PDF to mobi conversion problem (rtl in hebrew)

yoavbd123 · 03-03-2013, 01:22 PM

Hi!
I have a problem converting Hebrew PDF files to a format which I can read on my Kindle Paperwhite.
When I convert the pdf to .mobi
the font appears fine (that means the Hebrew letters are shown correctly and not like a weird script or something)
How ever there is a problem with the alignment of the words
The letters are shown in reverse and the words are shown in reverse as well.
Since Hebrew is written from Right To Left, unlike Enligh
I reckon this is the problem...
e.g of how the Hebrew looks:
the sentence " hello world"
would appear like this: "dlrow olleh"

I've tried an official epub book and converted it using the Kindle converter and the file came out totally readable.
However the kindle converter does not work well with PDFs...

I convert to the old version of .mobi
the other versions don't work at all on my Kindle

here is the log of the conversion:

Spoiler:

Thanks a lot!

kovidgoyal · 03-03-2013, 09:57 PM

Conversion of RTL pdfs is not supported. Conversion of pdfs has many, many limitations, see the sticky post at the top of this forum about pdf.

yoavbd123 · 03-04-2013, 12:14 AM

Is there anyway around it?
A two step conversion or something?
Is there any chance for a software update in the near future to solve it?
I get the problem, the OCR scanner scans the pdf from left to right, hence the last word appears first and the letters are in a reverse order..
But that sounds like it is something not too hard to fix..

So do you have any suggestions for me on how I can do it, or will be in the near future
or am I basically screwed?

kovidgoyal · 03-04-2013, 12:38 AM

No, no plans. Patches are always welcome.

yoavbd123 · 03-04-2013, 12:47 AM

Alright,
I appreciate your help!
Is there a place in these forums when I can ask for patches from other fellows in the community? Since my programming background is pretty much nonexistent :S

kovidgoyal · 03-04-2013, 01:02 AM

You can ask right here, but given the difficulty of working with pdf, you are unlikely to get any responses.

yoavbd123 · 03-04-2013, 01:22 PM

The only thing needed to be done is making the OCR read the PDF from right to left instead of left to right.
I'm sure it can be done,
logically it sounds super easy to achieve...
there are other problems with PDF that happens both in English and Hebrew and that's double letters, bad spacing and paragraphing and things like that
but that is much more difficult to solve but it's good enough for me
the whole issue is the rtl instead of ltr
I wish I had a solid programming knowledge in order to dig in,
but since I don't ...

Is it something that hard to do?
Cause really logically it sounds super easy...

Thanks!!

Agama · 03-06-2013, 07:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Conversion of RTL pdfs is not supported.

Is RTL conversion supported for any formats? If it is supported by plain text then maybe the OP could copy/paste the PDF into a text file and convert that instead. (Formatting could be re-introduced manually before conversion by using Markdown.)

kovidgoyal · 03-06-2013, 08:46 AM

RTL works fine in both epub and azw3.

03-03-2013, 01:22 PM	#1
yoavbd123 Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2013 Device: Kindle Paperwhite	PDF to mobi conversion problem (rtl in hebrew) Hi! I have a problem converting Hebrew PDF files to a format which I can read on my Kindle Paperwhite. When I convert the pdf to .mobi the font appears fine (that means the Hebrew letters are shown correctly and not like a weird script or something) How ever there is a problem with the alignment of the words The letters are shown in reverse and the words are shown in reverse as well. Since Hebrew is written from Right To Left, unlike Enligh I reckon this is the problem... e.g of how the Hebrew looks: the sentence " hello world" would appear like this: "dlrow olleh" I've tried an official epub book and converted it using the Kindle converter and the file came out totally readable. However the kindle converter does not work well with PDFs... I convert to the old version of .mobi the other versions don't work at all on my Kindle here is the log of the conversion: Spoiler: Convert book 1 of 1 (chekhov) Resolved conversion options calibre version: 0.9.21 {'asciiize': False, 'author_sort': None, 'authors': None, 'base_font_size': 0.0, 'book_producer': None, 'change_justification': u'original', 'chapter': u"//[((name()='h1' or name()='h2') and re:test(., '\\s((chapter\|book\|section\|part)\\s+)\|((prolog\|pr ologue\|epilogue)(\\s+\|$))', 'i')) or @class = 'chapter']", 'chapter_mark': u'pagebreak', 'comments': None, 'cover': u'C:\\Users\\Yoav\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\calibre_0 .9.21_tmp_fprfbn\\3t_pmx.jpeg', 'debug_pipeline': None, 'dehyphenate': True, 'delete_blank_paragraphs': True, 'disable_font_rescaling': False, 'dont_compress': False, 'duplicate_links_in_toc': False, 'embed_font_family': None, 'enable_heuristics': False, 'extra_css': None, 'extract_to': None, 'filter_css': u'', 'fix_indents': True, 'font_size_mapping': None, 'format_scene_breaks': True, 'html_unwrap_factor': 0.4, 'input_encoding': None, 'input_profile': <calibre.customize.profiles.InputProfile object at 0x0000000004B090F0>, 'insert_blank_line': False, 'insert_blank_line_size': 0.5, 'insert_metadata': False, 'isbn': None, 'italicize_common_cases': True, 'keep_ligatures': False, 'language': None, 'level1_toc': None, 'level2_toc': None, 'level3_toc': None, 'line_height': 0.0, 'linearize_tables': False, 'margin_bottom': 5.0, 'margin_left': 5.0, 'margin_right': 5.0, 'margin_top': 5.0, 'markup_chapter_headings': True, 'max_toc_links': 50, 'minimum_line_height': 120.0, 'mobi_file_type': u'old', 'mobi_ignore_margins': False, 'mobi_keep_original_images': False, 'mobi_toc_at_start': False, 'new_pdf_engine': False, 'no_chapters_in_toc': False, 'no_images': False, 'no_inline_navbars': True, 'no_inline_toc': False, 'output_profile': <calibre.customize.profiles.KindleOutput object at 0x0000000004B096A0>, 'page_breaks_before': u"//[name()='h1' or name()='h2']", 'personal_doc': u'[PDOC]', 'prefer_author_sort': False, 'prefer_metadata_cover': False, 'pretty_print': False, 'pubdate': None, 'publisher': None, 'rating': None, 'read_metadata_from_opf': u'C:\\Users\\Yoav\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\calibre_0 .9.21_tmp_fprfbn\\yjf2vg.opf', 'remove_fake_margins': True, 'remove_first_image': False, 'remove_paragraph_spacing': False, 'remove_paragraph_spacing_indent_size': 1.5, 'renumber_headings': True, 'replace_scene_breaks': u'', 'search_replace': '[]', 'series': None, 'series_index': None, 'share_not_sync': False, 'smarten_punctuation': False, 'sr1_replace': None, 'sr1_search': None, 'sr2_replace': None, 'sr2_search': None, 'sr3_replace': None, 'sr3_search': None, 'start_reading_at': None, 'subset_embedded_fonts': False, 'tags': None, 'timestamp': None, 'title': None, 'title_sort': None, 'toc_filter': None, 'toc_threshold': 6, 'toc_title': None, 'unsmarten_punctuation': False, 'unwrap_factor': 0.45, 'unwrap_lines': True, 'use_auto_toc': False, 'verbose': 2} InputFormatPlugin: PDF Input running on C:\Users\Yoav\AppData\Local\Temp\calibre_0.9.21_tm p_fprfbn\qstete.pdf Converting file to html... Flipping image index-2_1.png: y Flipping image index-5_1.png: y Flipping image index-7_1.png: y Flipping image index-9_1.png: y Flipping image index-11_1.png: y Flipping image index-12_1.png: y Retrieving document metadata... Generating manifest... Rendering manifest... Parsing all content... Parsing index.html ... Initial parse failed, using more forgiving parsers Parsing index.html as HTML Generating default TOC from spine... Merging user specified metadata... Detecting structure... Auto generated TOC with 0 entries. Flattening CSS and remapping font sizes... Source base font size is 12.00000pt Removing fake margins... Found 373 items of level: p_1 p_1 left margin stats: Counter({u'0': 373}) p_1 right margin stats: Counter({u'0': 373}) Cleaning up manifest... Trimming unused files from manifest... Creating MOBI Output... Serializing resources... Creating MOBI 6 output Applying case-transforming CSS... Parsing manglecase.css ... Rasterizing SVG images... Converting XHTML to Mobipocket markup... Serializing markup content... Compressing markup content... No TOC, MOBI index not generated MOBI output written to C:\Users\Yoav\AppData\Local\Temp\calibre_0.9.21_tm p_fprfbn\lsax3x.mobi Thanks a lot! Last edited by theducks; 03-03-2013 at 02:46 PM. Reason: Wrapped long paste in Spoiler*

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03-03-2013, 09:57 PM	#2
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 43,835 Karma: 22666666 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	Conversion of RTL pdfs is not supported. Conversion of pdfs has many, many limitations, see the sticky post at the top of this forum about pdf.

03-04-2013, 12:14 AM	#3
yoavbd123 Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2013 Device: Kindle Paperwhite	Is there anyway around it? A two step conversion or something? Is there any chance for a software update in the near future to solve it? I get the problem, the OCR scanner scans the pdf from left to right, hence the last word appears first and the letters are in a reverse order.. But that sounds like it is something not too hard to fix.. So do you have any suggestions for me on how I can do it, or will be in the near future or am I basically screwed?

03-04-2013, 12:38 AM	#4
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 43,835 Karma: 22666666 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	No, no plans. Patches are always welcome.

03-04-2013, 12:47 AM	#5
yoavbd123 Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2013 Device: Kindle Paperwhite	Alright, I appreciate your help! Is there a place in these forums when I can ask for patches from other fellows in the community? Since my programming background is pretty much nonexistent :S

03-04-2013, 01:02 AM	#6
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 43,835 Karma: 22666666 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	You can ask right here, but given the difficulty of working with pdf, you are unlikely to get any responses.

03-04-2013, 01:22 PM	#7
yoavbd123 Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2013 Device: Kindle Paperwhite	The only thing needed to be done is making the OCR read the PDF from right to left instead of left to right. I'm sure it can be done, logically it sounds super easy to achieve... there are other problems with PDF that happens both in English and Hebrew and that's double letters, bad spacing and paragraphing and things like that but that is much more difficult to solve but it's good enough for me the whole issue is the rtl instead of ltr I wish I had a solid programming knowledge in order to dig in, but since I don't ... Is it something that hard to do? Cause really logically it sounds super easy... Thanks!!

03-06-2013, 08:46 AM	#9
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 43,835 Karma: 22666666 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	RTL works fine in both epub and azw3.