FB2 to PDF:
Converter

Page setup options

• Page size: A5 (the default, close to a paperback page), A4, US Letter, or 6 × 9 in, a common size for print-on-demand books.
• Text size: anywhere from 8 to 18 points; 11 pt is the starting value. Go up to 13 or 14 for readers who prefer large print.
• Font: Serif (Times) for a classic book look, or Sans (Helvetica) for a cleaner page on screens.
• Margins are set for you at one tenth of the page’s shorter side, and paragraphs are justified like a printed book.

How the book is laid out

The cover picture, if the FB2 has one, gets its own first page. After that each section of the book starts on a fresh page, so chapters never begin halfway down. Section titles and subtitles become headings, poems keep their line breaks, epigraphs are set as quotations, and pictures are placed at the point in the text where the book shows them. Every page gets a number.

The PDF’s document properties carry the book title and author from the FB2, so they show up in the file information of your PDF viewer.

Cyrillic text in the PDF

The PDF uses the standard Times and Helvetica fonts, which cover Latin letters. Russian, Ukrainian and other Cyrillic text still looks right, because those words are drawn as tiny pictures. The catch is that you can’t select, copy or search that text, and the file is larger than an English book of the same length.

For a Russian novel you only want to read, that is usually fine. If you need to search the book or copy quotes from it, convert FB2 to EPUB instead, which keeps the text as text.

Printing tips

1. Match the page size to your paper: A4 or US Letter for a home printer.
2. For a compact booklet, make an A5 PDF and choose two pages per sheet in your printer dialog. Two A5 pages fit side by side on one A4 sheet.
3. Print a few pages first to check the text size before printing the whole book.
4. Long novels make long PDFs. Print in ranges (pages 1–100, 101–200) if your printer struggles with big jobs.

Reading the PDF on a phone or tablet

A4 pages are hard to read on a phone without zooming. For screen reading, choose A5 or 6 × 9 in and raise the text size to 12 or 13 pt. Each page then holds fewer words, the letters are bigger, and you can turn pages by swiping in any PDF viewer, including the ones built into Android and iPhone.

On a tablet held upright, A5 at 11 pt is usually comfortable. On a laptop, A4 or US Letter shows a full page at a readable size.

PDF or EPUB?

Pick PDF when the page layout should stay put: printing, sharing with someone who has no ebook app, or reading on a large screen. Pick EPUB for reading on a phone or e-reader, where text that reflows to fit the screen is more comfortable than zooming around a fixed page.