EpubCCHow long does a PDF to EPUB conversion take?
Updated:
Usually seconds once it starts: on our production server, a 585-page text book converted in 3.0 seconds and a 487-page book full of charts in 14.9 seconds (measured on 2026-11-04). The free 5-page sample takes under a second; uploading a large file and waiting in the queue can take longer than the conversion itself.
What the time depends on
- Images and charts: decoding them is the slow part, which is why the chart-heavy book took five times longer with fewer pages.
- Page count, roughly in proportion once the images are accounted for.
- Your upload: a large PDF is sent in pieces from your browser; the time depends on your connection.
- The queue: conversions run a few at a time, with priority by plan, so at busy moments you may wait for your turn.
What the page shows while you wait
The conversion page shows real states only: uploaded, pages counted, queued with your position, converting, done. The estimate is a range based on the seconds per page of recent conversions, and before there are enough of those, on a measured starting rule of about 2 seconds per job plus 0.05 seconds per page. There is no invented progress percentage.
If the estimate is over a minute you can ask for an email when it's ready and close the tab.
Measured, not promised
The two book timings come from the production machine on 2026-11-04, and the benchmark publishes the time each engine took on each document of the corpus. Your own PDF may be faster or slower; the free sample is the quickest way to find out.
Evidence from the benchmark
| Engine | Seconds |
|---|---|
| EpubCC engine (EPUB output) | 1.021 |
| EpubCC engine (plain text) | 0.241 |
| pdf_oxide · extract_text | 0.382 |
| pdf_oxide · to_plain_text (XY-cut) | 0.386 |
| pdf_oxide · Markdown | 0.548 |
| PDFium · text().all() | 0.175 |
| OpenDataLoader PDF (local mode) | 2.145 |
| pdftotext (Poppler) | 0.258 |
Try a free sample
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