Pdf to fixed layout epub

[scissors]

I have a book of 10 walks I've put together on Amazon.

It's fixed format because I want each waypoint to have it's own page and the ability to jump back and forth between waypoints and the walk map.

It's intended to be used on smart phones when outside.

The pdf used looks fine on Android and iOS. However, although the kindle book created looks fine I have run into some hyperlink problems.

1) kindle create leaves off the last hyperlink on any given page (it took 4 back and forth emails to their support before they even acknowledged this was a bug)
2) disputes between apple and Amazon (, apparently over earnings from hyperlinks) mean not one link in the iOS internal also, seem to work.

So I am wondering if there is a tool that can convert PDF to fixed epub yet, preserving the formatting and hyperlinks?

[Turtle91]

In short, no, not a good one. There are tools that will "save as" epub, or html, etc. but you will have to manually massage the code at some point or other to make it into a usable/readable/decent fixed layout.

I'm sure others will pop in here and talk about the tools they use and their workflow which might minimize the pain in your future should you choose to travel this road...

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by scissors

It's fixed format because I want each waypoint to have it's own page and the ability to jump back and forth between waypoints and the walk map.

It's intended to be used on smart phones when outside.

That's a contradiction. Phones and Fixed layout.

Also DO NOT EVER use a PDF as source for ANYTHING other than printing on paper.

Use DOCX as input to Calibre and if it's not MS Word, save & edit only native format and export/Save As docx for Calibre. Don't use doc or odt.
Epub2 flowed layout:
Each waypoint can be the start of a new page and you ability to jump back and forth between waypoints and the walk map with mobi KF7, Kindle KF8 or epub2 reflowable.

Use styles properly. Use a heading with "insert page break before" for style at the start of each waypoint.

Learn how ebooks work.

Fixed will not work sensibly on phones and is even incompatible with many ereader apps and dedicated ereaders. It's a pointless ebook format as PDF does fixed layout better and on more apps and devices, though you need a screen large enough for the specified page size.

[scissors]

Originally Posted by Quoth

That's a contradiction. Phones and Fixed layout.

Also DO NOT EVER use a PDF as source for ANYTHING other than printing on paper.

Use DOCX as input to Calibre and if it's not MS Word, save & edit only native format and export/Save As docx for Calibre. Don't use doc or odt.
Epub2 flowed layout:
Each waypoint can be the start of a new page and you ability to jump back and forth between waypoints and the walk map with mobi KF7, Kindle KF8 or epub2 reflowable.

Use styles properly. Use a heading with "insert page break before" for style at the start of each waypoint.

Learn how ebooks work.

Fixed will not work sensibly on phones and is even incompatible with many ereader apps and dedicated ereaders. It's a pointless ebook format as PDF does fixed layout better and on more apps and devices, though you need a screen large enough for the specified page size.

Thanks for the reply.
I thought I was clear when I said it was intended for phones. It's not intended for a b&w kindle. It has colour images and maps.

This is why I supplied the Amazon link, so a preview can be seen.

I don't understand what you mean by phones and fixed are a contradiction. I don't want it to reflow. It looks fine fixed on phones, I've tried it.

I do understand the general layout and structure of ebooks, I had a play with sigil, but didn't get on with it.

My question was, was there a tool/ application to do pdf to epub fixed format. Better still is there a WYSIWYG layout tool for fixed format books?

Again, thanks for responding.

[jhowell]

I took a look at your book since it is available on Kindle Unlimited. I agree with what the others have said about the problems with using fixed layout. You must have good eyesight. I found the text to be difficult to read on my iPhone without zooming and panning each page. And since this book is intended to be read on a phone while walking the experience was not great. It would be way better to have a reflowable layout so that readers can choose the font size that works for them. Having all of the information for each waypoint on a single page is detrimental, not an advantage.

I did notice the problems you mentioned with links. None work at all on the iPhone and even on an Android tablet some links work and other don't. I have seen many other reports of problems with links in Kindle print replica books, but no solutions.

Even if you can convert your book into a fixed-layout EPUB that is not going to produce a very good result when brought into the Kindle ecosystem. Kindles support three kinds of fixed layout. You already have seen how print replica works. Besides that there is a format for intended for comics and another for children's books. Neither of those is going to work very well for your book.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by scissors

My question was, was there a tool/ application to do pdf to epub fixed format. Better still is there a WYSIWYG layout tool for fixed format books?

If you really want to generate a FLO epub with a WYSIWYG tool, you are probably going to end up looking at Adobe's applications, mostly at InDesign.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by scissors

Thanks for the reply.
I thought I was clear when I said it was intended for phones. It's not intended for a b&w kindle. It has colour images and maps.

I don't understand what you mean by phones and fixed are a contradiction. I don't want it to reflow. It looks fine fixed on phones, I've tried it.

Obviously you have brilliant eyesight and only tried phones with similar screens.

Not all phones even have the same shape of screen, nor the same resolution at the same size screen.

Go back to what you used to create the PDF. Create a reflowable epub2 from a docx via Calibre. Sigil is for more advanced epub generation.

A simple reflowable epub2 with a page break before heading at the start of each waypoint will work perfectly on 3.5" to 8" smart phones that have 1:1, 5:4, 4:3, 16:10, 16:9, 2:1 and 3:1 shape screens at low resolution to retina resolution.

Fixed will ONLY work on phones almost identical to your screen and will not let people increase the font. If someone needs reading glasses and they are walking, they need to make the font bigger as they will not have on the glasses. Fixed layout doesn't work when you change the font size.

Any conversion using ANY tool from PDF is only really good if it actually can strip out the original text! It's always harder work and poorer results that using the source text and images used to make a PDF as inherently PDFs are not meant to converted, only viewed or printed at original page size.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by scissors

I have a book of 10 walks I've put together on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Walks-Aroun...s%2C233&sr=8-1

It's fixed format because I want each waypoint to have it's own page and the ability to jump back and forth between waypoints and the walk map.

It's intended to be used on smart phones when outside.

The pdf used looks fine on Android and iOS. However, although the kindle book created looks fine I have run into some hyperlink problems.

1) kindle create leaves off the last hyperlink on any given page (it took 4 back and forth emails to their support before they even acknowledged this was a bug)
2) disputes between apple and Amazon (, apparently over earnings from hyperlinks) mean not one link in the iOS internal also, seem to work.

So I am wondering if there is a tool that can convert PDF to fixed epub yet, preserving the formatting and hyperlinks?

You do realize, don't you, that absolutely none of the links in a fixed-layout Kindle Create-generated file work in a live device? Nary a one? Did you buy and download the book and try the links on the for-sale ebook?

They quite literally cannot work, because every page in a KC-generated fixed-layout eBook is a jpg. Not a PDF page with live links, or text; it's a jpg. I reported this "bug" about links not working now...3 years ago, I believe it was and I don't see them being able to solve that. EBooks altogether don't have document mapping for images with links, so...

Hitch

[Quoth]

You can only have one link per image, sadly, in any ebook format. No-one thought back at the start that a client side image map was a useful thing. The closest is to tile separate images, each with a link. The earliest ebooks didn't actually support images at all.

It's sad, because it doesn't need javascript. This is the HTML code for an image map:

 <MAP NAME="dtt-map-ireland">
   <AREA SHAPE=POLYGON COORDS="4,699,157,707,127,752,124,760,155,768,144,783,179,797,197,838,221,856,265,847,278,865,190,915,9,913" HREF="dtt-southwest.htm">
   <AREA SHAPE=POLYGON COORDS="679,503,632,501,572,521,586,528,610,556,603,597,606,623,622,629,632,628" HREF="dtt-wicklow.htm">
   <AREA SHAPE=POLYGON COORDS="359,6,459,0,493,3,526,33,535,81,526,135,500,160,400,210,334,200,257,179,250,156,272,70" HREF="dtt-donegal.htm">
   <AREA SHAPE=POLYGON COORDS="300,195,407,216,485,173,476,195,272,343,249,312,280,275,234,256,233,248" HREF="dtt-sligo.htm">
   <AREA SHAPE=POLYGON COORDS="54,378,157,418,184,390,193,426,232,417,260,404,281,375,264,339,241,310,270,279,219,240,121,228,80,238,57,279" HREF="dtt-mayo.htm">
   <AREA SHAPE=POLYGON COORDS="493,232,482,283,500,326,468,468,347,465,283,379,355,316" HREF="dtt-north-midlands.htm">
   <AREA SHAPE=POLYGON COORDS="484,241,538,204,580,149,597,184,603,237,638,243,646,268,683,273,635,322,636,403,458,433,488,268" HREF="dtt-north-east.htm">
   <AREA SHAPE=POLYGON COORDS="63,385,203,430,280,393,361,440,317,562,160,546,113,525,58,477,35,430,35,400" HREF="dtt-galway.htm">
   <AREA SHAPE=POLYGON COORDS="156,551,329,549,302,601,320,669,91,683,77,637" HREF="dtt-limerick-kerry.htm">
   <AREA SHAPE=POLYGON COORDS="160,691,344,669,429,675,459,758,403,826,290,880,227,839,157,797,155,698" HREF="dtt-cork.htm">
   <AREA SHAPE=POLYGON COORDS="466,765,634,754,636,707,615,693,637,633,577,606,530,554,479,577,449,611,415,645,399,698" HREF="dtt-south-east.htm">
   <AREA SHAPE=POLYGON COORDS="406,652,484,563,493,567,403,505,326,509,279,604,315,662,385,669" HREF="dtt-midlands.htm">
   <AREA SHAPE=POLYGON COORDS="677,499,592,499,510,574,409,502,492,404,636,402" HREF="dtt-east.htm">
   <AREA SHAPE=POLYGON COORDS="346,458,446,467,415,557,333,560" HREF="dtt-midlands.htm">
  </MAP>

Goes typically just before the closing </body> tag on a page:
It's from here.
Then each page linked to has clickable areas at the edges.

Sadly you need an App not an ebook to do this other than as a webpage. But it will work without a server, i.e. a set of web pages unzipped into a directory.

So http://maps.techtir.com/dtt-midlands.htm
has this to do the edges.

<MAP NAME="midlands">
   <AREA SHAPE=POLYGON COORDS="0,331,289,331,285,444,0,443" HREF="dtt-limerick-kerry.htm">
   <AREA SHAPE=POLYGON COORDS="1,1,256,0,256,93,89,95,93,327,0,326" HREF="dtt-galway.htm">
   <AREA SHAPE=POLYGON COORDS="260,1,260,92,650,96,651,0" HREF="dtt-north-midlands.htm">
   <AREA SHAPE=POLYGON COORDS="660,2,658,95,835,41,839,1" HREF="dtt-east.htm">
   <AREA SHAPE=POLYGON COORDS="837,12,758,34,758,374,837,404" HREF="dtt-wicklow.htm">
   <AREA SHAPE=POLYGON COORDS="528,443,528,368,753,377,837,409,836,443" HREF="dtt-south-east.htm">
   <AREA SHAPE=POLYGON COORDS="291,375,525,372,523,441,289,444" HREF="dtt-cork.htm">
  </MAP>

How does it connect to the image? It's the extra

USEMAP="#midlands"

property

<IMG SRC="images/dtt-midlands.jpg" WIDTH="840" HEIGHT="445" VSPACE="0" HSPACE="0" BORDER="0" USEMAP="#midlands">

You can go and view source. No server magic or javascript!

[Quoth]

Except of course a tiled image won't sensibly resize for different screens. Nor indeed does a normal image map. The example site needs a minimum size screen. On a modern responsive site the images are automagically resized. Which probably needs a server side image map rather than simple client side HTML.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Quoth

You can only have one link per image, sadly, in any ebook format. No-one thought back at the start that a client side image map was a useful thing. The closest is to tile separate images, each with a link. The earliest ebooks didn't actually support images at all.

And as mentioned, for Kindle Create fixed-layout, each and every page, past the TOC, is an image and those don't allow the functioning of a single link, either. They are effectively static images that can be zoomed (thus, the click-pan-scan) and that's IT.

Hitch

[Quoth]

Seems worse than PDFs.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Seems worse than PDFs.

Apples and oranges. PDFs are old-style/old-school "eBook" files but were eschewed for mobile devices like eReaders and phones. Kindle Create enables a PDF-like file to work on a Kindle. And yes, the way that KDP has handled this seems, to me, to be less functional than an ePDF.

Hitch

[scissors]

Originally Posted by Hitch

You do realize, don't you, that absolutely none of the links in a fixed-layout Kindle Create-generated file work in a live device? Nary a one? Did you buy and download the book and try the links on the for-sale ebook?

They quite literally cannot work, because every page in a KC-generated fixed-layout eBook is a jpg. Not a PDF page with live links, or text; it's a jpg. I reported this "bug" about links not working now...3 years ago, I believe it was and I don't see them being able to solve that. EBooks altogether don't have document mapping for images with links, so...

Hitch

Without getting into a squabble....
I accept they are not working on IOS - this is the kindle app at fault /arguments between amazon and apple.

They definitely work on the android version of the app. (barring the last link as stated). Hence the preserve links option in KC.

I also renamed the rsrc8 file to a .pdf in the resources folder. It opened in my pdf reader with all hyperlinks intact and the text is selectable for cut and paste, so no jpgs.

And yes I obviously tried a live copy. Have you tried KC in the 3 years since you reported it?

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by scissors

Without getting into a squabble....
I accept they are not working on IOS - this is the kindle app at fault /arguments between amazon and apple.

They definitely work on the android version of the app. (barring the last link as stated). Hence the preserve links option in KC.

I also renamed the rsrc8 file to a .pdf in the resources folder. It opened in my pdf reader with all hyperlinks intact and the text is selectable for cut and paste, so no jpgs.

And yes I obviously tried a live copy. Have you tried KC in the 3 years since you reported it?

My company builds hundreds of eBooks every month, and our customers, despite being warned about FXL, continue to make them--and continue to report to us that the links do NOT work. Yes, the TOC links work, but eBooks built with KC have continued to have non-working links since the first inception of KC.

The KKBC links, on the pages that do not have pop-up text, DO work. Hand-built eBooks in FXL, have links that do work.

However, unless something has changed in the last few weeks, all the pages inside a KC-built FXL (other than the TOC pages) are images. Literally, jpgs. If you unpack a KC-built eBook, those pages are jpgs and they do not have document maps (for linking in various places inside images.)

What's the ASIN for the book?

Hitch