Conversion to pdf not working

zen123 · 04-25-2012, 01:14 PM

This is driving me crazy - I cannot seem to be able to convert files to pdf with decent results...

I want to convert a .mobi file to pdf, so I can read it on my iPad with my favorite pdf annotation software (I'm aware I can read .mobi on the iPad, but for reading on the iPad i prefer pdf). However, I cannot for the life of me seem to convert the .mobi file to a decent pdf file. The file which comes out is all screwed up, with the text barely visible. Here is an example of the kind of file which comes out of the conversion:

http://www.box.com/shared/441c44cfdfec1fd16146

I've set 'input profile' to 'mobipocket' and 'output profile' to ipad. I played around with different input and output profiles, but nothing fixed the problem.

I'm using version 0.8.41 on the mac. This has been faulty for a while; I upgraded several times to the new version of Calibre, but it was never fixed. I recently tried to convert a .txt file to pdf, but that didn't work either.

Anyone have any ideas? I would be terribly happy if I got this to work...

zen123 · 05-16-2012, 12:29 AM

I finally got this to work. After updating to a new version of Calibre, it started working again. Conversion to pdf is still not great, though - I couldn't make the font bigger (which was very small), and the margins at the top and bottom are way too small. I finally figured out a way to do it efficiently, though - it's not through Calibre but through using this:

http://epub2pdf.com/

It's a command line tool, so if you're not familiar with how to use something like that it might take you a little while before you get it working. But it works beautifully, and you can choose font, font size, and most importantly, margin size. Of course, if your source file is .mobi, as it was in my case, you will need to convert that to epub in Calibre - something that Calibre does exceedingly well.

sheygetz · 05-25-2012, 08:53 AM

Having faced the same problem, my alternative is this:

* Convert your epub (or mobi) to RTF--this works much better than the inbuilt conversion to pdf, which is frankly a disaster.

* Read or print the RTF or if you really need PDF

* convert the RTF to PDF. Now I have the full Acrobat and it works fine. But for this rather simple task I think online conversions or the several alternative progs should work just as well.

Hendrik

04-25-2012, 01:14 PM	#1
zen123 Junior Member Posts: 6 Karma: 10 Join Date: May 2009 Device: Kindle, ipad	Conversion to pdf not working This is driving me crazy - I cannot seem to be able to convert files to pdf with decent results... I want to convert a .mobi file to pdf, so I can read it on my iPad with my favorite pdf annotation software (I'm aware I can read .mobi on the iPad, but for reading on the iPad i prefer pdf). However, I cannot for the life of me seem to convert the .mobi file to a decent pdf file. The file which comes out is all screwed up, with the text barely visible. Here is an example of the kind of file which comes out of the conversion: http://www.box.com/shared/441c44cfdfec1fd16146 I've set 'input profile' to 'mobipocket' and 'output profile' to ipad. I played around with different input and output profiles, but nothing fixed the problem. I'm using version 0.8.41 on the mac. This has been faulty for a while; I upgraded several times to the new version of Calibre, but it was never fixed. I recently tried to convert a .txt file to pdf, but that didn't work either. Anyone have any ideas? I would be terribly happy if I got this to work...

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05-16-2012, 12:29 AM	#2
zen123 Junior Member Posts: 6 Karma: 10 Join Date: May 2009 Device: Kindle, ipad	I finally got this to work. After updating to a new version of Calibre, it started working again. Conversion to pdf is still not great, though - I couldn't make the font bigger (which was very small), and the margins at the top and bottom are way too small. I finally figured out a way to do it efficiently, though - it's not through Calibre but through using this: http://epub2pdf.com/ It's a command line tool, so if you're not familiar with how to use something like that it might take you a little while before you get it working. But it works beautifully, and you can choose font, font size, and most importantly, margin size. Of course, if your source file is .mobi, as it was in my case, you will need to convert that to epub in Calibre - something that Calibre does exceedingly well.

05-25-2012, 08:53 AM	#3
sheygetz Connoisseur Posts: 89 Karma: 14894 Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Germany Device: KPW G2 , 10" tablet	Having faced the same problem, my alternative is this: * Convert your epub (or mobi) to RTF--this works much better than the inbuilt conversion to pdf, which is frankly a disaster. * Read or print the RTF or if you really need PDF * convert the RTF to PDF. Now I have the full Acrobat and it works fine. But for this rather simple task I think online conversions or the several alternative progs should work just as well. Hendrik

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