Is there a useful conversion method for Kindle Paperwhite with Calibre?

Amaru · 12-22-2017, 06:29 AM

Hello,
been using Calibre for sending documents on my kindle Paperwhite. The readability on some PDFs is totally broken. I even tried converting to AZW3, some files did imrove, some didn't.

Did I miss a function, that adjusts PDFs to the 6 inch e.reader?

Like this program:
http://www.willus.com/k2pdfopt/

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I quote from a quora site I just found,Why-does-Calibre-convert-my-PDF-to-Kindle-so-horribly this issue seems to be known:

Quote:

"I also don’t get why Calibre is so bad at converting PDFs to Kindle-friendly formats, even very clean ones, with regular formatting and spacing. You always end up losing a lot of time fiddling with Calibre settings and still getting a poor result. The default defense for Calibre is that PDF is by design static and hard to reflow. But just try opening the same file in MS Word 2013 or 2016: It converts to reflowable text perfectly, no weird paragraph breaks; footnotes, images and everything in place, as long as the original isn’t in poor quality and doesn’t have a very complex layout (many columns and graphs). Even if you just use Amazon’s cloud converting service, emailing the PDF to your Kindle with the word “convert” in the title, it does way better than Calibre, without having to bother with configurations. Calibre also seems to have a hard time detecting titles structure and generating an index automatically. That is, from PDF to epub/mobi. If you need a reflowable file to another (like epub to mobi or vice-versa, or docx to mobi) then it’s excellent."

Cinisajoy · 12-22-2017, 12:31 PM

Quick answer: most PDFs are not reflowable text but rather images. Hence why pdf although somewhat supported is a pain on e-ink readers.

I once made a pdf, one column. It took me 6 tries to get it even somewhat readable on both a kobo and a kindle. Hence why I now use a tablet for pdf.

There is no cure because without an OCR, it is virtually impossible to turn pictures into text.

Tibor021 · 01-10-2018, 05:12 AM

There is a "first aid" option: send the .pdf file to your kindle adress, with the word CONVERT in the subject of the e-mail.

Barbara1955 · 01-10-2018, 07:24 AM

I Convert to MOBI have No Problems with it.

12-22-2017, 12:31 PM	#2
Cinisajoy Just a Yellow Smiley. Posts: 19,161 Karma: 83862859 Join Date: Jul 2015 Location: Texas Device: K4, K5, fire, kobo, galaxy	Quick answer: most PDFs are not reflowable text but rather images. Hence why pdf although somewhat supported is a pain on e-ink readers. I once made a pdf, one column. It took me 6 tries to get it even somewhat readable on both a kobo and a kindle. Hence why I now use a tablet for pdf. There is no cure because without an OCR, it is virtually impossible to turn pictures into text. Last edited by Cinisajoy; 12-22-2017 at 12:35 PM.

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01-10-2018, 05:12 AM	#3
Tibor021 Junior Member Posts: 1 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jul 2013 Location: Novi Sad, Vojvodina Device: Kindle Paperwhite 3	There is a "first aid" option: send the .pdf file to your kindle adress, with the word CONVERT in the subject of the e-mail.

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