Yet another PDF line break question

heddhunter · 01-16-2011, 04:12 PM

I've got a collection of books in PDF format that are formatted with each paragraph having an initial indent. Calibre thinks that if there's a short line after the first line that it's a new paragraph. I played around with the "Line Un-Wrapping Factor" but all I could make it do was turn every single line in the book into a new paragraph!

Is there a way to tell Calibre that only lines that start with an initial indent are new paragraphs?

I looked at the output HTML from the conversion but it's already too late at that point... I would need it to happen earlier.

user_none · 01-16-2011, 05:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by heddhunter

]Is there a way to tell Calibre that only lines that start with an initial indent are new paragraphs?

Nope.

heddhunter · 01-17-2011, 03:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by user_none

Nope.

I'm a pretty good programmer (if I say so myself). Is this something I could work on or is it some sort of fundamental limitation in a library or something.

user_none · 01-17-2011, 04:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by heddhunter

I'm a pretty good programmer (if I say so myself). Is this something I could work on or is it some sort of fundamental limitation in a library or something.

I'll send you an email later today through MobileRead with an over view of how PDF conversion works and the points at which you would need to modify.

jackie_w · 01-17-2011, 04:09 PM

If you can create a way to reliably reconstruct paragraphs from all PDFs you will probably be hailed as the New Messiah in these forums. I think you should have a go.

JMikeD · 01-17-2011, 06:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jackie_w

If you can create a way to reliably reconstruct paragraphs from all PDFs you will probably be hailed as the New Messiah in these forums. I think you should have a go.

Oh, yeah.

heddhunter · 01-18-2011, 02:18 PM

Well, I've come up with a solution that works for my particular situation but I'm pretty sure it is not going to work for any random pdf. I wrote a perl script that takes pdftohtml's XML output and rewrites it into HTML. The XML is fairly easy to clean up. There are a few simple rules I use to detect paragraph breaks. I load the HTML output into Calibre and then let Calibre do its normal conversion stuff to get the final book onto my Kindle. It's not a simple drag n drop procedure though. And, as I say, I don't think it will work generically.

I guess if people have specific pdf's they want me to take a look at I could do that and see if there's a way to make the conversion procedure somewhat simpler.

Starson17 · 01-18-2011, 02:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by user_none

I'll send you an email later today through MobileRead with an over view of how PDF conversion works and the points at which you would need to modify.

If you don't mind, I'd like to see that email, too. Feel free to post it here, unless there's some reason not to.

01-16-2011, 04:12 PM	#1
heddhunter Junior Member Posts: 4 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jan 2011 Device: Kindle 3	Yet another PDF line break question I've got a collection of books in PDF format that are formatted with each paragraph having an initial indent. Calibre thinks that if there's a short line after the first line that it's a new paragraph. I played around with the "Line Un-Wrapping Factor" but all I could make it do was turn every single line in the book into a new paragraph! Is there a way to tell Calibre that only lines that start with an initial indent are new paragraphs? I looked at the output HTML from the conversion but it's already too late at that point... I would need it to happen earlier.

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01-17-2011, 04:09 PM	#5
jackie_w Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,247 Karma: 16539642 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: UK Device: ClaraHD, Forma, Libra2, Clara2E, LibraCol, PBTouchHD3	If you can create a way to reliably reconstruct paragraphs from all PDFs you will probably be hailed as the New Messiah in these forums. I think you should have a go.

01-18-2011, 02:18 PM	#7
heddhunter Junior Member Posts: 4 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jan 2011 Device: Kindle 3	Well, I've come up with a solution that works for my particular situation but I'm pretty sure it is not going to work for any random pdf. I wrote a perl script that takes pdftohtml's XML output and rewrites it into HTML. The XML is fairly easy to clean up. There are a few simple rules I use to detect paragraph breaks. I load the HTML output into Calibre and then let Calibre do its normal conversion stuff to get the final book onto my Kindle. It's not a simple drag n drop procedure though. And, as I say, I don't think it will work generically. I guess if people have specific pdf's they want me to take a look at I could do that and see if there's a way to make the conversion procedure somewhat simpler.

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