From reflowable e-book to fixed pages
An e-book has no pages of its own: the reading app lays out the text for each screen. That is ideal for reading, but sometimes you need fixed pages. You may want to print a book, a manual or a study text, quote with page numbers, read on a device without an e-book app, open the book in a school or office system that accepts only PDF, or annotate it in a PDF editor. Converting the e-book to PDF gives you a normal document with numbered pages.
What the PDF looks like
The conversion uses calibre, the well-known open-source e-book manager. The text is set on pages of the size you choose, with page numbers. The table of contents of the e-book becomes PDF bookmarks, so you can jump to chapters in the sidebar of any PDF reader. Images, chapter headings and the cover are kept, and the text stays selectable and searchable.
Choosing the page size
- A4 or Letter: for printing on normal office paper. The text is set at a comfortable reading size, so a novel gets many pages.
- A5: half of A4. Good for reading on a tablet, where an A4 page would make the text too small, and for printing booklets with two pages on one sheet.
- B5: a common book size in Asia, between A5 and A4.
Supported formats and DRM
EPUB is the most common e-book format. FB2 (FictionBook) is popular in Eastern Europe. MOBI and AZW3 are Kindle formats. Books bought in online stores are often protected by DRM (copy protection). Such files cannot be converted, and the tool tells you when it detects one. Convert only books you are allowed to copy, such as free and public-domain books, your own writing, or files sold without DRM.
Privacy and limits
E-books are converted on our own server. The file is uploaded over HTTPS, converted, and deleted right after; the PDF is kept for 15 minutes at most. Files can be up to 50 MB, and up to 10 books at a time. To reduce the size of a PDF with many pictures, use Compress PDF. To go the other way, see PDF to EPUB and PDF to FB2.