindle is I can adjust the fone — larger or smaller — and make it more readable by being bolder, etc. Visual issues.

[Dr. Drib]

Using k2pdfoft (as I do), you can 'torture' the PDF into a semblance of readability - and it depends upon the PDF, too - but you can't change font size on the fly within the Kindle.

Best to buy a tablet for PDFs, or a large-sized eink screen - one larger than the Oasis. You'll then be a happy drooler.

All the people who responded to your reply are veterans here and know what they're talking about.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by rpitcairn

… The pdf's I am converting this way are ones I have made…

Don't make PDFs!
Make wordprocessor documents using paragraph styles. A Level1, Level2 etc with Insert Page Break Before for TOC/Chapters and body text for all other paragraphs and headings.
Save As a docx and convert that to epub2 in Calibre, then convert epub2 to azw3. Only takes a couple of minutes.

PDFs should ONLY be created for print jobs or POD publishing.

If using LO Writer or any other WP rather than MS Word, use the native file format to edit/save and only Save As a copy in Docx format. You can select & copy/paste from SOME third party PDFs into a Word processor. Do images and text separately. Pure Image (Scan) based PDFs, even if having an OCR text layer for search, should only be copied to an ereader as PDFs, though you can use various programs to crop, resize etc.

Never ever bother converting PDFs directly to anything else other than images.