PBBs: PDF to Docx conversion - Is there a better way?

I am wondering if we are still stuck with the perennial problem of trying to turn longer PDF articles or e-books that include many footnotes and Hebrew or Greek without ending up with a mess or having to spend hours manually fixing.

Has a better way been found?

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Comments

Bernhard

I don't think there ever will be a perfect way. Most of the problem lies in the nature of PDFs. Some converters are doing a better job than others, but there is always manual work necessary (but that depends also on the complexity of the PDF file, with scanned PDFs being the worst).

JT (alabama24)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/878194#Comment_878194

Most of the problem lies in the nature of PDFs

[Y]

Mike Childs

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/878194#Comment_878194

I don't think there ever will be a perfect way. Most of the problem lies in the nature of PDFs. Some converters are doing a better job than others, but there is always manual work necessary (but that depends also on the complexity of the PDF file, with scanned PDFs being the worst).

And yet, PDF will remain the format of choice for many writers. It has many advantages for them. We will have to deal with PDF if we want to make personal books of many excellent public domain resources. I do find Adobe, the creator of PDF, to be by far the best solution, though is more costly than most other possibilities, such as Calibre or Microsoft Word.

It is not in the interest of Faithlife to make personal books more compatible with PDF. After all, they may well want to publish the public domain resource one day. It is also not in the interest of Adobe to make PDF more easily converted. So it is what it is.

I have learned to accept personal books with less than perfect, but still quite readable, formatting.

Does any other major Bible Software program even allow something like personal books?

James McAdams

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/878230#Comment_878230

Does any other major Bible Software program even allow something like personal books?

At least one of the main "competitors" does, and with mobile sync too.

I'm far less inclined to use that app most of the time, but it is a selling point. I appreciate the pros and cons, and I'm not too attached to the feature - just thought that seeing as you asked, it was only right to say.

Greg

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/878232#Comment_878232

Here's a short reply for some big programs. But if you have a mac, consider DevonThink Pro Office. Best way to describe it is Logos Bible Software for everything else. Its not refined for Bible's, of course, but acts as a content management system for any sort of information you want to throw at it.

Its got an iOS app too for syncing. But like Logos, its a very big program with a steep learning curve. I'm still playing around with it, but from the ones who have mastered it, its a program they can't do without.

But if you just want to grab the text from PDFs, get FineReader 12 Pro for that. Its a great program and can output in Word with pretty accurate recognition and formatting.

Mike Childs

Of course, the problem is not getting text from PDF documents. Lots of programs do a good job with that,

The problem is the footnotes, formatting, and those pesky PDF files that are not text based, but graphic in nature. What you have in those PDF files is just a picture of the pages in the book, not text in a PDF format. One must OCR those PDF files before making a useful personal book is even possible,

A lot of editing is involved. It is the nature of the beast.

Virgil Buttram

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/878398#Comment_878398

Of course, the problem is not getting text from PDF documents. Lots of programs do a good job with that,

The problem is the footnotes, formatting, and those pesky PDF files that are not text based, but graphic in nature. What you have in those PDF files is just a picture of the pages in the book, not text in a PDF format. One must OCR those PDF files before making a useful personal book is even possible,

Even for those that are text based, the "text behind the displayed text" is often formatted strangely. I've seen this in converting older Kindle books also.

A lot of editing is involved. It is the nature of the beast.

Quite so. [tangent] Hence part of the cost for public domain texts in Logos is the cost of the necessary editing, even before tagging is factored in. [/tangent]

Nathan Parker

I'm slowly pivoting away from Personal Books and only using Personal books for books I richly tag and need full searching/integration in my Logos library.

For most of my documents, I'm centralizing all of them into Nota Bene so I can search them in Orbis. Makes it easier for include the research in Nota Bene documents in the future.

Now that Orbis has the ability to search PDF's (with a paid addon), I can now throw PDF's into Orbis and search them without converting them.

Francis

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/878484#Comment_878484

only using Personal books for books I richly tag and need full searching/integration in my Logos library

This is the only reason I would want them. But it's too much work to fix long and complex PDFs converted to docx. So I don't with rare exceptions. But it is frustrating because I don't know of a better way to work with PDFs (extensive tagging AND ability to search tags across a library of files). Do Nota Bene and Orbis allow you to do that?

Fos Zoe

Adobe offers a service that converts PDF to DOC(X) for 1.99/month. I haven't tried it but it may work for you.

Cynthia in Florida

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/878398#Comment_878398

Of course, the problem is not getting text from PDF documents. Lots of programs do a good job with that,

The problem is the footnotes, formatting, and those pesky PDF files that are not text based, but graphic in nature. What you have in those PDF files is just a picture of the pages in the book, not text in a PDF format. One must OCR those PDF files before making a useful personal book is even possible,

A lot of editing is involved. It is the nature of the beast.

A good thing for us to remember when comparing (and complaining) about the cost of a tagged book in Logos costing more than a print book.