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eBook & Audio

PDF to EPUB — a real, reflowable eBook

Turn a PDF into an EPUB that reflows to fit any screen: chapters from its headings, pictures in place, the first page as a cover — and the running headers and page numbers that clutter a printed page taken out. Made on your device.

Settings appear once you add a PDF.

Advanced 3
Use the first page as the cover
Bring the pictures across

Readers use it to pick a dictionary and a hyphenation style.

Done on your device No upload, no queue, no sign-up.

Bytes sent anywhere: 0 B

How to convert PDF to EPUB

Your PDF goes into this browser tab, is reflowed into chapters on your device, and comes back as an EPUB eBook. 0 bytes uploaded
  1. Add your PDF

    Drop your PDF. Its text is read in order, and the running headers, footers and page numbers that repeat on every printed page are taken out.

  2. Check the settings

    Check the title and author, and whether to bring the pictures and use the first page as the cover.

  3. Save the result

    Save the EPUB. Its chapters come from the PDF’s headings, and the text reflows to fit a phone, a tablet or an eReader.

Why it doesn’t upload

The PDFs people turn into eBooks are often manuscripts, course packs and papers they have been given in confidence. Conversion sites upload the whole thing; this one reads and rebuilds it in your browser, and the PDF never leaves your device.

Check it in your browser’s Network tab

Worth knowing

  • A scanned PDF has no text to reflow — it is a picture of each page. That needs OCR, which is coming to the site but is not live yet.
  • Complex layouts — magazines, multi-column newsletters, textbooks with sidebars — are read in reading order but lose their layout, which is the point of a reflowable book and also its cost.
  • Tables become ordinary paragraphs; a reflowing eBook has no fixed width to hold a wide table.
  • Footnotes stay where they fell in the text rather than becoming linked notes.

Under the hood

What happens to your file

The PDF’s text is put back into reading order — running heads, footers and page numbers removed, paragraphs split by a page break joined — and written as an EPUB 3 book: chapters from its headings, bold and italic kept, pictures included, with a table of contents any eReader can use.

Runs on pdf.jsfflate

Reference: EPUB 3.3, W3C

Questions

How do I convert PDF to EPUB for free?

Drop the PDF here and press Make the EPUB. It is rebuilt as a reflowable eBook in your browser, with no account, no watermark and no page limit.

Will the EPUB work on a Kindle?

Yes. Amazon’s Send to Kindle accepts EPUB and converts it for your device, so email the file to your Kindle address or use the Send to Kindle app. Kobo, Apple Books, Google Play Books and most other readers open EPUB directly.

Why not just read the PDF on my eReader?

A PDF is a fixed page: on a six-inch screen you zoom and pan, or read type too small to see. An EPUB reflows — the text wraps to the screen, and you choose the font and size.

Will the headers and page numbers end up in the text?

No. Text that repeats at the top or bottom of most pages is recognized as a running head or footer and left out, and paragraphs split across a page break are joined back together.

How are the chapters decided?

From the PDF’s own headings: each top-level heading starts a chapter in the eReader’s contents. A PDF without headings is split into parts of about twenty pages so it still opens quickly.

Is my PDF uploaded?

No. The text and pictures are read out of the PDF and the EPUB is assembled inside this browser tab. Nothing is sent anywhere.

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