02-11-2011, 01:30 PM | #1 |
Junior Member
Posts: 2
Karma: 10
Join Date: Feb 2011
Device: kindle
|
Kindle conversion problem
I try to convert my pdf's to .mobi with the calibre program and I have noticed the following very irritating problems.
1) After conversion the index numbers get messed up and I can't jump to a certain page. Instead of page 15 I get page 150 after conversion. 2)In landscape mode on some pages the last line of letters gets eaten up. Any solution to these problems? How can i convert pdf's "perfectly" ? Help! |
02-11-2011, 02:37 PM | #2 | |
New Leaf Turner
Posts: 260
Karma: 1026664
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: Hadestown
Device: Kobo Glo
|
Quote:
If there are artifacts like page numbers or "converted by ABC", etc. left over, the find & replace function should be helpful, either with Calibre or a text editor of your choice. Also, welcome to MobileRead! |
|
Advert | |
|
02-11-2011, 03:09 PM | #3 | |
Mrawr?
Posts: 1,109
Karma: 15039064
Join Date: Aug 2010
Device: kindle 3 wifi
|
Quote:
my suggestion would be to convert the PDF to RTF, using Calibre (if you can't "save as..." a DOC) and prettify it from there. i use Open Office to do make them as perfect as possible and reconvert to MOBI after lots of trials and tribulations. Last edited by TenaciousBadger; 02-11-2011 at 04:39 PM. |
|
02-11-2011, 04:03 PM | #4 |
Grand Sorcerer
Posts: 6,478
Karma: 26425959
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: USA
Device: iPhone 15PM, Kindle Scribe, iPad mini 6, PocketBook InkPad Color 3
|
Other people prefer to convert PDF to HTML and do the cleanup there. Of course that requires some HTML/CSS knowledge. But if you want it to be perfect, there's probably no other way to achieve it.
Also with HTML you can automate a lot of the cleanup with scripts or macros. The problem is figuring out which issues a particular file has. It will all depend on how the PDF was baked. Last edited by tomsem; 02-11-2011 at 04:06 PM. |
02-11-2011, 08:30 PM | #5 |
Junior Member
Posts: 2
Karma: 10
Join Date: Feb 2011
Device: kindle
|
What exactly i need to clean up from the file once its html?
It sounds as too much hassle just to fix 1 file and make it appear properly. I had assumed kindle can display pdf's properly with no problems. Well it does but everything looks too small. The 150% zoom option is too much. You really need around 120% it seems to me. |
Advert | |
|
02-12-2011, 12:29 AM | #6 |
Wizard
Posts: 1,105
Karma: 1025784
Join Date: Oct 2010
Device: WiFi Kindle3
|
The other option is to use the FONT button to rotate the pdf 90 degrees. That way you can see/read left to right and possibly not have to scroll but you see less page up/down.
|
02-12-2011, 01:22 AM | #7 | ||
Groupie
Posts: 180
Karma: 558490
Join Date: Jan 2011
Device: Kindle 5, Amazon Fire 5th Gen, Moto Z Play Droid
|
Quote:
Second, It's not the Kindle's fault for some PDFs to not look exactly right sometimes. It's the PDF file format's fault. As quoted from the Calibre user manual on converting files: Quote:
Last edited by chyron8472; 02-12-2011 at 01:25 AM. |
||
02-12-2011, 12:17 PM | #8 | |
Wizard
Posts: 3,720
Karma: 1759970
Join Date: Sep 2010
Device: none
|
Quote:
Amazon will convert it better than you can, probably. & will send it back to your Kindle. if you are still not happy, give up & find a non-pdf source PS try this. open pdf in adobe reader. on the edit tab select - copy file to clipboard. then paste clipboard contents into word. that gets the text out of the pdf, into something that you can edit with. if you like what you see, take it from there - ie continue to tidy, then save as rich text format, or save as filtered html , then add the saved file to calibre & convert that to mobi for Kindle. ( or you can send the .rtf to your kindle address |
|
02-12-2011, 02:17 PM | #9 |
Mrawr?
Posts: 1,109
Karma: 15039064
Join Date: Aug 2010
Device: kindle 3 wifi
|
any way you look at it and any method you choose, it still is a long journey to the perfect mobi, with a little bit of learning involved in the process (whether it is html/css or, the reason i love Open Office, regular expressions that allow you to make all changes in one go)
here's a wiki about them regular expressions if you're interested in a nutshell, it's like the find function in Word, you find and then replace. ^$ - will take care of empty lines ^(tab space) - will take care of spaces before the first line of the paragraph (tab space)$ - will take care of spaces at the end of the paragraph ^chapter .*$ - will find you all your chapters (as long as they have the word "chapter" in there) ^[0-9]* - will find all the numbers at the beginning of a sentence/paragraph (especially useful when you don't have the word "chapter" anywhere in there) [a-z|;|.]$ - is a long story about repairing broken paragraphs --as always a big thanks to tt |
02-13-2011, 01:31 AM | #10 | |
New Leaf Turner
Posts: 260
Karma: 1026664
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: Hadestown
Device: Kobo Glo
|
Quote:
It really is fun learning new tricks and this seems like it'll be a blast! (Not hyperbole, seriously.) |
|
02-13-2011, 03:00 AM | #11 |
Wizard
Posts: 3,720
Karma: 1759970
Join Date: Sep 2010
Device: none
|
if it's text you want - then the above posts give a range of workable options.
where Kindle & similar are useless is for PDFs that are mostly image & that have lots of text wrapped around images, or where use of color is necessary to convey meaning - like a game strategy guide or a technical how-to manual. with those it is a case of waiting for the next gen A4 size + colour reader. ( Hmm- don't apple do one already , for folks with more money than sense ? ) |
02-13-2011, 03:01 AM | #12 |
Connoisseur
Posts: 86
Karma: 999999
Join Date: Dec 2010
Device: some.
|
The main way I convert pdf to mobi/epub is to use pdftohtml -xml, then use pdfreflow on the xml output to get rid of the headers, footers and page numbers and obviously reflow the text.
It turns out 99.9% perfect, and is so easy. I'm not sure that there is a windows equivalent, if that is what you use. |
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Comic conversion problem (CBZ to PDF) on Kindle DX Graphite | kindle-dxg-owner | Calibre | 10 | 12-15-2010 08:58 AM |
conversion problem | Alexandra Irini | Introduce Yourself | 5 | 11-22-2010 11:33 AM |
Conversion problem from PRC to anything | EricLandes | Calibre | 2 | 02-12-2010 12:13 PM |
conversion problem? | mountainman80 | ePub | 8 | 01-29-2010 11:54 PM |
Conversion Problem | tonyt | Calibre | 5 | 06-13-2009 05:04 PM |