How to Convert PDF to EPUB: Text E-book or Faithful Page Copy

How to convert PDF to EPUB

To convert a PDF to EPUB, upload the file in the PDF to EPUB tool, choose "Text (for e-readers)" or "Faithful copy (pages)" and click "Convert and download". In Text mode, the default, the e-book reflows: you can enlarge the type and the text rearranges on screen, like a regular EPUB. In Faithful copy mode, each page becomes an image identical to the original. The .epub downloads with the PDF's name, and nothing is sent to any server.

EPUB is the standard e-book format: instead of opening in a PDF viewer, the file lands in your reading app's library, such as Apple Books, Google Play Books, Kobo or your e-reader's app, alongside the rest of your books, with bookmarks, collections and syncing across devices. If the book is already an e-book in MOBI, AZW3 or FB2, see how to convert e-books between formats.

Step by step to convert a PDF to EPUB

1. Open the "PDF to EPUB" tool.
2. Upload the PDF you want to turn into an e-book (you can upload several; each one becomes an .epub).
3. Choose the mode: "Text (for e-readers)", selected by default, or "Faithful copy (pages)".
4. Click "Convert and download" (with several files the button reads "Convert N PDFs"). The .epub downloads with the PDF's name; then add it to your reader's library.

In Text mode, the e-book behaves like a regular EPUB: you can enlarge the type, the text rearranges and the images from each PDF page come right after that page's text. In Faithful copy mode, each page stays identical to the original, but you cannot change the font or select the text. In both cases the file is a valid EPUB that any reading app opens. The opposite direction is in how to convert EPUB to PDF.

Text or Faithful copy: which mode to choose

• "Text (for e-readers)": books, study guides, articles and reports meant to be read straight through. The file is light, the type adjusts and reading at night or on a small screen stays comfortable.
• "Faithful copy (pages)": catalogs, illustrated manuals, magazines, sheet music and any document where the layout matters. Each page becomes a high-resolution image, three times the page size.
• Scanned PDF: in Text mode, the tool notices the missing text and delivers the faithful copy automatically, so it never produces an empty e-book.
• Not sure: start with Text, the default. If the result scrambles columns or tables, convert again as a Faithful copy.

What Text mode does with your PDF

The tool extracts the PDF's text and infers the structure: what looks like a heading becomes a heading, what looks like a list becomes a list, the rest becomes paragraphs. Content images, such as figures and photos, come at the end of the text of the page they were on; images from pages with no text go to the end of the e-book. Logos, headers and icons repeated across several pages are left out, so the e-book does not become a string of logos. The result is approximate: a running-text PDF converts very well; a PDF with columns, tables or sidebars may need Faithful copy mode.

An honest limit: the table of contents of an e-book made in Text mode has a single entry, the file's title, with no chapter breakdown. In a long book there is no chapter navigation; you move through the text or use the reader's position bar. If you need navigable chapters, edit the EPUB in an e-book editor afterwards.

Scanned PDF: automatic faithful copy, or OCR first

If the PDF is a scan, it has no text inside, only images of the pages. In Text mode the tool detects this and falls back to the faithful copy on its own: you get an e-book with the pages as images, readable in any app, but without font adjustment. To get a real text e-book from a scan, run the PDF through the OCR tool first, which recognizes the text in your browser and saves it as .txt (see the OCR guide); with that text, you build the e-book in an editor.

When converting is worth it

• You want to read a PDF book or study guide inside your e-book app, on the same shelf as your other titles.
• You prefer the e-reader experience: bookmarking your place, organizing by collections, syncing across devices, enlarging the type.
• The document has a carefully designed layout, with diagrams, tables and columns, and you want to keep it page by page with the faithful copy.
• You want to send the material to someone who reads on an e-reader and would rather get an e-book than a PDF.

The conversion happens entirely in your browser: the PDF is processed on your own device and is never sent to any server.

The faithful copy produces large files: each page becomes a high-resolution image. For a book with hundreds of pages, prefer Text mode whenever the PDF has text.