PDF to EPUB

Convert your PDF files to EPUB, right here in your browser.

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... or drop files here

Files never leave your device

Add a PDF file to convert.

Frequently asked questions

What is actually inside a EPUB file?

A .epub file is a ZIP archive of XHTML chapters plus a spine that says what order to read them in — a small website in a box, essentially.

Are my files uploaded to a server?

No. Your PDF is read and the EPUB file is built entirely inside your browser, so nothing ever leaves your device.

Can I convert several files at once?

Yes. Add as many PDF files as you like and download the results one by one, or all together as a ZIP archive.

Will the result look exactly like the original PDF?

The text, headings and table columns are recovered and rebuilt as a EPUB file. This is a content-faithful conversion rather than a copy of the original page design, so fonts, spacing and images are not carried over.

What happens with a scanned PDF?

A scanned page is a picture of text rather than text itself, so there is nothing to extract from it. Convert it to an image format instead, or run it through OCR first.

Is there a file size or file count limit?

No. Everything runs on your own device, so the only practical limit is how much memory your browser has available.

Do I need to install anything?

No. There is nothing to install and no account to create — the converter runs in any modern browser, on desktop and mobile alike.

Will this work on my Kindle?

Indirectly, and in practice easily. Kindles do not read EPUB natively, but Amazon's Send to Kindle service accepts an EPUB and converts it on arrival — email it to your device's address and it appears in your library. Every other major reader, including Apple Books, Kobo and Google Play Books, opens EPUB directly.

Why convert a PDF to EPUB at all?

Because a PDF has fixed pages and an e-reader has a small screen, so a PDF is either shrunk past legibility or panned around in fragments, with no way to change the font size. EPUB reflows to whatever screen and type size you choose, which is what makes long-form reading on a device comfortable.

How are chapters decided?

One per PDF page, since a PDF carries no signal about where its real chapters start. Each takes its title from the largest line on that page where there is one, and otherwise is named for its page number — so the table of contents is populated and navigable either way.

Do the images come through?

No. Text and heading structure are carried; images are not. For an illustrated or technical book with diagrams, Calibre's PDF conversion handles images and is the better tool.

Will academic papers convert well?

Usually not. Two-column layouts interleave, because reading order is rebuilt geometrically and nothing purely geometric distinguishes two columns from a wide table. Papers are better read as PDFs on a tablet, where the fixed layout is an advantage rather than an obstacle.

Is my document uploaded anywhere?

No. The PDF is read and the EPUB archive assembled inside your browser tab, so an unpublished manuscript is converted without leaving your machine.

Reading a PDF on an e-reader is a poor experience, and the reason is structural rather than a matter of software quality. A PDF has fixed pages at a fixed size with text at fixed positions. A six-inch e-ink screen is smaller than A4, so the page is either shrunk until the type is too small or shown in fragments that you pan around. Changing the font size is impossible, because there is no reflowing to do.

EPUB is built the other way round: text that reflows to whatever screen it lands on, at whatever size the reader chooses. Converting a PDF into one means abandoning the fixed page — which is the point, not a side effect.

The output is a real .epub: a ZIP archive of XHTML chapters with a package file, a navigation document and a stylesheet. Each PDF page becomes one chapter, and each chapter takes its title from the largest line on that page, falling back to "Page 3" and so on where a page has no obvious heading.

How to convert PDF to EPUB

Add your PDF
Drop it in or choose it. It is read in the page; nothing is uploaded.
Convert
Text is extracted with coordinates, rebuilt into lines, and written as XHTML chapters with real heading elements, wrapped into a valid EPUB archive.
Send it to your reader
The file works in Apple Books, Kobo, Google Play Books, Calibre and any other EPUB reader. For a Kindle, send it to your Send-to-Kindle address and Amazon converts it on arrival.

What makes it a valid EPUB

EPUB is fussy in one specific way that is easy to get wrong: the `mimetype` entry must be the very first file in the ZIP archive and must be stored uncompressed. Readers identify an EPUB by sniffing those opening bytes rather than parsing the whole archive, so an otherwise perfect file whose entries are in the wrong order is simply rejected. That ordering is guaranteed here.

The archive also carries a package document listing the chapters and their reading order, a navigation document providing the table of contents, and a stylesheet. Each chapter is XHTML with real `<h1>`, `<h2>` and `<p>` elements, which is what lets a reader adjust the type size and navigate by heading.

One small nicety: the book's unique identifier is derived deterministically from the document rather than randomly generated, so converting the same PDF twice produces the same file rather than two books your library treats as unrelated.

Page becomes chapter

One chapter per page: Which is the honest mapping, since a PDF gives no signal about where its real chapters begin. Each starts on a fresh screen in the reader.
Chapter titles: Taken from the largest line on the page where there is one — a line at least half again the body size — and otherwise "Page 1", "Page 2" and so on. Titles are trimmed to a sensible length so a page whose largest text is a paragraph does not produce an unusable entry.
A working table of contents: Built from those chapter titles, so the reader's navigation menu is populated rather than empty.
Reflowable text: The whole purpose. Font size, margins, line spacing and theme all become the reader's choice.
Images and page design: Not carried across. An illustrated book loses its illustrations, and the PDF's fonts, columns and layout are replaced by the reader's own.

Which PDFs make good ebooks

Single-column, text-led documents convert well: reports, manuals, essays, novels typeset as PDFs, long-form articles. These are the cases where the fixed page was only ever a container and reflowing it is a straightforward improvement.

Two-column academic papers do not. Reading order is reconstructed from geometry — down the page, then across — and no geometric rule separates a two-column layout from a wide table, so the columns interleave. Papers are genuinely better read as PDFs on a tablet.

Heavily designed documents — magazines, brochures, anything where the layout carries meaning — lose that meaning entirely, because reflowable text has no layout to carry it.

And a scanned PDF converts to an empty book, since there is no text layer to reflow.

About the EPUB format

.epub is the e-book format IDPF introduced in 2007. It is published as an open specification under the name EPUB 3, so a file can be read without the program that wrote it.

A .epub file is a ZIP archive of XHTML chapters plus a spine that says what order to read them in — a small website in a box, essentially.

Files like this usually come out of Calibre, Apple Books, Kobo, and Google Play Books.

What comes through

chapter divisions
heading levels
body text
reading order
the table of contents

What does not

the exact page design
embedded images
embedded fonts

Worth knowing

A scanned PDF is a picture of a page, not text, so there is nothing for this tool to extract — the result will be empty. That is the honest outcome, not a failure.
E-books reflow to fit whatever screen they are read on, so they have no fixed pages; the conversion picks a sensible page size instead of preserving one that never existed.

Information