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Recently I have converted one of my iCloud notes into an EPUB by first copying and pasting its content to Pages (by parts, since the entire content was not willing to be copied for some reason), then by manually designating all the headers as Pages headers (to get the table of contents working), and then by using the Pages "Export to EPUB" option. This was a lengthy and unpleasant procedure. Is there a better way to turn a note into an EPUB? By the way, I specifically need to have all the images from the note in the resulting EPUB document.

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  • My guess is that you'll need to use something like calibre & calibre command line tools. My issue is that the notes app is just hard to control – it seems like you don't have a lot of options in terms of getting contents of your files. You can't "save as" or anything like that. All you can do is copy&paste or export as a PDF. I tried converting the exported PDF to epub with calibre, but only got mediocre results. What's the downside of a PDF (so I can think of other solutions)? Jun 19, 2020 at 22:52
  • @TalosPotential For me, the main downside of an auto-generated PDF in Notes is its font size - if I generate my PDF on iPhone, the text size will be too huge to read, and if I generate it on Mac, the font size will be too small to read on iPhone.
    – Mr_Tusk
    Jun 19, 2020 at 23:02
  • There is a 3rd party app to convert all your notes to text files.
    – Natsfan
    Aug 19, 2020 at 4:04
  • The downside of pdf is that it copies what it looks like on papaer and loses all information about formatting if you chnage the size of the paper/screen. epub is html so you can resize fonts change the screen size etc without losing information.
    – mmmmmm
    Dec 17, 2020 at 12:32
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    The issue here is converting from Notes to anything - I suspect the easy answer is to start writing in something else (e.g. Pages) not notes.
    – mmmmmm
    Dec 17, 2020 at 12:33

2 Answers 2

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Sorry you had challenges with the copy to pages. In my experience, the content from the note to Pages is generally excellent and one step. Pages has EPUB export capabilities and has taken over all functions for complex document authoring and layout that the discontinued iBooks Author app provided in the past for macOS.

I think you will find the hassle to get it into pages lessened over time and benefit from having it in a format you can edit easier than PDF.

Once your notes grow more complicated, doing the authoring in pages first may be the best solution so you are not hobbled by the limited features and choices made for notes app to be a lightweight authoring environment. Pages is much better for things that fall between PageMaker / LaTeX documents and notes which hit the phone / pad / desktop sweet spot for basic function.

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You can save a Note as a PDF in the Notes App. Then you can use EPubIr to convert the PDF to EPUB. EPubIR is an app available at the link above. It sells for $2.99.

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  • why the downvote?
    – Natsfan
    Dec 18, 2020 at 1:25
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    pdf to epub is lossy
    – mmmmmm
    Aug 9, 2022 at 13:27

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