george james ducas, ABBYY is the best pdf convertor. It can process files that are all images.

Not cheap, but worth it.

Converted pdf file 16 mb to epub, came out as five pages, my sony ebook reader couldn't even load it.

nietzsche nli, Like I say, ABBYY. It can do some really good shrinking.

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[ nietzsche nli ],

I'll repeat this so you get an email response to your own post here:

Adobe's PDF Portable Document Format is a Page Description Format, a Presentation Defining Format, a Page Control Language format ( HP created PCL to avoid being dependent on Adobe's PDF format ) that makes sure that a document looks the same wherever it goes, paper, small screen, large screen, portrait or landscape, whatever, wherever, like a cooked meal served at the table.

Epub and Mobie formats are raw content re-presentation systems, live, constantly changeable re-formatting systems, so to speak, where a source document is merely raw content to be reformatted on demand, presenting differently on large or small screens, different for each user's font size preferences, different for vertical or landscape presentations, like raw ingredients in the kitchen, ready to be prepared and served differently depending on each person who's gonna eat it, and where they are gonna eat it.

Imagine trying to convert a cooked meal back to the original uncooked ingredients and re-cooking it -- yum! ( Yech! )

When trying to convert the already-laid-out page contents of a PDF, and bring them into a raw, unformatted re-flowable Epub or Mobie format, that requires intelligence that even intelligent people who can read the contents do not have, let alone unintelligent conversion software, because no one knows the mind of the original PDF author.

For example, should page headers and footers be included in the re-flowed content, or excluded, that is, should everything on a page be inserted throughout re-flowable text, or should some things on a page be intelligently separated and added at the end ... or discarded altogether?

If a PFD page is a picture, should the picture be converted to text or copied over to an Epub or Mobie document format as a picture in the flow, should the software spend any time at all trying to perform OCR Optical Character Recognition on a picture in a PDF file?

So what about a PDF gets converted?

For another example of the boggling challenge of converting a PDF document to a re-formatable format, to a re-flowable format, consider screen readers for the blind ... again, should they read page headers and page footers and page numbers, interrupting the flow of reading the author's content of the book, even inserting them mid-sentence where a sentence continues on the next page, or should it discard them, or should it put them all at the end, say, 500 page headers and footers and page numbers read aloud at the end of a converted 500-page PDF document?

Because there are no standards for what part of a PDF presentation is formatting information, and what part of a PDF presentation is content, there is no way for a machine to convert PDF to Epub or Mobie without making a mess.

What would you do?

What should a programmer do as they try to automate converting PDFs?

The solution would be for a new PDF standard that does differentiate PC Presentation Controls from PC Presentation Content, empowering the author of any PDF document to control the re-presentatoin of their PDF file, to control the re-flow of their PDF file, so that e-readers can intelligently read and re-flow the presentation.

And or make all e-readers PDF-aware and PDF-friendly.

Until then, any attempt to convert PDF to Epub / Mobie will be as random, as conflicted, as arbitrary, and as incompatible, as are the PDF versus Epub / Mobie standards themselves.

So, conversion software programs such as Epubor Ebook Converter offer PDF conversion because explaining everything I just wrote is too hard and does not make sales, so they just promise to convert anything to anything, and then, when a PDF is converted to a mess, they let you figure out why .. after they have made the sale.
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Peter Blaise,

This is Angel from Epubor marketing team, thank you so much for your suggestion, I will discuss them with my technical team and maybe we will improve our Epubor Ultimate ASAP.

Thank you.

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[ Rick_S1 ],

Let us know how a PDF-to-ebook conversion works for you.

Thanks.

( a ) I've never seen a PDF survive intelligibly during conversion.

( b ) All my ereaders can read PDFs, so, why even try to convert?
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Rick_S1, This is what I wanted. I tried it but it does not work. So I uninstalled.

Zen , I meant converting PDF to epub which it claims to do.

Zen , Try again with a different book, maybe. I used it this morning and it converted just fine.

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[ Rick_S1 ],

Since PDF are PAGE DISPLAY FORMAT, they shoudl always appear as intended by the authro regardless of where they land.

BalckBerry has a PDF reformatter that reflowed text to fit their screen.

Most PDFs with text are either PDF exports of word documents, and they might reflow okay ( goofing on headers and footers -- are they inline or extraneous -- who knows ? ).

Complex page-layouts and scans are often pictures of words, that is, wht you see is a pictures, not text, not OCR Optical Character Recognition.

Pictures of words don't reflow.

So, [ Rick_S1 ], what is the NAME of the PDF ebook, and the source, that you converted, I'd LOVE to see it for myself.

Thanks.
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Rick_S1, No point if it only works sometimes! See comment #12 (not mine), I am not alone. Thanks all the same.
Incidentally, what on earth is Black Friday? Is it when you try to go to sleep and dream of cars, traffic lights, shop fronts and fire hydrants, and cannot get rid of them?

Peter Blaise, No sorry they are not Page Display Format .PDF stands for Portable Document Format
PDF stands for "portable document format". It was introduced to ease the sharing of documents between computers and across operating system platforms when you need to save files that cannot be modified but still need to be easily shared and printed.

Peter Blaise, PDF is an abbreviation of Portable Document Format not PAGE DISPLAY FORMAT

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[ robot ], .

Thanks, yeah, yeah, I know that, somewhere underneath my hurried typing .. what I MEANT was ...

Let me respond in duplicate so you each get an email with this dialog:

PDF lays out the page so it appears the same regardless of the presentation medium, so ...

... so, converting a PDF to any other ebook format ... gets you ... what, exactly?

Any other ebook format that is NOT a source-document-controlled page-layout control medium,

... but .epub and .mobi use a source document only for it's content, not it's layout,

... that is, .epub and .mobi are re-flow-feeder media, where a source document is expecting to be re-laid-out by the presentation medium, and by the end user, these formats are NOT controlled by the document author the way a PDF document layout is,

... in .epub and .mobi presentations, things like using a small screen, or blowing up the font size, can easily double the "page" count, and the "pages" are virtual and variable and dynamic, just turn your ereader sideways or upright,

... and I often see an .epub or .mobi file produce a presentation with 4,000 "locations" even though it's not a 4,000 page book.

My point is now threefold, and still unanswered:

( a ) I've never seen a PDF survive intelligibly during conversion.

( b ) All my ereaders can read PDFs, so, why even try to convert?

( c ) What is the NAME of the PDF ebook, and the source of obtaining that file, that anyone converted and liked the results, I'd LOVE to see it for myself.

Thanks.
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References:

https ://en. m. wikipedia. org/wiki/PDF

https ://en. m. wikipedia. org/wiki/EPUB

https ://en. m. wikipedia. org/wiki/Mobipocket
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jj juice, Yes. It even converts the new Amazon DRM formats - so far.

Jim Jones, Haven't done that in a while - do you still need Adobe Digital Editions as a 1st step?

No, IME you just drag the book onto the window and it is all done.

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[ Lynne ],

Many programming houses develop mini-products to try to keep their customers in-house for all their needs, and here, Epubor is hoping their customers will move their ebooks around using an Epubor programs and not wander out and experience the benefits of the overwhelmingly powerful and capable and functional free Caliber.
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Peter Blaise, For a simple ebook reader and library organiser icecream ebook reader which I got from GAOTD is ideal, though it will not convert to so many different formats. Easy to learn to use and free.
Calibre is of course far superior, but terrifying in its complexity.

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[ Zen ],

No, IceCream is NOT an ebook reader not library organizer per se.

It's an epub-to-HTML converter,
-- making it's own HTML copies of epubs,
-- leaving you repubs wherever you pointed to them,
-- and incidentally leaving the converted HTML file copies forever on your hard drive even if you "empty" your IceCream "library", the file will still be there.

And ANY web browser is better at displaying the resulting HTML conversions than IceCream reader is.
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Erik Istrup, downloaded the trial version, installed it and registered it with the reg. info. in the readme.txt.

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[ Henry ],

Epubor Ebook Converter may appear simpler and more inviting that free Caliber?

I have been using Caliber for years, and I'm still finding something new about it every day that I wish I knew from the beginning, yet I have stuck with it, and plan to expand my implementation of free Caliber to setup one single server with my entire elibrary that all my computers and ereaders can then access -- right now, I have a different free Caliber elibrary on each computer, and have to dance around to find an ebook I just know I have ... somewhere.

Epubor does not promise to help be build an elibrary and keep it organized and accessible.

Free Caliber does.
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Peter Blaise,
I know advantages of the Calibre, I use it for years (a small fragment of its functions, including e-book conversion and library organisation). I was just curious if Epubor has any advantages making worth to try it. I see in the comments above that there is no DRM removal, PDF conversion is poor - no reason for me to test it.
But thanks to GOTD for offering this type of software...