Convert Epub > RTF or TXT: Any Way To Eliminate Page Numbers?

[Blaineoreski]

Merged this thread - 800 - Page Long Book: After Conversion Every Line Has Words Stuck Together Post #5

Hi,

Converting a book from epub to either txt or rtf the physical page numbers persist. So that, even though you just have a scrolling screen of text, every 6 paragraphs or so your'll have a line with just

16

Is there any way to set the conversion variables so that the output of

txt
rtf

files excise the page numbers?

I was thinking could it be done via regular expressions?

Or, is there another setting that either one could rig to eliminate page numbers?

Or, a perhaps there's a built-in feature epub > txt / rtf conversion that handles this that I'm missing.

Many thanks!

Sincerely,

Blaine

[pdurrant]

You seem to have an unusual ePub that has the page numbers of the original book in the ePub text.

I suspect that if you look at the HTML in the ePub, you'll be able to spot the numbers and remove them with a simple search/replace.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

You seem to have an unusual ePub that has the page numbers of the original book in the ePub text.

I suspect that if you look at the HTML in the ePub, you'll be able to spot the numbers and remove them with a simple search/replace.

↑ ↑ ↑ ✔

The ebook may have started life as ink-on-paper or PDF, which was put through an OCR scanner to create text, which in turn was converted to EPUB without first removing the print artefacts - like page numbers, footnotes etc.

BR

[Blaineoreski]

Hi pdurrant & BetterRed,

Got it! Yep. Thanks.

Sincerely,

Blaine

[Blaineoreski]

Hi,

Using Epub and even PDF to convert to

docx
text
rtf

Seems like at least every line has words that need spaces but didn't get them:

eighteenthcentury

betterthan

atleast

I've got access to different versions of the books: Epub & Adobe. Still, going into any of the above 3 formats I get the same stuck-together-words issue.

What do you think is happening?

Sincerely,

Blaine

[jhowell]

It sounds like the book was scanned from a paper copy and the OCR conversion was done poorly and was never proofread and corrected.

Another possibility is that the book was converted to PDF and then back to a reflowable format. That sometimes loses word breaks.

[retiredbiker]

You imply (but don't say) that the original epub (or pdf) does not have the problem. You could open the epub version in the Editor and look for some of the problem words. If they are run together in the original, of course you're stuck, but if there is something there giving them space, that is not coming over in conversion, you can probably fix it there with a search and replace.

[BetterRed]

@Blaineoreski - is this thread referring to the same 'book' as this thread Convert Epub > RTF or TXT: Any Way To Eliminate Page Numbers??

If it is I will merge the two threads, the page numbers, joined words and other issues are almost certain to stem from the problems inherent in converting OCR scanned text from PDFs or printed pages.

Even if you didn't do the original conversion of PDF or scan to what you have, you should read this … before Posting PDF Questions

And this ==>> How to ask a question about conversion problems

BR

[Blaineoreski]

Hi retiredbiker & Jhowell & BetterRed

Thanks for the replies!

@BetterRed

You wrote:

- is this thread referring to the same 'book' as this thread Convert Epub > RTF or TXT: Any Way To Eliminate Page Numbers??

If it is I will merge the two threads, the page numbers, joined words and other issues are almost certain to stem from the problems inherent in converting OCR scanned text from PDFs or printed pages.

Yes. Sounds good.

Sincerely,

Blaine