I have no trouble converting short PDF’s to text with Scrivener. When I tried to convert an entire PDF version of a 128 page book, the document just disappeared. Is an entire book to long? Does it take a long time and I need more patience? Help
Is nobody interested in trying to answer this post?
Scrivener itself can’t convert PDFs to text.
Some PDFs—those printed from a word processor—usually come with a “text layer” which you can copy and paste into a Scrivener document. However, in my experience you end up with a carriage return at the end of every line which you need to replace with spaces to reconstruct the paragraphs properly.
Other PDFs—principally those which result from scanning—only consist of an image. For those you need an OCR (optical character recognition) application to analyse it and turn it into text that you can copy and paste … though in my experience you also need to go over the resulting text very carefully and thoroughly as many mistakes/misinterpretations will have crept in, as well as dealing with unwanted carriage returns.
A 128 page document is going to take a fair amount of time and work, even more so if the PDF has come from a scanner.
Mark
Actually, Scrivener can convert PDF files to text (via Documents > Convert).
Would it be possible to attach the problematic PDF file to your reply (via the “Attachments” tab beneath the reply text box) or to send it to us at mac.suport AT literatureandlatte.com? I’d like to see what’s happening there.
All the best,
Keith