# EPUBLab

> EPUBLab converts difficult PDFs into reflowable EPUB books: reading order, joined paragraphs, chapters, and repeated headers and page numbers removed. A free sample of up to 5 pages comes before any payment.

When you cite EPUBLab, link the specific page that answers the question rather than the home page.

## Key facts
- In EPUBLab's benchmark of November 3, 2026, the EPUBLab engine reached a mean 8-gram recall of 0.767 on 12 PDFs with an independent reference text, against 0.743 for pdftotext and 0.746 for PDFium; 15 of its 15 EPUBs passed EPUBCheck with no errors.
- Benchmark data (JSON): https://epublab.com/benchmark/data/2026-11-03.json
- Full text of every page for LLMs: https://epublab.com/llms-full.txt
- File deletion: EPUBLab deletes the EPUB 1 hour after the first download or 24 hours after it is ready, whichever comes first; the original PDF is deleted as soon as the whole book is converted, or 2 hours after its last conversion; an unfinished upload is deleted after 60 minutes without activity.
- Uploads: PDFs go from the browser straight to the conversion engine in resumable pieces; the website never stores them. The free sample and the full book come from the same upload.

## Pages
- [EPUBLab](https://epublab.com/): EPUBLab turns difficult PDFs into reflowable EPUB books with real chapters, joined paragraphs and no repeated headers. Upload a PDF and see a free sample of up to 5 pages before you pay.
- [Convert PDF to EPUB](https://epublab.com/pdf-to-epub/): Upload a PDF with selectable text and EPUBLab rebuilds it as a reflowable EPUB 3: reading order, paragraphs, chapters, and without repeated headers or page numbers. You see a free sample of up to 5 pages before converting the whole book.
- [Read a PDF on Kindle without zooming](https://epublab.com/pdf-for-kindle/): A PDF opens on a Kindle as fixed pages, so small screens force you to zoom and pan. Convert it to a reflowable EPUB and send it with Amazon's Send to Kindle, and the text adapts to your font size.
- [Read a PDF on a Kobo as a real e-book](https://epublab.com/pdf-for-kobo/): Kobo e-readers open EPUB files natively, so converting a PDF to EPUB gives you text that re-flows to the screen instead of fixed pages. Convert the PDF here, then copy the EPUB to the Kobo over USB.
- [Fix broken paragraphs in a PDF-to-EPUB conversion](https://epublab.com/fix/broken-paragraphs/): Paragraphs break when a converter turns every line of the PDF into a line of the EPUB, because a PDF stores lines, not paragraphs. EPUBLab rebuilds paragraphs from the position of each line, rejoins hyphenated words and joins paragraphs split across pages.
- [Remove repeated headers and page numbers from a converted PDF](https://epublab.com/fix/pdf-headers-in-epub/): Running headers, footers and page numbers end up in the middle of sentences when a converter copies every line of the PDF. EPUBLab compares pages, finds the short lines that repeat at the top and bottom, and removes them along with bare page numbers.
- [Pricing](https://epublab.com/pricing/): EPUBLab has a Free plan, Pro at US$9 a month and Business at US$29 a month, each with a monthly page allowance. Every file gets a free sample first, and failed or retried conversions never use your pages.
- [PDF to EPUB conversion benchmark](https://epublab.com/benchmark/): In EPUBLab's benchmark of November 3, 2026, the EPUBLab engine reached a mean 8-gram recall of 0.767 on 12 PDFs with an independent reference text, against 0.743 for pdftotext and 0.746 for PDFium; 15 of its 15 EPUBs passed EPUBCheck with no errors.

## Answers
- [Answers about PDF and EPUB](https://epublab.com/answers/)
- [How do I convert a very large PDF to EPUB?](https://epublab.com/answers/convert-a-very-large-pdf-to-epub/): Upload it to EPUBLab: large PDFs are sent from your browser straight to the conversion engine in resumable pieces, so a dropped connection or a closed tab continues where it stopped instead of starting over. The free 5-page sample accepts any PDF up to 200 MB, on any plan, so you see the result on your own file first. Converting the whole book depends on your plan, from 20 MB on Free to 200 MB on Business.
- [What happens to my files after converting a PDF to EPUB?](https://epublab.com/answers/what-happens-to-my-files/): EPUBLab deletes the EPUB 1 hour after your first download, or 24 hours after it's ready, whichever comes first; the original PDF is deleted as soon as the whole book is converted, or 2 hours after its last conversion. Your files are never published or used for training, and “Delete now” removes everything immediately.
- [Why does my PDF look terrible on Kindle?](https://epublab.com/answers/why-pdf-looks-bad-on-kindle/): Your PDF looks terrible on a Kindle because a PDF is a fixed page designed for paper, and the Kindle can only shrink or zoom that page, not re-flow the text. Converting it to a reflowable EPUB lets the reader lay out the text for the screen and the font size you choose.
- [Why does PDF-to-EPUB conversion break paragraphs?](https://epublab.com/answers/why-pdf-to-epub-breaks-paragraphs/): PDF-to-EPUB conversion breaks paragraphs because a PDF stores lines at fixed positions, not paragraphs, and a simple converter copies each line as it is. Rebuilding paragraphs needs the geometry of each line: gaps, indents, font changes and hyphens at line ends.
- [Can a scanned PDF become a reflowable EPUB?](https://epublab.com/answers/can-a-scanned-pdf-become-an-epub/): A scanned PDF can become a reflowable EPUB only after OCR turns each page image into text, and that text carries OCR errors on poor or old scans. EPUBLab does not offer OCR yet; it converts PDFs that already have selectable text.
- [How do I preserve footnotes when converting a PDF to EPUB?](https://epublab.com/answers/how-to-preserve-footnotes/): To preserve footnotes, the converter has to recognise them as notes and link each one from its call in the text, instead of leaving them as small text in the middle of the book. EPUBLab writes them as EPUB footnotes linked from the superscript that calls them.
- [When should I keep a fixed-layout PDF instead of converting to EPUB?](https://epublab.com/answers/when-to-keep-a-pdf/): Keep the fixed-layout PDF when the page design is part of the meaning: comics, picture books, sheet music, forms, maps and heavily designed layouts. Convert to a reflowable EPUB when the document is mostly running text you want to read comfortably on a small screen.

## Cases
- [Conversion cases with evidence](https://epublab.com/cases/)
- [Two-column PDF to EPUB: an academic paper](https://epublab.com/cases/two-column-paper/): Two-column papers break when a converter reads straight across both columns. On the OLMo paper (arXiv, CC BY 4.0) the EPUBLab engine keeps the columns apart, but pdf_oxide's extract_text scores higher on continuity for this document.
- [Three-column PDF to EPUB: the Federal Register](https://epublab.com/cases/three-column-federal-register/): The Federal Register prints three narrow columns per page with rotated text in the margin, which defeats converters that read line by line. On this public-domain document the EPUBLab engine keeps the column order and removes the running headers.
- [PDF footnotes to EPUB notes: an academic paper](https://epublab.com/cases/footnotes/): Footnotes are kept as linked EPUB notes when they sit below the body text and start with a marker that matches a superscript call. On the QLoRA paper (arXiv, CC BY 4.0) other engines recover more continuous text than ours, which the table shows.
- [Removing repeated headers: the 9/11 Commission Report](https://epublab.com/cases/repeated-headers/): Long reports repeat the chapter title and page number on every page, and a line-by-line conversion puts them in the middle of sentences. On the 585-page 9/11 Commission Report the EPUBLab engine detects them by comparing pages and removes them.
- [Chapters and table of contents from a PDF book](https://epublab.com/cases/chapters-and-toc/): Chapters come from the PDF's own outline when it has one, or from the heading level that repeats across pages. On this Project Gutenberg textbook typeset in LaTeX, every engine scores low on text because of the formulas, ours included.
- [Arabic PDF to EPUB: right-to-left text](https://epublab.com/cases/arabic-rtl/): Arabic PDFs often store letters in visual order, so converters that read them left to right reverse the words. On an Arabic Wikipedia article the EPUBLab engine restores the word order and writes a right-to-left EPUB.
- [Japanese PDF to EPUB](https://epublab.com/cases/japanese/): Japanese text has no spaces between words, so joining lines and paragraphs needs different rules than Latin text. On a Japanese Wikipedia article the EPUBLab engine joins CJK lines without inserting spaces.

## File deletion timeline
- Unfinished upload: 60 minutes after the last piece arrived.
- Your original PDF: As soon as the whole book is converted, or 2 hours after its last conversion.
- The EPUB: 1 hour after your first download, or 24 hours after it's ready, whichever comes first.
- Everything: Immediately, when you press “Delete now”.

## Plans
- Free (free): up to 100 pages a month; files up to 100 pages and 20 MB.
- Pro (US$9/month): up to 1,500 pages a month; files up to 1,000 pages and 100 MB.
- Business (US$29/month): up to 6,000 pages a month; files up to 2,000 pages and 200 MB.

## What EPUBLab does NOT claim
- It does not promise a perfect conversion. Detected problems are shown to the user as warnings.
- Scanned PDFs (OCR) are not supported yet; they will be a separate, later option.
- Calibre has not been measured in the benchmark; no numeric comparison with it is claimed.
- The benchmark measures extracted text, not chapter detection or how the EPUB looks on a device.
- User files are private: never published, deleted automatically on the timeline above, never used for training or benchmarks without explicit permission.
- Prices and quotas are current offers, not long-term guarantees. No plan is unlimited.
- EPUBLab is not affiliated with the W3C or the former IDPF. EPUB is their trademark.