How to convert an EPUB to PDF on your Mac

The usual free way to turn an EPUB into a PDF is calibre, an open source e-book app with every setting you could want. Koi does it in one drag, with no settings at all. Both run on your Mac, so the book isn't uploaded anywhere.

We make Koi, so read this with that in mind. Everything about Koi here is what version 1.12 does. calibre's details come from its own site and manual, checked October 20, 2026.

1. Download calibre for macOS and drag it to your Applications folder. It doesn't run from inside the disk image.
2. Add the EPUB to your calibre library.
3. Select the book, click Convert books, and pick PDF as the output format.

calibre is free under the GPL and needs macOS 14 or later; older Macs get older versions. It also has a command line tool, ebook-convert, for whole folders of books.

1. Start dragging the EPUB in Finder or on your desktop.
2. While you're still holding it, press and hold Shift. A wheel of formats opens round your pointer.
3. Drop it on PDF. “Book.pdf” lands beside the original and shows in Finder.

• The chapters come in the order the book gives them.
• Three levels of headings, bold, italic and underline, lists, and pictures fitted to the page.
• Drag several books at once and each one is converted.
• The original is never touched. When its folder can't be written to, the copy goes to Downloads.

Koi has no settings for the PDF's page or fonts. If you want to choose them, use calibre.

A book with DRM, from Apple Books, Adobe or Readium LCP, can't be converted, and Koi says so.

The same wheel saves an EPUB as a Word file, Pages, plain text, Markdown with its pictures in a folder beside it, or one HTML file with the links between chapters still working. Pages needs Apple's Pages app on your Mac. Koi never writes EPUB. Word files, slides and spreadsheets get wheels too: Word to PDF, or the whole Shift wheel.

calibre is free. Koi has no free plan: Pro is $20 a month, or $192 a year, after a 3-day free trial that needs a card. Lifetime is paid once, from $59. The Shift wheel uses no AI, so it never counts against Koi's usage. See the plans.