Conversion - Can you keep same number of pages

[goldberry]

Have a recipe book and it is in pdf format. Converted it to epub but when you press on an index title it takes you to a different page. The pdf has 360 pages and on conversion there are only 215.

The PDF has a lot of intentionally blank pages but other pages are amalgamated.

Is there a way on conversion to force the use of every page?

Sony Touch ereader

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by goldberry

Is there a way on conversion to force the use of every page?

By design converting to ePub gives you a flexible number of pages based on font size. Also by design PDF is, for the most part, a fixed format document. PDF works great for the size and layout it was initially created for, try and convert a PDF to another (reflowable) format and you end up with mixed results, rarely good results. If possible, for anything but basic novels, it is best to leave PDF in its original format and view it as a PDF file.

Maybe someone else will address the specifics of your post. Since I avoid converting PDF files at all costs and when I do convert them I use Adobe Acrobat to export them to html (not even Adobe can give a flawless conversion of a PDF file), then convert them to ePub via calibre.

Another possibility is to see if the store/site you purchased the book from has the same book available as an ePub. I have many recipe books in the ePub format that look great, but they were designed as an ePub by the publisher.

[Worldwalker]

The fundamental problem is that PDF was made to display a document exactly as it was created. This can be very important if you want to have something like a tax form or a job application print out exactly the same for each user. Epub, on the other hand, was made to reflow a document to fit whatever device the reader is using. This is important when you don't know in advance if your reader is going to have a wide-screen computer monitor or a mobile phone. So PDF tries very hard to keep exactly the original format, and epub tries very hard to make its format fit the device. You can see, I think, where the problem comes in.

Having sworn at more than a few PDFs in my time, I've come to the conclusion that the only way to survive, at least with the current state of the format, is to leave them as PDFs. If I try to convert them to other formats, they end up less useful than they were as PDFs. The conversion works fine for linear text (novels, for instance) and falls in the toilet when I try to use it for anything more complicated (auto repair manuals). So I've become resigned to pretty much sticking with PDFs. Also to swearing a lot.

[ldolse]

The current code is focused on converting novels, and one of the steps it does is to delete every single page break in the pdf. It's trivial to stop this behavior by running from the source code (comment out one line), but there isn't any easy way to do this from the UI.

If you were feeling enterprising enough to run from source, which is not difficult then I could point you in the right direction.

Start here, and if you get past this step I can let you know what to comment out.
http://calibre-ebook.com/user_manual/develop.html

This might be something to look at as an option for the new pdf engine... Regardless, technical manuals and the like are never going to be converted very well.

[goldberry]

Thanks everyone.
The problem I found on our Sony Touch was it was very slow going to and from the pages.

I will try the convert to HTML then epub and see what that does.