Extra lines when converting from PDF

jimmo · 01-13-2021, 09:04 AM

I have a lot of e-books that I want to convert to EPUB, primarily from PDF. It's seem that with the default settings there is an blank line at the end of every line of text. I have actives the heuristic processing and set the "Line un-wrap factor" to as high as 0.8, and set it to 0.8 in the PDF Input settings. That helps, but not entirely. There are still extra lines. I have checked the original PDF and this seems to only occur at the end of lines.

There are number of other posts that address this issue, but so far, none of them have solved the problem. Any help is appreciated.

retiredbiker · 01-13-2021, 11:03 AM

A well known problem, and you are on the right track with heuristic processing. If you have text with shorter lines, like conversation, try setting the line-unwrap factor lower, not higher. You have to experiment, every book is different, and the underlying contents of pdfs are hugely variable.

But the ultimate answer is - you will have to edit any pdf conversion to get it completely right, it is the nature of the beast.

Have you read the Sticky post on pdf conversions?

jimmo · 01-14-2021, 04:06 AM

Thank you for the quick response. Most of what I have are non-fiction. However, I do have some fiction, so I will keep that in mind when converting those.
By "edit any pdf conversion", do you mean editing the resulting file?
Do you mean this sticky "Read this before Posting PDF Questions"? To be honest I simply looked at the section headers to see if anything applied. I started reading the article "E-book conversion", which is helping my understanding of the whole process.

retiredbiker · 01-14-2021, 10:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jimmo

Thank you for the quick response. Most of what I have are non-fiction. However, I do have some fiction, so I will keep that in mind when converting those.
By "edit any pdf conversion", do you mean editing the resulting file?
Do you mean this sticky "Read this before Posting PDF Questions"? To be honest I simply looked at the section headers to see if anything applied. I started reading the article "E-book conversion", which is helping my understanding of the whole process.

Yes, edit the resulting epub. Many of us have tens or even hundreds of saved searches to fix common problems resulting from conversions, or just badly coded books--that's how common this stuff is.

And yes, that is the sticky to read.

01-13-2021, 09:04 AM	#1
jimmo Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2012 Device: Kindle	Extra lines when converting from PDF I have a lot of e-books that I want to convert to EPUB, primarily from PDF. It's seem that with the default settings there is an blank line at the end of every line of text. I have actives the heuristic processing and set the "Line un-wrap factor" to as high as 0.8, and set it to 0.8 in the PDF Input settings. That helps, but not entirely. There are still extra lines. I have checked the original PDF and this seems to only occur at the end of lines. There are number of other posts that address this issue, but so far, none of them have solved the problem. Any help is appreciated.

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01-13-2021, 11:03 AM	#2
retiredbiker Evangelist Posts: 451 Karma: 3886916 Join Date: May 2013 Location: Ontario, Canada Device: Kindle KB, Oasis, Pop_Os!, Kobo Forma	A well known problem, and you are on the right track with heuristic processing. If you have text with shorter lines, like conversation, try setting the line-unwrap factor lower, not higher. You have to experiment, every book is different, and the underlying contents of pdfs are hugely variable. But the ultimate answer is - you will have to edit any pdf conversion to get it completely right, it is the nature of the beast. Have you read the Sticky post on pdf conversions?

01-14-2021, 04:06 AM	#3
jimmo Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2012 Device: Kindle	Thank you for the quick response. Most of what I have are non-fiction. However, I do have some fiction, so I will keep that in mind when converting those. By "edit any pdf conversion", do you mean editing the resulting file? Do you mean this sticky "Read this before Posting PDF Questions"? To be honest I simply looked at the section headers to see if anything applied. I started reading the article "E-book conversion", which is helping my understanding of the whole process.