pdf (with page numbers) to epub

[crill]

Okay... I dont need help on how to do it... but I just discovered something.

I had/have many pdf ebooks that I wanted to change epub... thats fine and all, but some pdf ebooks would have a page number and the authors name on each page. So when I would convert it that would come onto the epub file too. So I would have 1, 2, 3, 4... jumbling the text around. As you can imagine thats really annoying!

So I searched the internet about converting pdfs to epub without the page numbers. I couldn't find anything helpful. So it occurred to me that I could crop the pdf and get rid of the author name and page numbers and just leave the text. But I soon learned it was just hidden. So it would still appear on the converted epub even though it was hidden on the pdf. UGH!

Anywhoo, I figured out how to make it so could crop it and convert without having the page numbers and author name appear throughout the whole epub. Im on a mac sooo... this is how I did it:

1) Open pdf on preview and crop it so the author name and page number becomes hidden and you just have the text.

2) Go up to file, print. (No printing here)

3) Click on the PDF icon on the lower left side of the print box.

4) On the dropdown menu click on Save as PostScript

5) Open the new post script file with preview... it will open and tell you its converting to pdf again.

6) And then save the newly converted pdf. And then you can go and convert that to epub without the page numbers and crap coming up everywhere

I tried also Save as PDF on the box... but when I convert to epub the page numbers and stuff still come up... Saving as postscript and having preview convert it to a pdf seems to get rid of the cropped stuff permanently.

I hope this will help some of you and I hope it works with others. Its annoying that preview and other applications dont destructively crop in the first place. Tell me what you think! And sorry for the long post.

[cleanest]

I've been looking for this exact thing! It works great; although I did two and for some weird reason the page numbers got added back in on one of them. I then opened the PDF in Acrobat, exported to RTF, and then converted that to ePub. What a pain but it's worth it sometimes. Thanks!

[raymiles]

Thanks for that. but with a 543 page book it would surely be too tedious for me to crop each page one by one in the original PDF file. Or is there a way of doing it all at once?

[cleanest]

This took me a bit to figure out as well. You do the selection on one page of the area you want to crop. Then you open the sidebar that shows the thumbnails for all the pages. You click one of those pages and then hit command-a (select all). Then in the inspector you click crop and it crops all pages to the size you selected on the one page.

By the way, the full process I did was:

1) use Preview.app to crop all the pages as above
2) print to a new PDF file
3) open in calibre and convert to epub

This worked for one of the two PDF's I converted today. For some reason, the other looked great after I cropped it, but when I converted to epub, somehow weird page numbers (that I never saw in the PDF!) were showing up throughout the epub. For that one, I had to:

1) as above
2) as above
3) open in Acrobat and then export to text
4) edit text with vim (unix editor) and search replace /^M^L^M\d* ^M//
5) open in calibre and convert to epub

[Toxaris]

You could also take a look at PDFReflow. This java tool can easily remove headers and footers. Depending on the source it will lead to a reasonable result.

[wannabee]

Oh gawd! look at the date
To crop all pages in acrobat select the area to crop with the crop tool and press the enter key. Select ALL.

[sinan]

Hi,
That is one of the methods I have been using, but cropping requires adobe pro. Here is much easier way, which removes page number automatically.
First you need to download mobipocket creator. It is a free software which converts pdf into prc (mobi). After installation, run it.
Once you run, you will see "import from existing file" option on the home window. Click "Adobe pdf", then you will be asked directories and stuff. After import, don't convert it to mobi, no , not yet.
Go to "My Document", you will see a folder named "My Publications". You will find your book under this folder as html, pdf, xml without page numbers. It is conversion is quite good. You can edit html file, and used calibre to convert any format you like.

Or you can use Adobe Acrobat Pro and permanently remove page numbers. Follow the link below for more information.

Edit:
In some cases, cropping pdf before dropping it into Mobipocket creator yields better results with Mobipocket creator. There is a simple and free software called Briss to crop pdf files. Portable version is also available.
For more information https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=160755

[wannabee]

Originally Posted by sinan

After installation, run it.
Once you run, you will see "import from existing file" option on the home window. Click "Adobe pdf"

I already had mobipocket creator installed. I ran a html file through it first as suggested and made a prc which worked fine but sadly, I didn't find the import feature on the home page as you mentioned.

This would be a good work around because exporting from PDFs that have been cropped to remove folios still includes the folios. The cropping just masks the output. The content is still there. Though invisible until you export it.

[Tetchystar]

Originally Posted by sinan

Hi,
That is one of the methods I have been using, but cropping requires adobe pro. Here is much easier way, which removes page number automatically.

Hi sinan, I've been looking around the internet for exactly how to convert PDFs without page numbers and your method worked for me easily and perfectly! Thank you so much for putting up this great method.

wannabee, you have to run pdf through mobipocket and leave it. Don't convert it, and put the html file made by mobipocket into calibre, then use calibre to convert to whatever you want. The html output from mobipocket doesn't have the page numbers or authors name, etc.

[wannabee]

OK . . . Thanks. I think.
However, how can I proceed without the import option being available as pictured above?

[comtrjl]

There are 2 editions of mobi creator - you need the 'publisher edition' not the 'home' edition.
It's here: http://www.mobipocket.com/en/Downloa...ilsCreator.asp

bob

[wannabee]

Originally Posted by comtrjl

There are 2 editions of mobi creator - you need the 'publisher edition' not the 'home' edition.
It's here: http://www.mobipocket.com/en/Downloa...ilsCreator.asp

bob

Cool . . . I'll give it a go. Thanks

[vandeetz]

I followed the instructions from the 1st post

all seemed to work well, until I converted the pdf to epub in Calibre... it shows the picture from the cover of the book, but all thats on the epub for text is some random characters.

I can convert it fine without cropping the pdf, but then I'm left with all the random page numbers in the middle of my text.

Help!!!!

just an FYI for those trying to help me, I have a mac... so any software suggestions would need to be mac compatible

thanks!!!

[BenSL]

Originally Posted by crill

1) Open pdf on preview and crop it so the author name and page number becomes hidden and you just have the text.

2) Go up to file, print. (No printing here)

3) Click on the PDF icon on the lower left side of the print box.

4) On the dropdown menu click on Save as PostScript

5) Open the new post script file with preview... it will open and tell you its converting to pdf again.

6) And then save the newly converted pdf. And then you can go and convert that to epub without the page numbers and crap coming up everywhere

Hey there, I'm wondering if there is an update on how to do this since the original post was from several years ago. I see one of the other websites listed in other comments is no longer functioning.
Essentially I don't have the option to save as PostScript.
Any ideas?