Large PBB & PDF Conversions

Question from a L4 Newbie

I have a copy of Grudem's Systematic that I owned in a PDF that I have output to a docx using Acrobat 10 Pro and have been trying to load as a PBB It works well as a docx.

When I try and convert it to a PBB I get the following message "Build Failed" - "Error while reading document"

I cut and pasted the first 250 pages of the document (the whole document is 1124 pages) and it converted and indexed it fine.

I have a number of PDF books of similar size I would like to convert.

Does the PBB converter choke at a certain size?

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Comments

Kevin Becker

Arthur, welcome to the forum.

The PB Tool doesn't have a size limit that I'm aware of. However, it has been known to choke on formatting it doesn't recognize. It's probable that the offending spot is after the first 250 pages. I suggest "cleaning up" the xml tags by saving the document as an rtf (and stripping out a lot of extra tagging behind the scenes) and then resaving as a docx.

You'll probably be interested in http://wiki.logos.com/Personal_Books for more information about using this tool.

Arthur Butt

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/322902#Comment_322902

Thanks Kevin,

I tried that and get the same result again.

Is there a list of off formating that it would choke on or a log file that stores the conversion process?

DominicM

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/322923#Comment_322923

would you not be better with the "proper " one?

http://www.logos.com/product/8413/systematic-theology-an-introduction-to-biblical-doctrine

I know 40$ is 40$, but is the time it will take you to tag it properly worth $40 to you?

I would buy it personally

Arthur Butt

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/322926#Comment_322926

Dominic,

I wont fall on the sword on this so I will likely do that. But at the same time it has only taken a few minutes so far and the first 250 pages converted and work great.

I do think some means of logging and finding offending commands is a nessesity for a tool like this so I am looking to find it and maybe help someone else along the way.

NB.Mick

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/322929#Comment_322929

Arthur,

the 4.5 beta version has implemented some logging to the PB process, where you can see build-errors and warnings.

Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/322934#Comment_322934

the 4.5 beta version has implemented some logging to the PB process, where you can see build-errors and warnings.

Wiki has => Logos 4 Beta Program with information and risks.

Caveat: the Personal Book logs can show errors and warnings; locating offending item(s) in docx can take awhile since logs give no hint about location.

By the way, an American Standard Version 1901 personal book of the Old Testament is 1,383 KB with 978 pages (according to Word 2010 print preview).

Keep Smiling [:)]

NetworkGeek

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/323220#Comment_323220

Arthur, you can use a binary method to narrow down the problem pretty quickly. Note, you could have MULTIPLE formatting errors that the compiler can't get past. It's usually caused by extra characters etc. in the middle of something important. Anyway -

The document is 1124 pages. 250 pages work fine. So there is 874 pages left. Divide by 2, =437, and chop off the first 437+250 = 687 pages, and see if it compiles. If it does not, keep chopping the book down by half - 687-250=437/2 = 218, so cut off 218 from the 687 pages and try that. If it compiles, add half of what is left after page 687, through page 1124. You get the idea...

Even if it's multiple errors, it may very likely be the same error; once you catch one of them, you can then probably fix all of them in a document by search/replace.

This is how I would whittle down the problem if I needed to get the document compiling.

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/322929#Comment_322929

Arthur, if you're not willing to try the beta version of Logos, try REMOVING the first 250 pages and running the PB compiler on the rest. If it chokes on that, see if you can narrow down where the problem line is by systematically whacking the remaining document in half until you find the culprit. This will only take log(2) n tries, which means it's a pretty fast algorithm. To narrow down the problem page within 100 pages would be only 7 tries, for example; and then finding the problem line within a 50 line page would take 6 tries.

Might be easier to just try the beta, though, or wait for 4.5 to ship. I can't remember if the new logging tool gives any indication of where the problem was encountered, or how easy it is to track down that location in a 250+ page file (e.g., if it's given in byte offsets that would be pretty tough).

Arthur Butt

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/323323#Comment_323323

Thanks everyone for the help

If I get some time I may try breaking it up in parts and see what happens. I am not in any hurry so if I don't get to it before 4.5 it wont hold me up.

Arthur

David Ames

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/323327#Comment_323327

Question 4.5 logging: Is there a way to force a message into the error log? [For example: Build done to line xxx Maybe done by a insert such as <<BUILD AT LINE>> xxx] then we would know that the error was between xxx-1 and xxx+1 [[Warning: the error that goofs up may not trigger a warning until much later – that is the problem may be in the first 250 pages and the error message is triggered by some correct thing on page 251 that can not work because of the error on a prior page – (it might even be on page 001 [most likely not but it could be]) by the way software troubleshooting is defined as fun! that is if you are troubleshooting you ARE having fun!]]