Convert to EPUB

Convert a webpage to EPUB

Use dotEPUB

Convert multiple web pages to EPUB

ⓘ Percollate is used instead of pandoc because pandoc always combines all input files before converting. In particular, it seems incapable of generating a proper EPUB table of contents from multiple files.

  1. Save each web page

    👉 Don’t bother formatting the web page before saving it; when you save it, it will always be saved with the original format

  2. Combine the pages using percollate, e.g.

    percollate -o book.epub --title Title *.html

Encoding is wrong

If the final EPUB has encoding errors:

  1. Edit the source HTML file

  2. Add this line under the html head element:

    <meta charset="UTF-8" />

Page content is missing

  1. Open the page in the browser

  2. Open the dev tools and find the div with the page content

  3. Right-click the div and copy the HTML

  4. Paste it into a new HTML file and use that instead

Update source reference in EPUB

Use --url, e.g.

percollate epub -o book.epub page1.html --url http://example.org/page1.html page2.html --url http://example.org/page2.html

Convert MOBI to EPUB

  1. Install and open Calibre

  2. Drag the file into Calibre to add it

  3. Right-click the book in the list of books > Convert books > Convert individually

  4. In the Metadata section adjust the title and author as desired

  5. Change the settings in EPUB Output as desired

  6. Under Page setup set Output profile to Tablet (this will disable resizing of images)

  7. Click OK

  8. The generated EPUB will be located in your home folder/Calibre Library/author/title

Convert document (.doc, .docx, .odt, .rtf) to EPUB

  • Using Calibre

    This will preserve most formatting (text styling, line spacing, font, text size, line justification).

    1. Install and open Calibre

    2. If it’s not a .docx file, open it in LibreOffice and save it as a .docx file first

      • .doc files must be converted because Calibre doesn’t support them
      • .odt files are supported by Calibre but converting to .docx first seems to give more consistent formatting

    3. (Optional) Edit the paragraphs so there’s spacing between them. In LibreOffice:

      1. Edit > Select All
      2. Format > Paragraph
      3. Spacing > Above paragraph > 0.50 cm (or 0.19”)
      4. Spacing > Below paragraph > 0.50 cm (or 0.19”) > OK

    4. Add books > browse to the .docx or .rtf file > Open

    5. Right-click the document in the list of books > Convert books > Convert individually

    6. In the Metadata section adjust the title and author as desired

    7. If you don’t want an autogenerated cover, go to the EPUB Output section and check No default cover

    8. Click OK

    9. Once the conversion is finished, double-click the entry in Calibre to preview it with the built-in EPUB reader

    10. The generated EPUB will be located in your home folder/Calibre Library/author/title

  • Using pandoc

    This will preserve basic text styling (bold, italics, etc) but lose most other formatting.

    pandoc -o output.epub input.docx

    To set the title/author:

    pandoc -o output.epub input.docx -M author="Fartrell Cluggins" -M title="The Greatest Book Ever Written"

Convert PDF to EPUB

  • Using Calibre

    1. Install and open Calibre

    2. Drag the file into Calibre to add it

    3. Right-click the PDF in the list of books > Convert books > Convert individually

    4. In the Metadata section adjust the title and author as desired

    5. Change the settings in PDF Input and EPUB Output as desired

    6. Click OK

    7. The generated EPUB will be located in your home folder/Calibre Library/author/title

  • Using pandoc

    pdftohtml -noframes input.pdf
pandoc -o output.epub input.html

    To combine multiple PDFs:

    pdftohtml -noframes input1.pdf
pdftohtml -noframes input2.pdf
pandoc -o output.epub input1.html input2.html