Converting PDF w/ "Calibre" Problem?

[federalbetrayal]

I recently began using Calibre to convert PDF's to Mobi files to increasing readability. Most of my files worked, but a few did not. Calibre simply "failed" to covert them, and I tried them again and again. Is there a way to jailbreak them so I can convert? (there are no copyright issues, the authors of each were from the 19th Century and I got them for free on the internet from academic institutions, thus avoiding all intellectual property restrictions).

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by federalbetrayal

I recently began using Calibre to convert PDF's to Mobi files to increasing readability. Most of my files worked, but a few did not. Calibre simply "failed" to covert them, and I tried them again and again. Is there a way to jailbreak them so I can convert? (there are no copyright issues, the authors of each were from the 19th Century and I got them for free on the internet from academic institutions, thus avoiding all intellectual property restrictions).

Listing the calibre version and putting the actual error message here would help us help you. Mind readers we are not.

Read this thread the error you are seeing might be this error in which case it will be fixed in the next release.

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by federalbetrayal

I recently began using Calibre to convert PDF's to Mobi files to increasing readability. Most of my files worked, but a few did not. Calibre simply "failed" to covert them, and I tried them again and again. Is there a way to jailbreak them so I can convert? (there are no copyright issues, the authors of each were from the 19th Century and I got them for free on the internet from academic institutions, thus avoiding all intellectual property restrictions).

Older books are often a set of scanned images of pages. Can you select/copy/paste text from each page? Pure image pdfs convert very poorly or not at all.

[federalbetrayal]

I am having some trouble converting some of my Public Domain PDF's. Below is the error message. Any help would be greatly appreciated.



ERROR: Conversion Error: <b>Failed</b>: Convert book 1 of 1 (Principles of Economics)

Convert book 1 of 1 (Principles of Economics)
Resolved conversion options
calibre version: 0.7.20
{'asciiize': False,
'author_sort': None,
'authors': None,
'base_font_size': 11.0,
'book_producer': None,
'change_justification': u'justify',
'chapter': u"//*[((name()='h1' or name()='h2') and re:test(., 'chapter|book|section|part|prologue|epilogue\\s+', 'i')) or @class = 'chapter']",
'chapter_mark': u'pagebreak',
'comments': None,
'cover': 'c:\\docume~1\\user\\locals~1\\temp\\calibre_0.7.2 0_tmp_wgnvrb\\calibre_0.7.20_kyhh5a.jpeg',
'debug_pipeline': None,
'disable_font_rescaling': False,
'dont_compress': False,
'extra_css': None,
'font_size_mapping': None,
'footer_regex': u'(?i)(?<=<hr>)((\\s*<a name=\\d+></a>((<img.+?>)*<br>\\s*)?\\d+<br>\\s*.*?\\s*)|(\\s* <a name=\\d+></a>((<img.+?>)*<br>\\s*)?.*?<br>\\s*\\d+))(?=<br>)' ,
'header_regex': u'(?i)(?<=<hr>)((\\s*<a name=\\d+></a>((<img.+?>)*<br>\\s*)?\\d+<br>\\s*.*?\\s*)|(\\s* <a name=\\d+></a>((<img.+?>)*<br>\\s*)?.*?<br>\\s*\\d+))(?=<br>)' ,
'html_unwrap_factor': 0.40000000000000002,
'input_encoding': None,
'input_profile': <calibre.customize.profiles.InputProfile object at 0x03C17730>,
'insert_blank_line': False,
'insert_metadata': False,
'isbn': None,
'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,
'max_toc_links': 50,
'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 0x03C17A10>,
'page_breaks_before': u"//*[name()='h1' or name()='h2']",
'personal_doc': u'[PDOC]',
'prefer_author_sort': True,
'prefer_metadata_cover': True,
'preprocess_html': False,
'pretty_print': False,
'pubdate': None,
'publisher': None,
'rating': None,
'read_metadata_from_opf': 'c:\\docume~1\\user\\locals~1\\temp\\calibre_0.7.2 0_tmp_wgnvrb\\calibre_0.7.20_nel9ak.opf',
'remove_first_image': False,
'remove_footer': False,
'remove_header': False,
'remove_paragraph_spacing': False,
'remove_paragraph_spacing_indent_size': 1.5,
'rescale_images': False,
'series': None,
'series_index': None,
'smarten_punctuation': False,
'tags': None,
'timestamp': None,
'title': None,
'title_sort': None,
'toc_filter': None,
'toc_threshold': 6,
'toc_title': None,
'unwrap_factor': 0.45000000000000001,
'use_auto_toc': False,
'verbose': 2}
InputFormatPlugin: PDF Input running
on C:\Documents and Settings\User\My Documents\Kindle PDF's\Carl Menger\Principles of Economics (9)\Principles of Economics - Carl Menger.pdf
Converting file to html...
pdftohtml log:

Retrieving document metadata...
Generating manifest...
Rendering manifest...
Parsing all content...
Parsing index.html ...
Failed to parse content in index.html
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\oeb\reader.py", line 159, in _manifest_prune_invalid
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\oeb\base.py", line 1060, in fget
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\oeb\base.py", line 789, in _parse_xhtml
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\conversion\preprocess.py", line 431, in __call__
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\conversion\preprocess.py", line 152, in __call__
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\conversion\preprocess.py", line 133, in dehyphenate
File "re.py", line 190, in compile
File "re.py", line 245, in _compile
error: unbalanced parenthesis

Spine item 'id1' not found
Python function terminated unexpectedly
Spine is empty (Error Code: 1)
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site.py", line 103, in main
File "site.py", line 85, in run_entry_point
File "site-packages\calibre\utils\ipc\worker.py", line 99, in main
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\convert\gui_conversion.py", line 24, in gui_convert
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\conversion\plumber.py", line 841, in run
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\conversion\plumber.py", line 968, in create_oebbook
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\oeb\reader.py", line 72, in __call__
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\oeb\reader.py", line 594, in _all_from_opf
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\oeb\reader.py", line 289, in _spine_from_opf
calibre.ebooks.oeb.base.OEBError: Spine is empty

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by federalbetrayal

I am having some trouble converting some of my Public Domain PDF's. Below is the error message. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answering this in post two this thread isn't enough?

The error you cite has been brought up countless times in the last few days. This error was introduced in 0.7.20 so you can either go back to 0.7.19 or wait for 0.7.21.