I’m converting PDFs to ePubs using calibre, it is very slow can you suggest faster alternatives?

Problem:

converting pdfs to epubs using calibre is very slow. It has takes 2 hours+ for 40mb pdfs to convert to epub

I’m using calibre to convert from PDFs to ePub format for books but it is exceedingly slow.

Question:

Is there a faster app I can use that you have tested vs calibre and found the performance much better?

Research:

I looked online for alternatives but they all seem like ads pushing their product, so I thought it best to ask the community who won’t have a financial incentive and will have experience.

System: MacBook Air 2018 model

Processor: 1.6GHz dual-core Intel Core i5

Storage1: 128GB PCIe-based SSD

OS: Big Sur latest update (yesterday)

Solution 1:

Using the identical 30mb pdf book:

Calibre GUI: 1hr47 mins to convert

Calibre cmdline: 37 mins to convert

The GUI converted ePub is in the calibre library dir

The cmdline converted ePub is in the calibre cmdline dir

Both working as expected

Steps:

cd ~/Applications/calibre.app/Contents/MacOS

Test for yourself with:

time ./ebook-convert <pathToPdf>.pdf <pathWhereEver>.epub

Compare with GUI convert and be amazed

Add the following to ~/.bash_profile so you can just do ebook-convert:

export PATH=“/Users/$HOME/Applications/calibre.app/Contents/MacOS:$PATH”