If you have a PDF that you want to convert to HTML to upload to Amazon’s Digital Text Platform (DTP), Adobe has a free service to do just that!
Head over to the Adobe Online PDF Conversion Tools page. You have the option of e-mailing the PDF as an attachment, or uploading to the system from a web URL. Before you get started, you should probably read the FAQ page so you’ll have a better idea what to expect.
Adobe gives you two conversion options by email: one to make your PDF file into a plain text file, the other to convert it to HTML:
- Plain text: email your PDF to pdf2txt@adobe.com
- HTML: email your PDF to pdf2html@adobe.com
For our purposes here, converting the PDF for upload to Amazon DTP, you’ll want to use the HTML option.
For the URL conversion, just type in the URL of the PDF, click the button for the format you want (HTML or text), and click Convert.
I tested both routes – email and URL – using the sample of In Her Name, with the following results:
- The email conversions worked fine, but you need to make sure you send the emails in plaintext format (not rich text or HTML). Any files I sent that weren’t plaintext format got kicked back.
- The URL conversion didn’t work for me and gave me an unspecified error, so you may or may not have better luck with that.
As for how the resulting HTML file looked, it was generally quite good. However, the big downside for anyone who has files with images is that no images were returned from the conversion process, only the text.
Also, don’t think that this (or any other PDF conversion) will result in clean copy: you’ll almost inevitably have to go in and tweak the HTML a bit to get it formatted the way you want. But that’s generally not too big a deal, and the conversion definitely gets you moving in the right direction!
Credit for this tip goes to DTP user booksdontchange.
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#1 by Pat King on February 18th, 2009 - 12:57 pm
You have just saved me WEEKS and WEEKS of tedious work converting a PDF to text. I had to strip out so many extra characters, carriage returns, reformat all the graphics, and a thousand other details. I’ll try this new service and see how it goes. MANY THANKS!
#2 by Pat King on February 18th, 2009 - 6:43 pm
I keep getting an error message.
—– The following addresses had permanent fatal errors —–
pdf2html@access-sjc0-1.ntbe.adobe.com
(reason: 552 5.3.4 Message size exceeds fixed maximum message size)
I sent a file that was 5.5 meg. Lots of b&w art in my book. Any ideas on how to get around that or find out who at Adobe will know the maximum size file they accept?
Thanks!
#3 by Michael R. Hicks on February 19th, 2009 - 4:59 pm
Pat – Glad the tip was of help!
And no, unfortunately I don’t have the answer to what the max size is, but you should be able to contact Adobe tech support through their site and ask. And just remember that the conversion – if/when it works for you – *won’t* return any images, just the text.
#4 by Elbert House on June 1st, 2009 - 4:06 pm
I want my pdf submission t operate on the Kindle DX only so it will be interactive. How will Amazon DTP accommodate this desire?
#5 by Michael R. Hicks on June 3rd, 2009 - 7:54 am
Elbert -
Unfortunately, at this time – so far as I know – DTP hasn’t made any special accommodation for the extended features like this that are particular to the DX. So I’d keep a lookout on the DTP forums and elsewhere to see if/when such features become available.
#6 by Bill on April 15th, 2010 - 8:34 am
Unfortunately The Adobe Free conversion service DOES NOT WORK! (4/14/10)
I just tried sending a 3.4 meg PDF file to the Adobe designated e-mail address of pdf2html@adobe.com and it bounced twice Reason: 552 5.3.4 Message Size exceeds fixed maximum message size.
I then sent two other e-mails without the attachment to find out what the size limit was and what could be done. They were both rejected by Adobe Error: No attachment found in message.
I then contacted Adobe support and after being transferred twice, talking with 3 people I could barely understand and over 30 minutes of holding I was told Adobe would not help me because that service is not supported and there was no solution.
I still want to convert my PDF book into Kindle and ebook.com formats. Any suggestions, other than Adobe?