Hi Jordan,
Echoing what Ann said, and looking at the PDF, my guess is that it has to do with the HTML coding. In my experience, Pressbooks cannot cleanly import documents that have any sort of fancy formatting (eg, two
columns of text, decorative lines to separate chunks of text, etc). I would find a way to convert the PDF or epub into a text only file and replace any decorative formatting with simple styles (eg streamlining to 1 column of text, using headers instead of
style lines to break up text, etc).
I would also import images manually. It’s a pain, I know, but I typically have issues importing documents with images. I find that if you import text only, and then add the images manually, things tend to
go smoothly.
Best,
Alexandra
From:
Canada Open Education Resources <canadaoer@lists.bccampus.ca>
Date: Monday, February 3, 2025 at 1:13 PM
To: canadaoer@lists.bccampus.ca <canadaoer@lists.bccampus.ca>
Subject: [Canadaoer] Re: Importing Epubs into Pressbooks
Hi Jordan -
I have had some success with importing PDFs with just some mild formatting issues, but they were text only documents.
The best thing would be to get the word or google doc source files if you can.
If you don't have access to those have you also tried importing the PDF into Word or Google docs and then trying to clean it up a bit there, and then importing in the cleaned up version in word format? That might be easier than fixing the
Pressbooks version?
Interested in seeing what others suggest.
I'm hoping for some advice, although I think it's likely that the answer to my question is that there's something weird going on in the conversion process that only the folks with access to the
source files can fix.
I've been working with a group on campus who has created cookbooks in PDF and fixed layout epub format, and they would like to get the books into Pressbooks. They hired a designer for the pdf and
epub on a contract, and that person is no longer working with them. The source files they have are nicely laid out with lots of pictures.
We can import the epub into Pressbooks, but whenever we do it gets super junky (example),
while the pdf looks like
this (page 31). It's definitely possible it could be the fault of Pressbooks, but I also took a look at the epub files and when I open them in Digital Editions they also have issues, though the issues are mostly to do with fonts, and are not visible in
Books on a mac.
Does anyone have any advice for troubleshooting / still getting this content into Pressbooks, or is it a bit of a lost cause?
Jordan Pedersen (she/her) | Research and Scholarship Librarian
McLaughlin Library | University of Guelph
50 Stone Rd E | Guelph, ON | N1G 2W1
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