pdf -> epub, only 2/108 pages converted

[justapuppy]

Hi there,

I have looked around here and couldn't find the solution to my problem. So, I want to convert a 108page pdf to epub format and only got the front page, twice.

Input seemed to have all the pages as separate files there, as did parsed,as did processed, as did structure. All were .png files.

I guess it's possible that the pdf was scanned in, but seems unlikely as I can highlight individual words, copy and paste them.

Thanks for any help that can be offered (and please be aware, I'm not very technical so need you to speak. slowly. to. the. n00b.)

[jimmybbell]

I'm having the same problem...no errors during convert

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by jimmybbell

I'm having the same problem...no errors during convert

Read this first, then come back if you still have questions.
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=118605

[itimpi]

Originally Posted by justapuppy

Input seemed to have all the pages as separate files there, as did parsed,as did processed, as did structure. All were .png files.

A .png file is by definition a scanned image and not text.

Calibre was therefore doing exactly what it should - converting the basically non-existent text in the file.

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by itimpi

Calibre was therefore doing exactly what it should - converting the basically non-existent text in the file.

He did say he could select copy and paste individual words, so there must have been an OCR (usually bad quality) underlying it.

I stay far away from PDF conversion. Itimpi, can you fill out for me what happens when conversion runs on a PDF of images with/without OCR text attached? I've successfully converted graphic novels PDF->EPUB. (I get image resolution scaling, but it works.) I would expect Calibre to convert images of pages of text the same way. And what does it do when it sees OCR? Does it do the text page images and the OCR text or skip the images and do only the OCR text or what?

[jimmybbell]

Thanks Starson17.

I tried ABBYY PDF Transformer and it solves my problem. I use it to convert the PDF to an RTF file, which Calibre handles quite nicely. Its two steps, but I can dance the two-step to get what I need.

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by jimmybbell

I tried ABBYY PDF Transformer and it solves my problem.

I'm glad it solved your problem, but ABBYY is aggressively obnoxious about putting junk into the conversion, so you should check your output. I'd still like to verify why you didn't get a decent conversion, if you've got OCR text, and for my own edification, I'd like to figure out what Calibre does when both page images of text and OCR are found in the PDF. I keep meaning to test it out, but all the PDFs I have are either all text or all graphic images and both seem to convert OK.