Paragra Help
Drop a PDF onto Paragra's main window, pick which pages to convert, and press Convert to EPUB. Paragra recognizes the text, cleans up paragraph breaks, optionally polishes it with on-device AI, and hands you a finished book in its built-in editor.
Everything — text recognition and AI cleanup — runs on your Mac. Nothing about your book's contents is sent anywhere.
Converting a PDF to EPUB
Loading a PDF
Drag a PDF onto the panel in the middle of the main window, or click it to choose a file instead. Once loaded, Paragra shows how many pages it has and lets you pick which ones to work with.
Choosing a page range
Three ways to choose what gets converted: a single Page — handy for testing before committing to the whole book — a Range from page to page, or All Pages. The first 10 pages of any book are always free; see Free pages & credits.
Recognize Text vs. Convert to EPUB
Recognize Text runs just the recognition step and shows the raw result, without building a book — a quick way to check a scan reads cleanly first. Convert to EPUB runs the full pipeline and opens the finished book in the editor.
What happens during conversion
- Text recognition, page by page.
- Deterministic paragraph cleanup — merging lines that only broke because they hit the page's edge, not because a sentence ended.
- Optional on-device AI cleanup pass.
- Chapter detection, for a proper table of contents.
Watch the recognized and AI-polished text live in the side panels while a conversion runs, and cancel at any point at no cost.
The book isn't saved anywhere when a conversion finishes — it opens directly in the editor, and only becomes a real file once you save it there.
On-device AI text enhancement
After recognizing text and fixing paragraph breaks, Paragra can run one more pass through your Mac's built-in on-device language model to smooth out anything the deterministic cleanup couldn't — all locally.
This step is optional and skipped automatically when unavailable — paragraph cleanup, the part that matters most, is done by Paragra's own code either way.
Turning it on
The on-device model is a system feature (Settings › Apple Intelligence & Siri), separate from Paragra. If it's off, or unsupported on your Mac, Paragra's status badge says so, with a button straight to the right System Settings pane.
Language support
The model supports a wide set of languages — English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and more. For a language it doesn't support, Paragra just skips this pass; paragraph quality isn't affected, only the extra polish.
What it does and doesn't do
Fixes remaining line-wrap artifacts. Does not translate, summarize, shorten, or rewrite your book's words.
Editing a book
Every conversion opens straight into Paragra's editor — chapters on the left, the selected chapter's text on the right.
Chapters
- Rename — edit the title field above the text.
- Reorder — drag chapters in the list.
- Delete — via the trash button or context menu; the text folds into the neighboring chapter instead of vanishing. (The last remaining chapter can't be deleted.)
- Split — select a line partway through, choose Split, and everything after it becomes a new chapter.
Cover and images
Click the cover thumbnail to set a cover — an image file, or, right after converting a PDF, a page picked straight out of it. Each chapter can have its own image too, shown right after its heading.
Saving
Use the Save button, or just close the window — Paragra always asks first if anything's unsaved. Saving opens the standard macOS save panel, so you choose exactly where the .epub goes.
Only one book can be open in the editor at a time — finish the current one before starting another. You can still run several conversions in parallel in separate windows; the limit is just for the editor.
Opening an existing EPUB
Use File › Open EPUB for Editing… for any .epub — including ones you didn't create with Paragra.
Free pages, credits, and purchases
What's free
The first 10 pages of any book are always free — no account, no purchase. This applies to whichever pages you select: pages 1–10 are free, a single page anywhere within them is free, and a range has to stay entirely inside them to qualify.
Beyond 10 pages
When a credit is actually spent
Nothing is charged just for running a conversion. A credit (or your unlock) is only spent the moment you actually save the finished book in the editor. Cancelling, or closing the editor without saving, never costs anything.
You can safely convert several books in parallel, in separate windows — a credit is only spent on save. If you only have one credit and try to save a second book that also needed one, Paragra tells you right there and lets you buy another without losing your work.
Restoring a purchase
If Unlock Everything doesn't show as active after reinstalling or moving to a new Mac, use Restore Purchases on the purchase screen.
Questions and troubleshooting
- Why am I being asked to pay when I haven't converted a whole book yet?
- The gate is based on the highest page you've selected, not how many pages that is — a 5-page range starting at page 50 still needs a purchase, since it isn't within the first 10 pages.
- The AI badge says the on-device model is off — is my book ruined?
- No. Paragraph and line-break cleanup is done by Paragra's own deterministic code regardless — AI is an optional extra polish step, not a requirement for a readable book.
- I converted a book but can't find the file anywhere.
- A finished conversion opens in the editor without being saved yet — it isn't a real file until you save it there.
- Why can't I open a second book in the editor?
- The editor deliberately handles one book at a time, to avoid mixing up unsaved changes. You can still run multiple conversions in parallel in separate main windows — just not multiple editor windows.
- I bought a credit but a save says it's already been used.
- If you ran more than one paid conversion in parallel on a single credit, only the first save actually spends it — anything else needs its own credit or the lifetime unlock, which Paragra offers right there.
Still stuck? Write to support@paragra.app.