How to convert pdf to txt easily?

Question

My kindle3 will arrive tomorrow, and I have plenty of PDF files that I want to read on it.

I would like to convert them to txt so I can adjust the font size.

Is there any convenient way to do that?

PS: if there isn't, I shall write one by myself.

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 16 '10 at 03:55

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Calibre can convert PDF to txt, or better yet, the .mobi reflowable/resizable format supported by the Kindle. It's great open source software for ebook management, which you might want to have installed anyway, once you own a Kindle.

AbiWord is an open source word processor that can import PDF and save it as .txt (or .html or a variety of other Word Processor formats).

As you probably know, Amazon has its own conversion service.

I can think of quite a few additional options, but they would depend on your operating system.

answered Sep 16 '10 at 03:55

frabjous

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+1: I have a kindle and I use Calibre for that sort of thing. – hotei Sep 16 '10 at 04:48
AbiWord 2.8.6 did not import my PDF. – Michael S. Jan 16 '12 at 11:48

Benjol · Answer 2 · 2010-09-21T08:02:39.160

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OK, here is an alternative hacky way to do it, without installing anything on your computer (and just for fun).

If you have a gmail address, send the pdfs to your gmail address, then (using the gmail web interface) do a 'view as html'. (I do this sometimes to extract the images).

edited Sep 21 '10 at 08:02

answered Sep 16 '10 at 09:13

Benjol

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smart & geeky! +1! – studiohack Oct 12 '10 at 03:20
love methods like this. works arounds ftw – albert Nov 08 '13 at 00:40

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 16 '10 at 07:49

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"pdftotext" (from Xpdf).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pdftotext

answered Sep 16 '10 at 07:49

jlliagre

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score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 16 '10 at 14:30

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OpenOffice can also open PDF files.

pdftotext (as others have said) will work. You'll lose a bunch of formatting though.

answered Sep 16 '10 at 14:30

Rich Homolka

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score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 16 '10 at 14:57

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Ghostscript contains a batch ps2ascii.

It converts ps- or pdf-files to text files.

answered Sep 16 '10 at 14:57

Curd

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This does not work well at all for me. It produces a binary where no text is readable. – Michael S. Jun 13 '12 at 13:45

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Oct 12 '10 at 02:43

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Google docs does a pretty good job, just make sure to check the OCR button when your uploading the pdf.

answered Oct 12 '10 at 02:43

alpha1

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score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Jan 23 '11 at 17:19

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If you mail the file to your username@free.kindle.com address, you can put "Convert" as the subject and Amazon will convert it for you.

Source: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200375630 (the last section)

answered Jan 23 '11 at 17:19

Henrik N

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How to convert pdf to txt easily?

7 Answers7