Converting PDF books to EPUB by Frobnitz R

Author:Frobnitz, R. [Frobnitz, R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Book conversion
Publisher: Web
Published: 2016-10-15T04:00:00+00:00

The Nuts and Bolts

Here’s how I go about it:

It is useful to click on the ¶ icon on the LibreOffice Writer top toolbar...this lets you see non-printing characters. I leave it on most of the time while doing this.

Also, open the sidebar – yeah, View/Sidebar in the menu. In the Navigator part of it you’ll see a list of chapters as you create them, and can jump right to them. Tons of other tools as well, including Styles – explore it thoroughly if you’re also new to LibreOffice Writer. Hint: click on the four funny icons on the right side of the sidebar panel to see the different features.

If the Chapters don’t appear in the sidebar as you create them with “Header 1” styling, check Tools/Outline Numbering and make sure that level 1 has Heading 1 associated with it.

Front matter first: I usually clean up the first two or three pages by hand – title page, copyright, dedications, and so on. These are always unique. Make them look like the original, as a nice touch. This is my one exception to doing all formatting in Styles, just because I’m that lazy.

Then on to the body of the book.

You may have page headings, footers, and numbers to remove. Formats and placement vary all over the place. For something like “Monica’s Mystery. . . . . .6” on even pages and “Chapter 1. . . . . .7” on odd ones, use regex expressions like “ Monica’s Mystery.*\d+ ” and “Chapter.*\d+ ” to find them and blow them away. Don’t worry about the holes in the text they leave, you’ll fix them later. Sometimes these will cross paragraphs and need separate passes … you have to examine the text and act accordingly. Sometimes you just have to fix some by hand. Save early and often, and go easy on that “Replace All”!

Next you want to put in chapter headings – that is, start each chapter or section with text in “Heading 1” style. The chapter headings could be 1,2,3; Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3; I, II, III; or text titles. Whatever it is, you have to find them3, and apply “Header 1” style to all of them … and to nothing else. Anything with “Header 1” style will become a separate file in the epub or mobi book, and an entry in the table of contents4. Each book will be different. This step can be a pain, but it is critical. (Yes, you can use Header 2, Header 3 and so on for nested table of contents … read the formatting books for that stuff; it gets very tricky.)

Now scan through the book, looking for systematic problems. Likely, one of the regex expressions below will help fix it. There is no particular order to doing this. They are more or less in the order I commonly use them, but it depends on the text I’m working on.

Find ^$ replaced with nothing will remove empty paragraphs. Normally a good thing, but if

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