spacing problem in Kindle Mobi converted from rtf file

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Anne Marie Weiss

Hi Hitch....... Is this the general series of steps that you feel will produce the desired formatting? Am I on the right track?

a. export pdf from Access

b. use Office to save the pdf as a docx. (Not rtf, as several people had suggested, and which I've been editing for the past 3 weeks)

c. use styles to reformat and produce the desired look to the text in the docx document (recreating what was produced in the pdf exported from Access)

d. use Calibre to convert to Kindle format

How am I doing?

many thanks again!

AMW

It's a bit different than what I'd do--but then again, I'm a bit of a perfectionist, and I'm already a bookmaker. But, yes--that's the general idea.

The big area that you haven't got working knowledge in, and the big "secret" is the Styles and Headings. I think, once you embrace that, you'll be shocked at how easy it wll be.

OH, and another big "Word secret" (not really) is, NUKE all your styles first, in the entire document, and start with a clean, naked file. If you have italics and bold, NOW, that you want to keep, there's a slightly different process and you'll need a plugin from Toxaris, so tell us if that's the case.

Trust me, it's much, much easier to style a cleaned document that doesn't have a bunch of existing, ad-hoc styles, than to try to style something that's already a mess.

Hitch

[Anne Marie Weiss]

Hi Mitch and Chris and friends. Many thanks to all who responded to my query. EUREKA! I appreciate your suggestions, and actually, the solution was not hard (although somewhat occult.)

My challenge was HOW TO CONVERT A PDF TEXT FOR READING ON KINDLE (USING CALIBRE). The document was exported from an Excel database, and the two export options were pdf or rtf. As others have noted on internet forums, a serious spacing problem frequently occurs during this conversion. How to avoid maintain the desired line spacing?

CONCLUSIONS

1. PDF is an image and cannot be successfully converted for e-reader. AVOID pdfs. (and any 'expert' who suggests this path.)

2. There is no need to export to rtf. In fact, it's a waste of time, as the resulting line and page breaks and page size indicators will all need to be manually removed. AVOID rtfs.

3. The spacing problem so many of us have encountered when preparing a document for use on Kindle can be handled by converting the pdf to docx.

4. Calibre can work with docx documents, but does not convert doc text.
(Word 2013 can convert a pdf to docx, or a doc to docx).

5. in your docx document, play with the settings for Styles, keeping in mind how the Kindle operates.
Erase page width and height.
Erase Widow / Orphan.
Insert a paragraph break at the desired spot (in my case, at the end of the quote and its auxiliary listings).
Convert using Calibre, and check results on Kindle.
Adjust styles if necessary, another time.

I will attach photos of the resulting Kindle file.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Anne Marie Weiss

Hi Mitch and Chris and friends. Many thanks to all who responded to my query. EUREKA! I appreciate your suggestions, and actually, the solution was not hard (although somewhat occult.)

My challenge was HOW TO CONVERT A PDF TEXT FOR READING ON KINDLE (USING CALIBRE). The document was exported from an Excel database, and the two export options were pdf or rtf. As others have noted on internet forums, a serious spacing problem frequently occurs during this conversion. How to avoid maintain the desired line spacing?

CONCLUSIONS

1. PDF is an image and cannot be successfully converted for e-reader. AVOID pdfs. (and any 'expert' who suggests this path.)

2. There is no need to export to rtf. In fact, it's a waste of time, as the resulting line and page breaks and page size indicators will all need to be manually removed. AVOID rtfs.

3. The spacing problem so many of us have encountered when preparing a document for use on Kindle can be handled by converting the pdf to docx.

4. Calibre can work with docx documents, but does not convert doc text.
(Word 2013 can convert a pdf to docx, or a doc to docx).

5. in your docx document, play with the settings for Styles, keeping in mind how the Kindle operates.
Erase page width and height.
Erase Widow / Orphan.
Insert a paragraph break at the desired spot (in my case, at the end of the quote and its auxiliary listings).
Convert using Calibre, and check results on Kindle.
Adjust styles if necessary, another time.

I will attach photos of the resulting Kindle file.

I'm glad to hear that you triumphed. Indeed, PDF to almost anything is pretty much not great. :-)

Hitch

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Anne Marie Weiss

Hi Mitch and Chris and friends. Many thanks to all who responded to my query. EUREKA! I appreciate your suggestions, and actually, the solution was not hard (although somewhat occult.)

My challenge was HOW TO CONVERT A PDF TEXT FOR READING ON KINDLE (USING CALIBRE). The document was exported from an Excel database, and the two export options were pdf or rtf. As others have noted on internet forums, a serious spacing problem frequently occurs during this conversion. How to avoid maintain the desired line spacing?

CONCLUSIONS

1. PDF is an image and cannot be successfully converted for e-reader. AVOID pdfs. (and any 'expert' who suggests this path.)

2. There is no need to export to rtf. In fact, it's a waste of time, as the resulting line and page breaks and page size indicators will all need to be manually removed. AVOID rtfs.

Some PDF files are an image, some are text, some are an image with a text layer underneath. Text based PDF's can be successfully converted. Text based PDF can also be reflowed for reading purposes on smaller screens if the reader can do this. But if your goal is to repeat spacing then then they are not the best source.

RTF is an exchange format between word processing programs. As an exchange format it is fine. It does preserve paragraphs, italics, bold and other specific document data. It can be pulled into word just fine. It is much better than just creating a pure txt file from the PDF, which is also an option.