[Athen] Converting EPUB to PDF

[Schwarte, David M.]

Hello david,

Thanks for stating what I was thinking so well.  In the “wild” a PDF that has text, a set reading order, and tags is extremely rare.  So rare that I assume none of these features are there and proceed with opening the PDF as if it were image-only.  Long-term this is faster and less labor intensive.  Remediating documents is not in my job description, so spending time in testing accessibility and fixing issues is essentially a hobby.  In comparison, an imperfect ePub is a vast improvement.

David Schwarte


From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> On Behalf Of David Andrews
Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2018 10:55 PM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Converting EPUB to PDF

No one is going to do all this conversion and hand-holding for them when they get out of academia. It would seem prudent to me to teach them how to deal with the materials that are available.

I know ePub is a change for people, but 15 or 20 years ago, so were PDF's and people kicked and screamed.  ePub's offer a richer, and inherently more accessible experience over PDF's.  There is still some growing that needs to be done by tools, but they have the potential to be substantially better!

Dave


At 08:46 AM 8/29/2018, you wrote:

Same here.  For most of them, navigating a PDF is new to them, as surprising as that might be.  Not all young people are tech enthusiasts, as is commonly believed, so I am trying to put the least amount of stress on them as possible.


On Wed, Aug 29, 2018 at 9:44 AM Susan Kelmer < Susan.Kelmer at colorado.edu<mailto:Susan.Kelmer at colorado.edu>> wrote:
Andrea, this is basically what we do with Bookshare files.  Most of my sighted students have no interest in learning to navigate a bookshare file, so we convert to word, add in page numbers and heading levels (because those do not exist or are poorly done in most bookshare files) and then convert word to PDF, or just give the student the word files.
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Isn’t it amazing the hoops we jump through for your students?  This is also why I am so angry about publishers finding yet another few hoops we have to jump through to get what our students need.  Why are they making things more difficult?
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Susan Kelmer
Alternate Format Production Program Manager
Disability Services
University of Colorado Boulder
303-735-4836
Â
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From: athen-list < athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu>> On Behalf Of Andrea L. Dietrich
Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2018 7:03 AM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network < athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Converting EPUB to PDF
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I use a free program called Calibre (also available in a “portable” version in case you don’t have the ability to install software on your computers yourself). It’s designed as a general ebook management program, but it has really good conversion capabilities. The only issues I’ve had with epub to PDF are that sometimes the conversion will divide pages in odd places, and that there are usually no original page numbers to correspond to the hard copy of the book.
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Depending on your time constraints, you might want to convert the epub to .docx, add page breaks manually in Word, and then convert that file to PDF so that you can “recreate” the original publisher layout for the book, but obviously that’s more time-consuming.
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Good luck!
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-Andi :)
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--------------------------
Andrea Dietrich
Cornell University
Student Disability Services
Cornell Health, Level 5
110 Ho Plaza
Ithaca, NY 14853
http://sds.cornell.edu<http://sds.cornell.edu/>
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Tel. 607.254.4545
Fax. 607.255.1562
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Office Hours:
Monday-Thursday 8:15AM-4:45PM
Friday 8:15AM-4:00PM
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From: athen-list < athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu>> On Behalf Of Robert Spangler
Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2018 8:54 AM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network < athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>
Subject: [Athen] Converting EPUB to PDF
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Hello, is it possible to convert from EPUB to PDF and, if so, how would I go about doing it?  We distribute PDFs only to our students unless otherwise requested, but a publisher on AccessText is stating that Epub is the only option available from them.

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--
Robert Spangler
Disability Services Technical Support Specialist
rspangler1 at udayton.edu<mailto:rspangler1 at udayton.edu>
Office of Learning Resources (OLR) - RL 023
Ryan C. Harris Learning & Teaching Center (LTC)
University of Dayton  | 300 College Park  |  Dayton, Ohio 45469-1302
Phone: 937-229-2066
Fax: 937-229-3270
Ohio Relay: 711 (available for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing)
Web Site: http://go.udayton.edu/learning
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--
Robert Spangler
Disability Services Technical Support Specialist
rspangler1 at udayton.edu<mailto:rspangler1 at udayton.edu>
Office of Learning Resources (OLR) - RL 023
Ryan C. Harris Learning & Teaching Center (LTC)
University of Dayton  | 300 College Park  |  Dayton, Ohio 45469-1302
Phone: 937-229-2066
Fax: 937-229-3270
Ohio Relay: 711 (available for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing)
Web Site: http://go.udayton.edu/learning
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