how i finally fixed my pdf to epub problem and started reading again

okay so i need to talk about this thing that's been genuinely helpful for me, but first i have to explain why it even became an issue in the first place.

i've been trying to read more this year - not in a "new year new me" way, just in a "i used to read all the time and somehow stopped" way. and i kept finding all these interesting articles and books online that were exactly what i wanted to read, but they were all in pdf format. which is fine on a computer, but i mostly read on my phone during my commute or during lunch breaks or in those random pockets of time throughout the day.

and reading pdfs on a phone is just... not great? like, you have to pinch and zoom and scroll sideways and the text never wraps properly and it's just this whole thing that makes me want to give up after five minutes. so i had all this stuff i wanted to read but the format was getting in the way, which is honestly kind of frustrating when you think about it.

so there i was with this massive pdf of this book about creativity that i'd been wanting to read forever, and i'm staring at it on my phone during my commute, squinting at tiny text and scrolling back and forth, and i'm just like, this is ridiculous. there has to be a better way to do this.

i talked to my friend about it - she's one of those people who reads like five books a month and has her whole system figured out - and she asked me why i wasn't just converting everything to epub. and i was like "wait, that's something people can do?" because apparently i've been living under a rock or something.

she sent me this link for this thing that does pdf to epub conversion and honestly, i was kind of skeptical? i've used online converters before and they're usually janky or full of ads or don't actually work that well. but i was desperate so i figured why not.

the whole process was just... straightforward? like, you upload the pdf, wait a bit, download the epub file, and that's it. no signing up for anything, no weird popups, no "upgrade to premium" every five seconds. it just works.

and the difference in reading experience is huge. like, actually huge. the text reflows properly, i can adjust the font size, i can actually read without squinting or scrolling sideways every three seconds. it's just comfortable.

what i wasn't expecting was how much this small change would actually affect my reading habits. before, i'd find something i wanted to read, see it was a pdf, and be like "ugh, maybe later" and then never actually get around to it. now i just convert it immediately and add it to my reading list. the friction is just gone.

i've read more in the past month than i did in the three months before that combined. and it's not because i suddenly have more time or more motivation or anything like that. it's just that the format isn't getting in the way anymore.

my roommate noticed me reading more and asked what changed, so i showed her the conversion thing, and now she's using it for her grad school readings because she was having the same problem with all these academic papers being in pdf format and it being annoying to read them on her tablet during her commute.

she was complaining the other day about how she should have been doing this months ago, which is honestly how i felt too. like, it seems so obvious in retrospect but i just didn't know it was something i could easily do.

i don't know, i think there's something kind of nice about finding these little tools that just make your daily life a bit easier. not in some big dramatic way, just in this quiet way where something that used to be annoying just... isn't anymore.

anyway, if you're also sitting there with a bunch of pdfs you keep meaning to read but never actually get around to because the format is annoying, maybe give it a try. or don't. i'm not trying to tell you what to do. it's just been genuinely helpful for me and i wish i'd found it sooner.