From PDF to ePub: how best to do this?

Seanette · 11-21-2010, 10:43 PM

I know, probably been beaten to death

, but I'm still pretty new here and while a competent end user, I'm not a real expert on file formats and such.

I'm hoping to move PDFs that have two-column pages over to ePub and actually get the text formatted sanely in the process. At this point, I'm leaning toward extracting the text from said files, then running the result (after manual cleanup) through Calibre to ePub (I've tried direct conversion with disappointing results), but have yet to figure out what's going to be my best intermediate format to get decent output that'll be readable on my iTouch.

Nexutix · 11-22-2010, 07:40 AM

Get the pdf you want. Add to calibre, click convert. In settings, set unwrap factor to 0.05 and convert. You are done! It renders nice output for me. I also have converted some CHM help guides to epubs. You can also make font bold or use different font supported by device using space needed to add extra CSS. (If you want, google it, you will find the code easily.)

You can always convert a book without adding to calibre. Use "ebook-convert.exe" through command line. (You can see how to do this in Calibre manual, if you don't know.)

Seanette · 11-22-2010, 08:00 AM

Sorry, produced a jumbled mess with text from the two columns scrambled together.

Might help if I understood what the unwrap is, but this didn't do any good. In fact, I got worse results on my test file with .05 than with .45 (and .5 was no better. I wound up trying that via accidental typo).

As I said, at this point, I may be stuck with extracting text to a file to be put through Calibre and am trying to figure out my best intermediate format (.txt, .doc, .odt, ????), unless someone has a better idea. Some of the files I want to work with are pretty big, so while I can put up with manual editing if necessary, it's not exactly the preferred option

.

To give you an idea of my ability level in this area, I barely know what a CSS *is*, let alone how to tweak one.

frabjous · 11-22-2010, 06:05 PM

Personally, I would just use BRISS to cut each PDF page into readable sized chunks. You could do four, six or even more chunks per page.

I'd just leave the results in PDF format; so long as the chunks are readable, that's what really matters, and there's far less of a chance of losing formatting that way.

If you're really intent on extracting the text, I'd use HTML as your intermediate format. Something like Acrobat might be able to recognize the columns and extract the text appropriately. If you need a free solution, pdftohtml (used, e.g., alongside http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfreflow/pdfreflow) claims to be able to do (and their webpage gives an example of such), but I've got mixed results from trying this. But in honesty, you'd still probably be best off using BRISS to separate the columns before attempting to extract the text. (Since these aren't usually true crops but just redefining the bounding boxes, though it's still not entirely clear this will work.)

frabjous · 11-22-2010, 09:44 PM

$70 for something you can do (if imperfectly--though I doubt yours is better--) with free software? You've got to be kidding.

Take your SPAM elsewhere, please.

Seanette · 11-22-2010, 11:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by johnson23

(snip promo)

Obviously, spammers don't read very well. Where did I say anything about having any access to a Mac? I do, but did not state that previously, since it belongs to my DH and he's not happy about letting me install stuff on it.

Seanette · 11-22-2010, 11:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by frabjous

Personally, I would just use BRISS to cut each PDF page into readable sized chunks. You could do four, six or even more chunks per page.

The issue for me is text size on a small screen

.

Nexutix · 11-24-2010, 01:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seanette

The issue for me is text size on a small screen

.

I had that issue also. My mother did have too.

I got a process here; but seriously, it sucks for the time and crazy processing it takes. (It's insane that we don't have any good all-in-one software for this.)

1. Convert the said pdf file with briss to cut pages with no repetition of words on cut pages (that's where it gets frustrating, because not all documents are so well formatted that all pages will have same line on same pixel). Also, one page for a column will do good for next step.
2. Then feed this file to calibre to convert to epub. And you are done.

Yes, I agree this is crazy... too crazy. But you could try this really insane thing.

DaleDe · 11-27-2010, 07:07 PM

Using BRISS to convert to single column could be a useful step. I suggest that format you use for storage and to rework the data should be ePUB. Sigil is a good ePUB editor and you can capture images, metadata, text all in one ePUB file making the management easier. HTML is easy to convert into ePUB so it is a good choice for the initial conversion from PDF but any text form that supports formatting would also be ok to get to ePUB.

doreenjoy · 12-21-2010, 02:45 AM

I had a number of PDFs to convert, and after much frustration I broke down and purchased ABBYY PDF Transformer to OCR the text (it did a great job BTW). Then I converted the RTF to EPUB.

11-21-2010, 10:43 PM	#1
Seanette Addict Posts: 254 Karma: 834 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Sacramento, CA Device: Samsung Galaxy s3 (Android 4.4.2), iPad 2, Win10 laptop	From PDF to ePub: how best to do this? I know, probably been beaten to death , but I'm still pretty new here and while a competent end user, I'm not a real expert on file formats and such. I'm hoping to move PDFs that have two-column pages over to ePub and actually get the text formatted sanely in the process. At this point, I'm leaning toward extracting the text from said files, then running the result (after manual cleanup) through Calibre to ePub (I've tried direct conversion with disappointing results), but have yet to figure out what's going to be my best intermediate format to get decent output that'll be readable on my iTouch.

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11-22-2010, 07:40 AM	#2
Nexutix Reading and reading Posts: 582 Karma: 8250144 Join Date: Oct 2010 Device: Infibeam Pi, iPod Touch 4G, iPad Air 2, iPad mini 2, Oneplus One	Get the pdf you want. Add to calibre, click convert. In settings, set unwrap factor to 0.05 and convert. You are done! It renders nice output for me. I also have converted some CHM help guides to epubs. You can also make font bold or use different font supported by device using space needed to add extra CSS. (If you want, google it, you will find the code easily.) You can always convert a book without adding to calibre. Use "ebook-convert.exe" through command line. (You can see how to do this in Calibre manual, if you don't know.)

11-22-2010, 08:00 AM	#3
Seanette Addict Posts: 254 Karma: 834 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Sacramento, CA Device: Samsung Galaxy s3 (Android 4.4.2), iPad 2, Win10 laptop	Sorry, produced a jumbled mess with text from the two columns scrambled together. Might help if I understood what the unwrap is, but this didn't do any good. In fact, I got worse results on my test file with .05 than with .45 (and .5 was no better. I wound up trying that via accidental typo). As I said, at this point, I may be stuck with extracting text to a file to be put through Calibre and am trying to figure out my best intermediate format (.txt, .doc, .odt, ????), unless someone has a better idea. Some of the files I want to work with are pretty big, so while I can put up with manual editing if necessary, it's not exactly the preferred option . To give you an idea of my ability level in this area, I barely know what a CSS is, let alone how to tweak one.

11-22-2010, 06:05 PM	#4
frabjous Wizard Posts: 1,213 Karma: 12890 Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Amherst, Massachusetts, USA Device: Sony PRS-505	Personally, I would just use BRISS to cut each PDF page into readable sized chunks. You could do four, six or even more chunks per page. I'd just leave the results in PDF format; so long as the chunks are readable, that's what really matters, and there's far less of a chance of losing formatting that way. If you're really intent on extracting the text, I'd use HTML as your intermediate format. Something like Acrobat might be able to recognize the columns and extract the text appropriately. If you need a free solution, pdftohtml (used, e.g., alongside http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfreflow/pdfreflow) claims to be able to do (and their webpage gives an example of such), but I've got mixed results from trying this. But in honesty, you'd still probably be best off using BRISS to separate the columns before attempting to extract the text. (Since these aren't usually true crops but just redefining the bounding boxes, though it's still not entirely clear this will work.)

11-22-2010, 09:44 PM	#5
frabjous Wizard Posts: 1,213 Karma: 12890 Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Amherst, Massachusetts, USA Device: Sony PRS-505	$70 for something you can do (if imperfectly--though I doubt yours is better--) with free software? You've got to be kidding. Take your SPAM elsewhere, please.

11-27-2010, 07:07 PM	#9
DaleDe Grand Sorcerer Posts: 11,470 Karma: 13095790 Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Grass Valley, CA Device: EB 1150, EZ Reader, Literati, iPad 2 & Air 2, iPhone 7	Using BRISS to convert to single column could be a useful step. I suggest that format you use for storage and to rework the data should be ePUB. Sigil is a good ePUB editor and you can capture images, metadata, text all in one ePUB file making the management easier. HTML is easy to convert into ePUB so it is a good choice for the initial conversion from PDF but any text form that supports formatting would also be ok to get to ePUB.

12-21-2010, 02:45 AM	#10
doreenjoy 01000100 01001010 Posts: 1,889 Karma: 2400000 Join Date: Mar 2009 Device: Polyamorous	I had a number of PDFs to convert, and after much frustration I broke down and purchased ABBYY PDF Transformer to OCR the text (it did a great job BTW). Then I converted the RTF to EPUB.

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