Thanks! For now will keep everything in pdf then… But if any power user or developer has better ideas, I’
m listening… All the best!
Yes, that is what I have ended up with (converting all ePubs to pdf and then adding them to DEVONthink). There are problems with this as you have mentioned.
An ePub reading/annotating app that could function without sucking the book into its own library would be wonderful. Unfortunately I have been waiting for such a tool for years. I think Apple actually did us a disservice with Books (then iBooks) in not giving an option to merely use it as a reader.
Does the ePub format support the ability to work with annotations and markup as thoroughly and robustly as the (fully proper) PDF format?
If not, IMHO, the inability to annotate and markup ePubs in Devonthink is not worth taking time to fix. Assure reliable, robust ePub → PDF conversion and be done with it.
A bit of background … I find the ePub format to be a horrible idea for doing anything that should be referenced in a certifiable manner. Tell me you will markup and hyperlink back to sentence 2 in paragraph 4 on page 3 of a PDF … done. Now try the same with ePub.
Just my 2c.
–
JJW
1 Like
That’s exactly why an upcoming release will improve this conversion.
2 Likes
No. EPub doesn’t even define bookmarks. Therefore, every reader does its own thing.
Yes. I agree that at the end of the day it seems BETTER for devonthink not to work with epubs. It is annoying and time consuming to have to use calibre for the conversion but it is done only once. And then I agree: PDF is a better format for storing annotated documents.
So, I ended up storing both pdf and epubs in my DB but using only the former. The only issue is if I want to read stored epubs in an iPhone or iPad mini - then epubs are handy. iBooks will NOT open without internet, even if the pdf is already stored. I found an alternative: TI-READER. It seems they are not updating it anymore but it works great for now. Just wanted to share. Thanks to all of you that commented!
For all who search for a solution for EPUB files - in Devonthink 4 the conversion to pdf seems to work, thanks to the Devonthink Team!
1 Like
The conversion of EPUB to paginated PDF has been indeed rewritten and adds now a table of contents and filters white/duplicate pages. Version 4 is also able to convert EPUB to Markdown but it’s only recommended for smaller EPUBs and/or without images.
1 Like
that would(?) work only if you index epub books, right?
if you import epub book into the DT directly, this is not an option, I assume?
hi @cgrunenberg ,
I think I’ve missed this one: does DT 4 have a better conversion of epub → pdf, compared to DT3…?
I’ve tried to convert some epubs with DT3, but quickly discarded the idea, since the formatting was getting lost.
I might try this with DT4, if, as you state, it has been rewritten to some extent…
It’s a completely different conversion.
1 Like
thanks! I somehow definitely missed this. was it somewhere mentioned in the release notes…?
1 Like
Cool!
I just converted an EPUB file. On the first glance, the formatting appears better. However, some images are either cropped or “skewed” beyond the point of being readable or usable.
Regardless, it’s great that such a feature exists within DT.
1 Like
just want to say thanks to the DEVONthink team for bringing the new epub conversion to DT4 — I’ve tested it on several other PDF documents which I use rather often (and have previously converted with DT3) — the conversion now is so much better!
p.s. could you pls share a few technical details what has changed?
The WebKit & PDFkit frameworks are now used for the conversion and each chapter is processed on its own.
2 Likes