Convert PDFs to HTML and e-Book Formats

Amazon’s Kindle Fire is a testament to the popularity of e-readers. These devices are a book lover’s dream, holding a complete library in less space than a single book would take in a briefcase or purse. PDFs are completely compatibly with most e-readers, but unfortunately, the text of a PDF is small, and when we zoom in on it, we end up scrolling awkwardly to try to understand the text of the document.

One solution to the problem is to translate the text of PDFs to more manageable HTML, which many e-readers also handle. PDFMasher creates an HTML file for the text of a PDF document, then gives the option to save as a MOBI or ePub file.

From PDFMasher’s homepage, download  and install the correct version for your operating system. PDFMasher works with Windows, Mac and Linux.

Click the Open File button on the PDFMasher menu and choose the PDF file you want to convert to HTML.

PDFMasher will take a minute or two to convert your PDF to plain text, page by page, section by section. Sections are listed by page in a big table.

Click any section then click the Page tab to see where the object originally appeared in your PDF.

Scroll through the sections and look for sections you want to omit from your HTML file. Click the Ignore button for sections you do not want to include. You can also add text to any section at any time in the preview box. Remember to save your changes.

When you are satisfied with the included sections of your PDF, click the build tab on the right of the menu.

Click Generate Markdown.

Click View HTML to see the HTML version of your PDF. No pictures are preserved—only text. Save this HTML file if you want to view your PDF this way.

Since not all e-readers can open an HTML file, it is a good idea to complete the last PDFMasher step and convert the HTML to either MOBI or ePUB. These files are much cleaner and easier to read on an e-reader. Click the radio button next to your favorite e-reader format, enter a title for your document and an author, then click Create e-Book.

You can now add the e-book file to your e-reader and enjoy your PDF with all the built-in text resizing, color formats and flippable page settings your e-reader offers.

PDFMasher is not for absolute novices, and does not work well for intensely graphical documents. If the pictures are necessary for understanding the text, this is not the best software to use. For shorter, text-heavy documents, it should work very well.