About this PDF to EPUB converter A PDF keeps every page exactly as it was printed, which is why it is so hard to read on an e-reader or a phone: the page shrinks to fit and the text becomes tiny. An EPUB is reflowable, so the words wrap to the screen at whatever size you choose. This page rebuilds the PDF's text as a book: paragraphs, headings, chapters and a table of contents, with the pictures in place. It is free to use, with no account and no upload limit, and it runs entirely in your browser: nothing is uploaded, and while the page stays open, a feature you have already used keeps working offline.
The pages are read with pdf.js by the same reader as the site's PDF to Word converter, which keeps each piece of text's font size, bold and italic, finds pictures and ruled tables, and reads two-column pages column by column. The book is then put together here and written as an EPUB 3 file, with an EPUB 2 table of contents as well, so older readers find the chapters too.
What it does Reflowable text that fits any screen, in Apple Books, Google Play Books, Kobo, Kindle (through Send to Kindle), Calibre and other readers Running headers, footers and page numbers repeated across the pages are taken out Paragraphs rebuilt from the lines, carried across page breaks, with words hyphenated at line ends joined again Headings found from their larger type, and chapters cut at the PDF's bookmarks when it has them, else at the headings A table of contents from the bookmarks or headings Bold and italic kept; pictures and ruled tables kept in place Footnotes at the foot of the pages gathered at the end of each chapter Title and author from the PDF's properties, and the first page as the cover How to convert PDF to EPUB Drop the PDF on the box, or click it to choose one. Tap the box and choose the PDF. Wait while each page is read; a long book takes a minute or two. Stop cancels. Press Save EPUB, or open the book straight away in the site's EPUB Reader to check it. What works well, and what may need tidying It works best on text-heavy PDFs: novels, non-fiction books, reports, theses and manuals made from a word processor, where the text flows in one or two columns. Complex layouts may need tidying afterwards: magazines and brochures with sidebars, boxes and text over pictures; pages of tables or forms; textbooks with notes in the margins; and poetry or code, where line breaks matter. Those still convert, but some text may come out in a different order or joined differently. Mathematical formulas come out as plain text. A free editor such as Sigil or Calibre's editor fixes any leftovers.
Scanned PDFs, whose pages are pictures with no text layer, cannot be reflowed: there is no text to flow. Make them searchable with the OCR Toolkit first, then convert the searchable PDF here.
Limits: a PDF of up to 300 MB, and its first 2,000 pages. Up to 1,500 different pictures (250 MB of them) go into one book; past that, or in a very heavily illustrated PDF, the rest are left out and the page says how many. Poster-sized pages (over 4,000 points, about 1.4 m, on a side) are left out too.
Questions
Will my PDF look the same as an EPUB? No, and that is the point: an EPUB lets the reader choose the font, size and margins, so the text reflows instead of keeping the PDF's pages. Headings, paragraphs, bold, italic, pictures and tables are kept; the exact page layout, fonts and page numbers are not. If you need the pages exactly as printed, keep the PDF.
How are the chapters decided? If the PDF has bookmarks (the outline shown in a PDF reader's sidebar), each top-level bookmark starts a chapter at its page and the bookmarks under it become entries inside. Without bookmarks, the largest headings that appear more than once start the chapters. A PDF with neither is split into parts of a comfortable length.
Why are some headers or page numbers still there? A line at the top or bottom of the page is taken out when it is a page number, or when the same words (numbers aside) appear there on at least a quarter of the pages. A header that changes on every page, such as a different section title on each, can survive; it shows as a short paragraph you can delete.
Can I read the EPUB on a Kindle? Yes: Kindle accepts EPUB files through Amazon's Send to Kindle (the app, the website or by email), which converts them for the device. Apple Books, Google Play Books, Kobo, Nook and most reading apps open the EPUB directly.
What about two-column PDFs? Pages set in two columns, as many reports and academic papers are, are read down the left column and then the right. When a page's columns cannot be told apart reliably, the text keeps the order the PDF stores it in, which is usually right but not always; the page notes when a book had two-column pages so you can check them.
Does the PDF leave my device while it becomes an EPUB? No. The PDF is read, reflowed and written as an EPUB in this browser tab on your device; nothing is sent to this site or anywhere else. Going the other way, EPUB to PDF lays an e-book out as printable pages. Kindle books in .mobi or .azw3 become EPUB with MOBI to EPUB , and the EPUB Reader opens any EPUB in the browser.