My first Kindle...is jumbled

March 6, 2019, 12:13 pm

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I have completed a manuscript in Serif PagePlus. It is a book about landscape design and is mostly drawings originally done in autcad but converted to .png.
The layout is fairly simple, there are seventeen chapters with a page of thumbnails of the designs at the beginning of each chapter and the drawings represented by those thumbnails following.

I used Serif PagePlus to publish to epub3 and opened the file in Calibre and converted it to .mobi and it mostly showed half pages. The links didn't work and many of the drawings were cut in half.

Is there a way to format pages so an entire page will show up in whatever device is using it?

I can put one design on each page and even on a phone each design will be viewable. The designs would not look right if they were chopped in half and the reader would have scroll to the next page to see the other half.

Thanks
Rick

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Different Previews in 2.94 and 3.29

March 7, 2019, 2:02 am

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Hi Folks

I could do with some kind(le) help. I'm working towards the publication of my daughter's book which'll contain a large number of images (optimised to keep the weight down). I'll be using the same HTML structures for web promo, EPUB and Kindle, and only slightly modified CSS for the three.

The result is that everything looks the way I want it to. Well, almost.

Web browsers (Webkit, Blink, Gecko), EPUB, iBook (iPhone and iPad), and the Kindle App on iOS (going through Kindlegen 2.9 for the mobi, and Kindle Previewer 2.94 to build an AZK file sideloaded onto iOS devices), Kindle 4 PC 1.25.1 are all perfect. If I sideload the mobi to my Kindle Fire, it's good too.

Having both the previewer 2.94 and 3.29 I have an issue. I can have good previews (in Previewer 2.94) for the three Fires and the Kindle DX, plus (in Previewer 3.29 with "Enhanced Typesetting") everything that that offers, but not for the Kindle Voyage preview in 2.94. Or I can have everything in the Previewer 2.94 but total crap in 3.29.

Now I don't know how relevant 2.94 previews are today to the hardware out there. Can I assume that all but the very oldest Kindles have had software upgrades*) so that the only relevant previews would be those from the current (3.29) previewer? Or are there still enough Voyages around that won't be updated to the wonders of Enhanced Typesetting and thus require a different approach?

I've tried a few @media queries, but the don't bite in the previewer 2.94.

klaus

*) I can't tell, because my own Fire is on a lan behind a proxy (long story) so it never talks to Amazon. I use it for development work only anyway, as I still prefer dead tree books to reading on screen. There, I've admitted it.

First Ebook-Many Questions

March 7, 2019, 12:58 pm

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I want to publish an ebook about landscape design. There are some photos but many designs originally done in Autocad then exported as .bmp and then brought into Photoshop to be cropped and then saved as .png file.

I then created a manuscript in Serif PagePlus. I am able to publish as epub3 fixed with only a few problems that I fixed but there seems to be a lot of problems with epub3 flowable. The preflight says that most, if not all of the designs are "object out story"

There are also problems with the master pages which I can fix but I am not sure what the problem is with the designs.

If I can get these problems fixed can I submit the entire manuscript to kindle or do I need to build the ebook one page at a time in Kindle Create.

A big thanks in advance.

Kindle cover problem

March 8, 2019, 8:57 am

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Hello everyone! I am new here so not sure if this is correct category.

Anyway...

I am formatting books for living. For print and ebooks. So far I didn't had problems with any of my clients, but...

One client is asking that I make kindle cover with black background.

It is mobi file and cover is uploaded with correct kindle size. So when you open book in kindle device (paperwhite) you need to "slide" to the left to see cover. And that "screen" has left and right white bar, or to say margins. Now, I know how to stretch cover to fill full screen on kindle, but in this case, that is not possible (client don't want it). Now, my question is, is there any way to change "white bars" to black? That is what my client asking. I saw some books have black "bars" on cover screen, but mostly of them are white.

I used different softwares for converting to mobi, and none of them work. Not sure if that is just kindle option and not actually in mobi file

thank you and nice to be here

invisible del / "line-through"

March 11, 2019, 12:28 am

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I had some text that was supposed to be crossed out, it was formatted <strike>

-- editing the book in epub in Sigil, to export to azw3 using kindlegen.

<strike> seemed ok on screen and kindlegen had no problem, but epubcheck says "Error while parsing file 'element "strike" not allowed anywhere".

So I made a test page:
<h2><del>del</del><br/>
<strike>strike</strike><br/>
<s>s s s </s><br/>
<span style="text-decoration-line: line-through;"> text-decoration-line: line-through; </span><br/>
<span style="text-decoration: line-through;"> text-decoration: line-through; </span>
</h2>

epubcheck also whines about <s>

On Sigil preview, all work the same except "text-decoration-line" which has no effect.

Made AZW3 and loaded on a PW3 -- see screencap.

At first, I can see no lines at all. Peering closely, I see the line-through: it is just one pixel high. On a 300 dpi screen, this is imperceptible.

Are there any ways to get a thicker line-through?

Attached Thumbnails

 

Accessing files on chromebook

March 19, 2019, 3:57 pm

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I used Calibre to convert a few epub books to AZW3 format and saved them to Google drive. I then downloaded the files to my chromebook (Pixelbook). They appear as zipped files and a default unzipper opens them to three parts. I click on the largest, the text, but I can't open it (nor the others). I have the Kindle app and Kindle Cloud reader but see no option to get at the files on my chromebook. Right clicking does not help me. That results in a window that says select an app to open, no list, choice to go to chrome web store only (already have the Kindle apps).

The intent is to put them on my elderly mom's old Kindle keyboard when I visit. There is no internet there, no pc. Thus, the downloading to chromebook for transfer.

Can anyone help me to get to the files, or suggest a way to get them onto the Kindle?

KFX dictionary

March 26, 2019, 12:09 pm

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I would like to create a NADSAT KFX dictionary (just as a proof of concept).

As the wiki says, dictionaries for new languages are now formatted as an SQLite data base.

and,

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doitsu (Post 3765315) Unfortunately, Amazon hasn't released an official KFX dictionary converter. You're stuck with KindleGen and MOBI dictionaries for the time being.

I have been looking at the "Gujarati into Gujarati dictionary_B06X6HVPX1.kfx" dictionary

Spoiler:

Attachment 170410

Has anyone else tried to reverse engineer the format? There are not many tables, and the few fragment properties are possibly indicative of a simple structure. I am hoping that replacing the encrypted DRM blobs with properly structured clear text would produce a valid KFX dictionary.

Attached Thumbnails

 

Image displays correctly on Kindle Fire but not Kindle Paperwhite

March 27, 2019, 12:22 pm

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Hi, we have a mobi book with a background image that is supposed to display at the top of every part and chapter opener. It is working fine on a Kindle Fire but on the Paperwhite it displays on every page not just the chapter opener. Has anyone else run into this problem and how was it solved. We are thinking maybe we need to use a media query but are wondering if other people are having similar problems. The code we are using is below:

/*img*/
section.part, div.part {
background-image: url(../images/e_sun.jpg);
background-position: top center;
background-size: 18% auto;
background-repeat: no-repeat;
}

section.chapter {
background-image: url(../images/e_sun.jpg);
background-position: top center;
background-size: 15% auto;
background-repeat: no-repeat;
}

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Best practice for chapter heading images

March 28, 2019, 4:23 am

≫ Next: Building a .mobi with Kindlegen

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I'm sorry if this is a question that is often asked, I tried searching but didn't get very far.

The book I'm formatting for Kindle has chapter heading images. What is the best practice these days? Is it safe to use a gif image with transparent areas?
What resolution should such an image be? What is a recommended image size (especially the width)? I'd like the image to fill most of the width of the page.

Thanks!

Building a .mobi with Kindlegen

April 4, 2019, 12:32 pm

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There was a switch in Kindlegen so the .mobi builded hadn't inside the file "kindlegensrc.zip". But I can't remember what was the option to include in the command line in order to get that. By chance, anyone here remember how was the command?

TIA
Rubén

EDIT: I found the command: -dont_append_source.

Table of contents doesn't show up in Kindle Previewer

April 5, 2019, 2:19 am

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I'm creating an ebook in Sigil, and then converting it to Kindle format using the Kindle previewer.

When I view the book in the Kindle Previewer, I cannot access the table of contents from the "view all" menu. Earlier versions of this book, I was able to do that. I think the problem started when I added pages in Sigil.

I've had a look at content.opf and I can't see anything wrong. The TOC is listed in the guide section: <reference type="toc" title="contents" href="Text/contents.xhtml"/>

When I test this book on a Kindle device, I can go to the table of contents using the "go to" menu, and I can jump from chapter to chapter using the next chapter buttons. So the logical toc seems to be working.

It just makes me nervous that this book is displaying differently in the Kindle Viewer, as if there's something wrong with it. Am I being paranoid?

I've attached screenshots of what the book looks like in the Kindle Previewer, the first screenshot shows the book as it is now, where I cannot access the TOC and only one page is shown. The other screenshot shows the book as it used to be, where I can access the TOC from that drop down menu, and the other pages are displayed as well.

Any advice much appreciated.

Attached Thumbnails

   

Start location

April 7, 2019, 3:11 pm

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Quote:

Originally Posted by jhowell (Post 3826136) Version 2019.1 of the Amazon Kindle Publishing Guidelines is now available. Listed changes are: ... Updated 5.3, Guide Items, to clarify that the start reading location is defined by Amazon. ..

Over the years, there have been many threads started by readers, authors, and book makers about the start reading location, and many of these have expressed a strong desire that the location be the cover. It is frequently stated that just can not be done.

I recently bought Guns, Germs, and Steel on sale for $2.99 (, sale price still good), and imagine my surprise when it opened at the cover. (Actually, location 2, but that is the cover image.)

https://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-St...dp/B06X1CT33R/

So, is amazon playing some kind of game?

Recognizing KFX virtues

April 10, 2019, 6:05 pm

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Just to report that in this instance KFX is the format which rendered best my text:

Inspired by a recent link in the workshop,

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doitsu (Post 3825582) ... Here's a link to a German website that contains hi res scans of the original German book. ...

I reproduced the ebook with a Google french translation of the german text.

To give it a Germanized look I decided to code the text using the "Fraktur Bold" letters in the "Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols" of the Unicode block (U+1D400..U+1D7FF) embedding a publisher font since no native font of the Kindle support this block. Not using Unicodes from the "Basic Multilingual Plane" (BMP) proved a challenge...

Expectedly, this MOBI badly tricked the K3:
Attachment 170648

On the PW3 the MOBI introduced unwanted blanks after accenting Fraktur letters with diacritical combining marks:
Attachment 170650

But converting the MOBI to KFX perfectly fixed the rendering:
Attachment 170649

Find my sources here:

Attached Thumbnails

     

Attached Files

2019-04-10 Struwwelpeter v0.2.zip (8.98 MB)

Converting AZW3 to KFX; any reason not to?

April 22, 2019, 3:03 am

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Hi all,

You may have seen my recent thread regarding page breaks and linespacing on the Oasis 2; this is a new thread, as it concerns a slightly different question.

I've decided the best way to achieve my desired outcome is editing the CSS of an AZW3 book. My question is, are there detriments to then converting this AZW3 to KFX to fully utilise the KFX features; or am I better off keeping it as an AZW3?

Soliciting reviews from readers

April 24, 2019, 8:58 pm

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My client has requested I include a page just after the main matter that looks something like this:

Quote:

Thanks for reading Book Title. Please leave a review or share to let other readers know about this important book: [ Amazon ] [Goodreads] [Facebook] [ Twitter ]

where each [company] is that site’s logo, intended to be the appropriate link for that site. (Links to create reviews on Amazon & Goodreads; links to pre-populate Facebook or Twitter posts on those sites. I’ve worked out what those URLs need to be.)

My reading of the Kindle Publishing Guidelines (2019.1) §7.2 suggests this is allowed. If anybody knows different, please tell me and I’ll inform my client.

What’s the cleanest way to display this table of logos? Simple table? Complicated-code table? Does anyone have an example I can crib from?

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Reduce margins and normalize line spacing

April 25, 2019, 10:19 am

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Hi guys! Is it somehow possible to reduce the margins more than what's available in the kindle settings? I've got some epub books which I convert to kfx (used to convert to azw) with Calibre. I tried a few different methods but to no avail...

Also I need to switch the line spacing everytime I change a book as the option is systemwide... If there is a way to set the line spacing when I convert the books it would be awesome!

Logical TOC in mobi binary

April 26, 2019, 7:16 pm

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To make a long story short I'm making an ebook converter in C#. So far everything is great when creating a mobi except what I believe is called the "logical toc." In case I've got the terminology wrong, whats happening is that I do not have seekable tick marks on the progress bar at each chapter (or wherever else you want a tick mark).

The Wiki page doesn't have any info I could find about this. I understand that KindleGen uses an epub-style toc.ncx, but I am unable to find how this is serialized into the mobi file.

I've looked through Calibre's source code but it is a bit of a spaghetti nightmare.

Anyone know of any good resources for how mobi files are generated?

how remove text from purchased mobi or azw3 ?

May 4, 2019, 1:31 am

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Hello all,
I happen to purchase few ebooks in mobi and azw3 formats and than to convert them in calibre to PDF format.
In the PDF file to my surprise :blink:i found my name and email adress identification like (purchased at on ... by.. Name.. email adress). I do not like to have this identification there, is there any simple 1-2 click way to remove this identification allready in the AZW3 or mobi original file?
Sure I can remove it f.e. manually by INFIX in the resulting PDF, though I would like to do it allready in the source file...

thx in advance for any usefull ideas

MS Word vs Open Office Word

May 21, 2019, 8:16 am

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I am tired of using Word and how it messes up the format of my eBook. I can export to Open Office and keep the current format but is it worth the effort.

Is Open Office better to use for writing my book? If so why?

I really need to understand the benefits of using Open Office and if there are templates for us creating eBooks and well as Paper books.

Thank you.

Jim

Kindle Touch 4th Generation does not render published font correctly

May 25, 2019, 4:48 am

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I am using Calibre to create an ebook in the Urdu language. The language is written from right to left. The whole book is in Unicode and uses UTF-8 encoding. If I open the book in TextEdit on Mac. Mac shows the book like this:



When using default Kindle fonts like Caecilia this is how it looks like



However, when I use the published font i.e. the TTF font I have embedded in the ebook. It doesn't join the characters the way it's supposed to for languages like Arabic/Urdu. It shows each letter individually and it looks like:



Am I missing something here or Kindle just can't use these embedded fonts correctly for non-latin languages?