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EPUB to PDF

Turn an EPUB ebook into a PDF with real, searchable text, the book's pictures and fonts, and its table of contents as bookmarks. Choose the page size, margins and text size; the book never leaves your device.

Converted in your browser: the book is never uploaded. Scripts in the book don't run and nothing is fetched from the internet. Only DRM-free EPUBs can be converted.

How to convert EPUB to PDF

  1. Choose your .epub file. The title, author, cover and number of chapters appear, so you know it opened correctly.
  2. Pick the page size (A5, 6 × 9 in, A4, US Letter or A6), the margins and the text size. Leave page numbers on if you plan to print.
  3. Press Convert to PDF. Each chapter is laid out in turn; the PDF downloads when it's ready, with a preview of its first pages.

How the book is laid out

Your browser lays out each chapter with the book's own style sheet, the same way a reading app would, at the width of the page's text area. The chapter is then cut into pages between lines, never through a line of text or a picture, and a heading is kept with the line that follows it. Every word is placed in the PDF exactly where the browser put it. EPUB 2 and EPUB 3 books both work, including fixed-layout picture books, where each page keeps its own design and is scaled to fit the paper, and fonts the publisher has scrambled for embedding, which are restored as the EPUB standard describes.

Example: a novel on A5 pages

An A5 page is 419.5 × 595.3 points (148 × 210 mm). Normal margins of 18 mm take 51.0 points from each side, which leaves a text area of 317.5 × 493.2 points. A CSS pixel is 0.75 points, so the book is laid out 423 pixels wide and 657 pixels tall per page, and body text set at the usual 16 pixels prints at 12 points. With Larger text (115%) the same page is laid out 368 pixels wide and everything is scaled up by 1.15, so the body text prints at 13.8 points and there are fewer words to a line.

Tips

  • For a printed booklet, choose A5 and print two pages per sheet on A4 (or 6 × 9 in on Letter).
  • If a chapter starts with a cover picture already, the extra cover page is skipped automatically; untick Cover as the first page to leave it out anyway.
  • Very long books take longer: a few hundred pages usually takes well under a minute on a laptop, longer on an older phone. You can cancel at any time.

Related tools

To mark up the PDF afterwards, use Annotate PDF. To make it smaller for email, use Compress PDF; to read it with search and thumbnails, the PDF Viewer. For a web page or HTML file, use HTML to PDF.

Frequently asked questions

Can I select and search the text in the PDF?

Yes. The text is written into the PDF as real text, in the book's own fonts when it includes them, or in Times, Helvetica or Courier, so you can search, copy and highlight it. Words in scripts those fonts can't write (Hindi, Arabic and Chinese, for example) when the book has no font of its own for them are saved as sharp pictures of the words: they look right, but can't be selected.

Does it keep the chapters and links?

Each chapter starts on a new page. The book's table of contents becomes the PDF's bookmarks, so you can jump to any chapter from the side panel of your PDF reader, and links inside the book (footnotes, the contents page) jump to the right page. Web links stay clickable.

Which page size should I choose?

A5 or 6 × 9 inches reads and prints like a paperback, two pages to a sheet of A4 or Letter. A4 or US Letter suits printing one page per sheet at home. For reading on a phone, choose A6 or a larger text size, so the words stay big when the page fits the screen.

Can I convert Kindle books or EPUBs with DRM?

No. This works with DRM-free EPUB files, which is what most free, public-domain and self-published books are. Books bought with copy protection (Adobe DRM, Apple Books, Kindle) can't be opened here, and Kindle formats such as AZW3, MOBI and KFX aren't EPUB.

Is my book uploaded anywhere?

No. The EPUB is unzipped and laid out in your browser, and the PDF is made on your device. Scripts inside the book don't run, and nothing is fetched from the internet while converting, so it also works for private documents.

Why doesn't the PDF look exactly like my reading app?

Reading apps add their own fonts, margins and themes. The PDF follows the book's own style sheet, the way the publisher designed it, at the page size you choose. Sound, video and interactive scripts can't go into a PDF, and pictures set as CSS backgrounds are left out.

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