Convert EPUB to PDF

No — this conversion pins the layout. An EPUB adapts its line breaks to whatever width and font size the reader is using; the PDF fixes page geometry at conversion time, so on a phone you get the whole page scaled down rather than text rewrapped to the screen. That is the right trade when the layout must not move, and the wrong one when the file is for reading on a small device. EPUB reflows text to any screen size and any font size, which is what makes it readable on a phone as well as an e-reader. PDF is Adobe’s Portable Document Format from 1993, standardised as ISO 32000 and now the universal fixed-layout document.

Yes where both formats can express them. Cover art, chapter divisions and a navigable table of contents are structural metadata, so they carry across rather than being flattened into the text. Footnotes and index entries are the fragile parts — they degrade into inline text on targets with no anchor mechanism.

Yes, and the EPUB would not have. Browsers ship a decoder for PDF and none for EPUB, so an EPUB link forces a download while a PDF renders inline. That is usually the deciding factor when the file is going onto a web page rather than into an application. A PDF looks byte-for-byte identical on every machine and every printer, which is why contracts, invoices and academic papers all live in it.

DRM, in almost every case. A protected EPUB is encrypted and tied to an account, and no converter can decrypt it — ours included. Files you created yourself, or bought from a DRM-free store, convert without any trouble at all. EPUB has no fixed pagination, so page numbers are meaningless, and complex layout — tables, equations, multi-column — degrades badly.

It depends entirely on whether real text is present. A PDF generated from a document carries an actual text layer and is searchable; a PDF built from scans or images is a picture of text and is not, until OCR adds a layer. /pdf-ocr/ does that, and it is worth running before any conversion that expects to read the words.

Yes — the advanced options expose page size (A4, A5, letter, 6×9 trade paperback, custom), margin presets (narrow / normal / wide), and font size. A5 + 11pt is a common e-reader-like default; 6×9 + 11pt matches most printed paperbacks.

Yes — fonts in the EPUB OPF are read and embedded as PDF font subsets in the PDF, so the result renders identically on every PDF viewer. If the EPUB uses fonts without embedding permission, we substitute a license-clear fallback (DejaVu Serif / Sans).

Yes — the NCX / nav from the EPUB is converted to PDF bookmarks (the side panel in Acrobat / Preview) AND inline clickable links on the PDF's rendered TOC page. Both link to the correct PDF page anchors.

Images in the EPUB are embedded at their native resolution. Width is constrained to the PDF text frame; images larger than the column are scaled down to fit. The "image quality" advanced option controls re-encoding quality (95 = archival, 75 = compact).

For commercial print, switch the advanced options to 300 DPI / CMYK / no-bleed. The default PDF output is screen-optimized (RGB, 150 DPI), which is fine for self-printing on a home laser but light for offset / digital print runs.

Chapter-start "always-on-right-page" CSS in the EPUB introduces blank verso pages, just like printed books. Turn off the "force chapter start on odd page" advanced option to remove them; you trade book-like layout for a few-page-shorter PDF.