PDF to EPUB (E-Book)

How it works

Choose your PDF in the box (tap or click), pick a chapter setting and press "Convert to EPUB". The tool reads the text layer of the document, gathers the lines that the PDF had broken to fit the paper width back into paragraphs, and writes everything into an EPUB package. The result reflows: on a 6-inch e-reader and on a phone alike, the text is laid out again for the font size you choose, with no pinching and no sideways scrolling. A concrete case: you want to read a 180-page set of lecture notes on your phone, but a Letter-size page (8.5 × 11 inches) on a 6-inch screen is only readable once you zoom in. Convert the file on this page, open the .epub in Google Play Books, Apple Books or ReadEra, raise the font size, and the text re-wraps to fit the screen. With Chapters on "Automatic", any line whose font is clearly larger than the main body size (at least 1.3 times) is taken as a chapter heading and listed in the table of contents. In a document whose headings are set in the same size as the body, the tool cannot find any headings and the whole text becomes one chapter; if it is longer than 25 pages it is cut into 25-page slices instead. Page numbers and the running heads that repeat on every page are kept out of the e-book. The result line reads "pages → chapters, paragraphs" and, when it applies, how many repeated lines (headers, page numbers) were dropped. Images are left out by default; if the diagrams and photos matter, pick "Put in the e-book" and expect a larger file. If the document asks for a password, type it in the field below; leaving it empty is normal for ordinary files. A scanned PDF has no selectable text, so the tool stops with a clear message: OCR has to come first.

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What is EPUB?

EPUB is the open standard for e-books and downloads with the .epub extension. Inside it is a ZIP archive: the chapters are XHTML pages, the table of contents is a separate file, and the metadata (book title, language, identifier) sits in content.opf. Its defining trait is reflow: the e-reader or phone re-wraps the text for the screen width and the font size you set, every time, which is why an EPUB has no fixed page numbers. Kobo, PocketBook, Apple Books and Google Play Books open the format directly; a Kindle receives it through Amazon's Send to Kindle service, which converts it into the device's own format. This tool writes EPUB 3 and also puts the EPUB 2 NCX contents file in the package for older readers.

What is Reflow?

Reflow means the text is not tied to a fixed page and is laid out again for whatever screen is reading it. In a PDF, where every line break is written into the file: a Letter page on a 6-inch screen is either shrunk or scrolled. In a reflowable e-book the reader does the line breaking: raise the font size and the lines get shorter, the page count grows, and nothing is cut off. That is exactly why this tool gathers the lines into paragraphs on the way from PDF to EPUB; page layout, columns and table rules are deliberately left behind, because reflowing text has no place for them.

What is Table of contents (nav and NCX)?

The table of contents of an e-book shows up in the reader's menu and jumps to a chapter with one tap. In EPUB 3 it lives in a page called nav.xhtml; for older EPUB 2 readers it is kept in toc.ncx. This tool writes both. The list is built from the document's headings: with "Automatic" chapters, lines noticeably larger than the body font count as headings; with "One chapter per page", every PDF page becomes an entry; with "Single chapter" the list has one entry. In a long document with no headings to find, the 25-page slices become entries, so the reader can still jump from one place to another.

What is the difference between PDF and EPUB?

A PDF fixes the page: paper size, margins, fonts and the position of every letter are written into the file, and it looks the same wherever it is opened. That is why forms, invoices and anything going to print stay in PDF. An EPUB has no notion of a page. It carries the text as chapters and leaves the typesetting to the device that reads it; raise the font size and the lines re-break. On a small screen the difference is obvious: a Letter or A4 PDF on a phone means zooming and sideways scrolling, an EPUB fits the screen. The price is that layout-bound elements — tables, columns, formulas and page numbers — come out weak in EPUB. In short, PDF when a document has to be passed on or printed as it is, EPUB when a long text is meant to be read on a screen. This tool goes from PDF to EPUB; for the other direction, reading apps have an "Export as PDF" command.

Why is the page layout not kept, and which documents come out jumbled?

Going from PDF to EPUB is a reflow, not a copy. A PDF holds no paragraphs at all; it holds letters pinned to positions on a page. The tool treats characters at the same height as one line, and a line that reaches the full width followed by an unindented line as one continuing paragraph. A word split with a hyphen at the end of a line is joined back together. Those rules miss things. In a two-column journal or magazine layout, lines are read left to right, so sentences from the two columns can end up woven into each other. Tables unravel cell by cell into plain text, and the rules and alignment are gone. Maths, superscripts and footnote markers can land in the middle of a line. In poetry, code listings and anything where the alignment carries meaning, full-width lines may also be merged into a paragraph.

If you want the page to look as it does now, EPUB is the wrong target: read the PDF as it is, or use the tool that turns PDF pages into images. The whole point of EPUB is that the lines are re-broken for the screen. Novels, lecture notes, reports, theses and long articles — single-column, plain-flowing text — come out best. Open the e-book in your reader and skim the first few pages; if columns have been mixed up, the "One chapter per page" setting at least shows you which text came from which page.

Which setting for which document?

There are three chapter settings. "Automatic" builds the table of contents by itself in books, theses and reports whose headings use a larger font, and your reader's menu then jumps straight to a chapter. In a document whose headings are only bold, not bigger, the tool cannot tell a heading from a body line and returns one chapter (25-page slices in a long file). That is not a fault: without a size difference the document simply does not say where the headings are. "One chapter per page" suits lecture notes, printed slides and anything that is cited by page number: the contents list reads "Page 1, Page 2…" and a paragraph left at the foot of a page is not merged with the next page. "Single chapter" is for short pieces and text without headings.

Images are left out by default because in most PDFs they are decoration — logos, rules, backgrounds — and they multiply the file size. When diagrams or photographs are needed, choose "Put in the e-book": images are placed between the paragraphs according to their position on the page, an image that repeats on more than three pages (a company logo, say) is thrown away, and icons under 24 pixels are skipped. Any image that cannot be extracted is counted on the result line. On a Kindle, hand the .epub to Amazon's Send to Kindle service (by email, in the browser or from the app); an .epub copied over USB will not open on the device. Kobo, Apple Books and Google Play Books open EPUB directly.

Frequently asked questions

How do I convert a PDF to EPUB?

Choose your PDF on this page, leave Chapters on "Automatic" and press "Convert to EPUB"; the .epub downloads in a few seconds. Nothing has to be installed, and it works on a phone. The text layer of the document is read, the lines are gathered into paragraphs, large-font lines become chapter headings and a table of contents is written. The file never leaves your device: the conversion finishes inside the browser.

Why can a scanned PDF not be converted to EPUB?

A page that went through a scanner or a phone camera sits inside the PDF as a photograph. What looks like lettering is only dots, and there is nothing to select. This tool does not recognise letters in pictures (OCR); on such a file it reports that the PDF has no selectable text (scan). Quick check: drag the mouse across the writing in your PDF viewer — if nothing highlights, the file is a scan and needs an OCR program to give it a text layer first.

Will the EPUB open on my Kindle?

Not directly, but easily. A Kindle ignores an .epub copied onto it over USB. Amazon's Send to Kindle service, on the other hand — the email address tied to your Kindle, the Send to Kindle web page, or the phone app — accepts EPUB and delivers it to the device in Amazon's own format. Kobo, PocketBook, Apple Books, Google Play Books and Android apps such as ReadEra and Moon+ Reader open the .epub as it is.

How is this different from Calibre?

Calibre is a free e-book manager you install on a computer. Converting PDF to EPUB there comes with a long list of settings — heuristic processing, margin trimming, cover and metadata editing — and it is the usual choice for a large library. This tool installs nothing, runs on a phone and does one job: turn the text into a reflowing EPUB with chapters. For a single document you want to read now, this page is enough; if you convert hundreds of books and fine-tune each one, Calibre is the better fit.

Which app opens an .epub file on a phone?

On an iPhone or iPad, the built-in Books app (Apple Books) opens .epub files: tap the downloaded file and pick Books from the Share sheet. On Android, Google Play Books (with its upload option), ReadEra and Moon+ Reader open it; tapping the .epub in your file manager is usually all it takes. On a computer, Calibre, Thorium Reader and browser extensions read it. EPUB is a standard format, so every one of these apps shows the same e-book.