X to ePub....which format to choose?

[Belfaborac]

First of all, thank you so much for the wonderful tool that Calibre is! I'm totally new to e-books and readers, but it doesn't take a lot to see that Calibre is way, WAY ahead of everything else (that I know of) and absolutely essential if you want to maintain a large collection.

Ok, to the question:

Given that many books are available in a variety of formats, are some of them better suited than others if I want to convert them to ePub? Ie, if I can download a given book in .lit, .rtf, .pdf and htm(l) for instance, should I go for one over the others in order to get the best possible result from Calibre's conversion process?

Regards,

- Bel

[mrmikel]

From http://calibre-ebook.com/user_manual/faq.html

"What are the best source formats to convert?

In order of decreasing preference: LIT, MOBI, EPUB, HTML, PRC, RTF, PDB, TXT, PDF."

But you may find this order isn't exactly right if you are converting a number of books with particular properties, like academic journals or something like that, so experiment. Lit books are great, for example, but some I have converted have footnotes at the bottom of every page which is very disruptive to read in a small format like a Sony Reader. But in an IPad or tablet computer, it might well be just great.

The creation of a 1000 books starts with a single conversion.. Have fun!

[Belfaborac]

Thanks a lot mrmikel! Thankfully .lit is a common format then, although of course .pdf is a lot more prevalent still.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by Belfaborac

Thanks a lot mrmikel! Thankfully .lit is a common format then, although of course .pdf is a lot more prevalent still.

Avoid PDFs for converting to ePub if at all possible. There is a reason PDF is last on the list.

[Belfaborac]

That's what I assumed. Too bad .pdf appears to be by far the most common format out there...

[Stinger]

Actually, I think the most common eBook format is Adobe ePub (ePub wrapped in Adobe ADEPT DRM).

PDF might be the most common for common for documents if we're talking about PC viewing, but I don't know if I'd consider those eBooks in general.... eDocs maybe??

While PDF's might be electronic books by definition, I consider eBook and PDF to be different.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by Belfaborac

That's what I assumed. Too bad .pdf appears to be by far the most common format out there...

Most common format for what?

I see PDF the most common document format for scholastic papers, technical, science and math books, but for recreational reading on the current crop of 6inch eReaders PDF is by far not the format of choice.

With the exception of Amazon (azw encrypted mobi) most everyone else makes their books available in ePub. With the easy removal of DRM and the almost flawless conversion between properly formatted LIT, MOBI, EPUB, and HTML ebooks I purchase from virtually any store and never purchase PDF e-books.

Of course for technical papers and books PDF is still the way to go. Many 6 inch readers will muddle through a PDF, but if I had the need for these types of docs I would purchase a larger ereader.

[Belfaborac]

It was really just a casual comment based on some searches for various obscure and semi-obscure books, where the majority of the results seemed to be formatted in .pdf. I know new and in-print books are available in proper e-book formats of course, as well as the entire Project Gutenberg library.