How to convert DjVu to PDF

Converting a .djvu file to PDF is usually about compatibility: DjVu keeps scanned books small and sharp, but PDF is what colleagues, printers, e-readers, and submission systems actually accept.

The important part is doing it without losing what makes the scan useful - the sharpness of the page and the ability to search its text - and without handing the document to a website.

Convert on a Mac

1. Open the document. Double-click the .djvu file in Finder.
2. Check whether the text is searchable. Press Command-F and search for a word you can see on screen. If it is found, the file already has a text layer. If nothing is found, the pages are images only.
3. Recognize the text first, if needed. Run text recognition so the export has something to put in the PDF’s text layer. This runs on your Mac and can take a few minutes for a long book.
4. Choose File > Export as PDF.
5. Pick your settings. Choose a quality preset, and turn on the searchable text layer if you want the PDF to be searchable.
6. Save. The PDF is written straight to the folder you choose.

Full detail is in Saving and exporting.

Convert on iPhone or iPad

The same export exists on iOS and iPadOS. Open the document, run text recognition if the scan has no text, then export to PDF and send it to Files, Mail, or any app in the share sheet. Recognition and export keep running while you use other apps, and show their progress on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island.

See On iPhone and iPad.

Choosing a quality preset

Scanned pages are unusual: most of the page is blank paper, and the parts that matter are thin black strokes. Compressing too hard makes the strokes ragged and the page tiring to read.

• High is the right default for anything you intend to read or print. The page looks like the original.
• Lower presets are worth it when you are producing something to skim or email and file size matters more than the look of the type.

The resulting PDF is normally larger than the DjVu it came from. That is expected - DjVu’s layered compression is genuinely better at this specific job. See DjVu vs PDF.

Why the searchable text layer matters

Without a text layer, a PDF of a scanned book is a stack of pictures: you cannot search it, select a quotation, or copy a citation. With one, the text sits invisibly behind the page image, and every PDF reader can search it while the scan still looks exactly like the original page.

If the DjVu already carried a text layer, the export reuses it. If it did not, on-device recognition builds one first.

Why not a free online converter

Uploading a document to a conversion site means handing a third party a full copy of it. For a public-domain scan that may not matter. For an unpublished manuscript, a licensed journal article, a legal document, or anything with a name in it, it does.

Online converters also tend to flatten pages to plain images, which drops the text layer, and they impose size limits that a 400-page scanned book will hit.

Niraqua DjVu does the conversion on your own machine. There is no network request, no account, and no copy of your document anywhere but your device.

Get Niraqua DjVu for Mac, iPhone, and iPad - one purchase covers all three.