How to convert a PDF to EPUB
- Drop the PDF. The text is read here in the browser.
- Keep the format on EPUB. Word, HTML, Markdown and CSV are in the same picker.
- Download and send it to your reader. Standard EPUB 3, which Kobo and Apple Books open directly.
Why a PDF reads badly on an e-reader
A PDF page is a fixed rectangle, typically A4 or Letter. An e-reader screen is about a quarter of that, so the device either scales the whole page down until the type is too small, or crops and asks you to pan. No setting fixes it, because the file has no way to rewrap: the glyph positions are baked in.
EPUB stores the text and lets the reader lay it out. Change the font size, rotate the device, switch to night mode, and the text reflows to suit. The conversion exists because, on a small screen, that flexibility matters more than the original page design.
What comes across
Headings, paragraphs and bulleted lists, in reading order, with paragraphs rejoined across line breaks and hyphenated words repaired. A scan converts to nothing, because it contains no text, so OCR it first.
If you would rather keep the layout, don't convert: cropping the margins and resizing the pages makes a PDF far more readable on a small screen while leaving it a PDF.
Which PDFs convert well
Anything that is mostly prose converts well: novels, reports, essays, documentation, the long PDF someone exported from a word processor. Structure survives, the text reflows, and reading it on a six-inch screen stops requiring constant panning and zooming.
Some kinds of document convert poorly, and it helps to know which before starting. Two-column academic papers depend on reading order being reconstructed from geometry, which mostly works but occasionally interleaves the columns. Textbooks and illustrated non-fiction lose their figures, and with them much of their value. Poetry loses the line breaks the poet chose, which reflowing cannot preserve. For those, keeping the PDF and cropping the margins makes it more readable on a small screen without giving anything up.
Common uses for PDF to EPUB
- Read a report on a Kobo: text that resizes to the screen instead of a shrunken page.
- Long reading on a phone: turn a manual or a paper into something comfortable to read.
- Send to Kindle: EPUB is the format Amazon's Send to Kindle accepts.
Frequently asked questions
Why convert a PDF to EPUB at all?
Because a PDF on a six-inch e-reader is close to unreadable. A PDF has fixed pages, so the device can only shrink the whole page or make you pan around it. EPUB reflows: your reader picks the font size and the text rewraps to fit.
Will it work on a Kindle, Kobo or Apple Books?
Kobo and Apple Books open EPUB directly. Kindle accepts EPUB through Send to Kindle, which converts it on Amazon's side. The file produced here is EPUB 3 with the standard structure those readers expect.
What happens to the layout?
The layout is discarded, by design: reflowable text is what the EPUB format is for. Headings and lists are kept as structure; columns, page furniture and fixed positioning are not, because they are what makes a PDF painful to read on a small screen.
Are images and covers included?
No. The conversion covers text, so a heavily illustrated book will lose its illustrations. For those, reading the original PDF is usually better than converting it.
Is my document uploaded?
No. The EPUB is assembled in your browser: it is a zip of XHTML, and the zip is built here.