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Ebook format

PDB converter

On ebook sites, a .pdb file is almost always a PalmDOC ebook: plain text chopped into small compressed records inside a Palm OS database. The extension literally means Palm Database, a general-purpose container used by dozens of Palm applications, of which PalmDOC ebooks are the most common survivor.

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Drop PDB files here

Batch files can each use a different output. Nothing uploads for local conversions.

Working inputs include camera RAW, browser-local audio/video, PDF, CBZ/CBR comics, office documents, ebooks, markup, 3D models, structured text, images, and archives.

Where PDB comes from

The container dates to the Palm Pilot organizers of the mid-1990s, when every Palm application stored its data as a PDB database. The AportisDoc text scheme became the de facto ebook standard on Palm OS and later seeded both Mobipocket and Amazon's Kindle formats, which still use the same record layout.

How PDB works

  • A 78-byte header plus a record index, followed by numbered data records.
  • PalmDOC text records hold up to 4,096 bytes of text compressed with a simple LZ77 variant.
  • Type and creator codes in the header (TEXt/REAd for PalmDOC) identify which application owns the data.
  • No images, styling, or fonts — content is plain text with optional bookmarks.

When to use PDB

  • Recovering text from old Palm and Handspring device libraries
  • Converting vintage ebook collections to EPUB for modern reading
  • Producing minimal plain-text reading files for very constrained devices

Strengths and limitations

Strengths

  • Extremely simple structure that is easy to parse
  • Tiny files even by ebook standards
  • A huge back catalog survives from the PDA era

Limitations

  • Text only — no formatting, images, or chapter structure
  • Character encoding is unspecified, so non-ASCII text often garbles
  • Many .pdb files are not ebooks at all but other Palm application data

Compatibility

Calibre and a few legacy-minded readers still open PalmDOC .pdb files, and the format's simplicity keeps parsers easy to maintain. Nothing modern produces it, and mainstream reading apps on iOS, Android, and dedicated e-readers ignore the extension.

Effectively limited to the 31-character database name in the header; there is no structured field for author or publisher, which is why converted files usually need metadata re-entered by hand.

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