How to Batch Convert PDF Comics to ZIP Archives

 What I want to say today is actually not complicated. It's just a method to convert a PDF to a ZIP file.

It so happens that the topic related to PDF has been brought up recently, so I'll take this opportunity to write about it and share it.

The main purpose is to share with everyone how A Xu thinks about solutions when encountering some problems.

Problems Encountered

The reason for the problem is not complicated. I previously wanted to upload a set of PDF versions of the "Longman Institute" comics that I found to vol.moe (a well-known comic website)

However, vol.moe only supports uploading files in compressed package format (because it needs to extract the images inside the compressed package to create a unified mobi/epub file)

I did a quick search on Baidu and found that although some online conversion websites support PDF to ZIP conversion, the process of uploading, converting, and then downloading is too cumbersome for me when I want to convert dozens of PDF files.

Besides, I also tried out 7 or 8 PDF conversion tools. Generally speaking, these PDF conversion software only support converting PDFs to Word, images, HTML, PPT, etc., but none of them can convert PDFs to compressed packages.

Then I thought of the e-book conversion tool Calibre again.

Although Calibre (calibre-ebook.com) supports direct conversion of PDF to ZIP, the actual conversion result is stored in the compressed package in the form of HTML.

It's not what I want: The compressed file contains only a bunch of pictures.

My Solution Approach

After thinking for a long time, I found that the problem doesn't seem so easy to solve.

At such times, I usually would...

Think about What result do I need to? 

The answer to the question above is quite simple: I need to convert the content of the PDF into a compressed package, where the image files are stored in sequence and named accordingly.

After reading this sentence several times carefully, it is not difficult to find that, in fact, to achieve the result I need, I can completely adopt a different solution approach:

1. First, convert the PDF to images.

2. Then, manually compress the images into a compressed package yourself.

Although it may seem that the process has become more complicated, that's not the case:

1. PDF to image conversion can be done in batches.

2. Each folder can be compressed into a separate archive file, and this can also be achieved in batches.

So even if one step is divided into two to achieve, it actually doesn't become much more complicated.

Here, I still follow the principle of installing as few software as possible. The software I use to convert PDF to images is still the one I shared before: Solid Converter PDF：https://link-center.net/1394003/iybREmKKQ5PX

There's not much to explain about converting PDF to images with Solid Converter PDF.

It is worth mentioning that after clicking the "PDF to Image" button in the above picture, the software will automatically create an empty folder in your computer's document directory by default. The folder is named in the format of "pdf file name_images".

Here, it is recommended to default to converting into this folder first. Because if you choose another directory, you will need to manually create a new folder and name it yourself, which is a bit more troublesome.

The naming format of the image after the conversion is as shown in the following figure.

Of course, if you are not satisfied with this naming method, you can rename it yourself at the same time.

Finally, compress each folder into a separate compressed file.

I used this method to convert all the PDFs.

In fact, it only took less than half an hour. Including the waiting time for conversion and the batch renaming process, it took less than a minute to complete the conversion of one PDF.

The main purpose of writing this article is actually to tell everyone:

If you encounter a problem that is hard to solve, you should immediately try to stop.

Go back to the beginning of the problem and carefully consider its essence.

Why do you need to solve this problem?

What result do you want to achieve?

.......

Work backward from the result to find a solution and change your perspective to achieve the goal in a roundabout way.

Perhaps it is a more relaxed way to solve problems in more cases.