Hi is there anyway of importing a PDF document with chapters etc in it into a book resource effectively keeping the same format without having to copy individual sections manually?
Thanks
Rob
Well you can screen shot each page and upload it that way but I am not familiar with a more elegant solution.
Rob Cunniffe asked Wednesday, 10 March 2010, 04:14 AM:
>Hi is there anyway of importing a PDF document with chapters etc in it into a book resource ...
There is no easy way to import PDF into a Moodle Book.
You can try a PDF to HTML conversion tool (such as the one provided by Adobe). But the results are usually disappointing.
Most documents created with PDF do not have the needed formatting information in them to create a good web page. Even where there is formatting, it is very poor and does not suit online viewing of the document.
The good news is that it is very easy to convert from a Moodle Book to PDF and to other formats such as ebooks.
I spend a lot of time copying the text from PDF documents into web pages for my Green Technology Strategies course. But then I was able to produce a Moodle Book and from that publish a printed book and ebook.
My hope is that ebook formats with better formatting will one day replace PDF.
The trick I use is to export the books as IMS objects, it's basically html.
Reconstituting the book is slightly easier. Graphics still have to be handled manually.
IMS is also usable as a object it imports straight into Moodle.
Reconstituting the book is slightly easier. Graphics still have to be handled manually.
IMS is also usable as a object it imports straight into Moodle.
John Andrewartha wrote Thursday, 11 March 2010, 10:22 AM:
>The trick I use is to export the books as IMS objects, it's basically html. ...
I can't see how that would help import to Moodle books from PDF.
If you have the book as an IMS object, you can un-Zip the file and extract the HTML and CSS files. If the IMS file was created by Moodle or a simialr LMS and the author structured the content logically, you will see a neat set of web pages.
But if you try examining the contents of a typical PDF file you will find a mess of text intermixed with low level formatting.
See my discussion of file formats.
>The trick I use is to export the books as IMS objects, it's basically html. ...
I can't see how that would help import to Moodle books from PDF.
If you have the book as an IMS object, you can un-Zip the file and extract the HTML and CSS files. If the IMS file was created by Moodle or a simialr LMS and the author structured the content logically, you will see a neat set of web pages.
But if you try examining the contents of a typical PDF file you will find a mess of text intermixed with low level formatting.
See my discussion of file formats.