Hey all!
TLDR; Does K4iOS still use .azk?
Introduction
I'm doing a fairly meticulous eBook creation process, which involves careful proofing of the book across the full range of popular devices. Obviously, with Amazon's share of the eBook market, this includes all things Kindle.
Making the AZK
Based on my internet research, I came to the conclusion that Amazon delivers the special ".azk" file type to your Kindle for iOS app. I managed to download Kindle Previewer on my OSX Yosemite machine, and work black magic to get it to run without crashing, at which point I was able to generate the .azk file. Hooray!
Loading the AZK
Now, I want to sideload my generated .azk onto my iPad. So I follow the simple procedure, going through iTunes -> iPad -> Apps -> Kindle -> Documents, drag it in there. After a short pause, the .azk does appear in my K4iOS library, with the correct cover image.
However, when I click on it to open it, I get an error: "The book could not be opened. Please remove the book from your device and redownload it."
Removing and re-sideloading the book doesn't help. Neither did un-registering and re-registering. I've tried this on an iPad 1, running Kindle for iPad v3.9.2, as well as an iPad 2, running Kindle for iPad v4.6.
Other AZK Files
I wondered if maybe there was something wrong with my .azk, or if I had some content in my .mobi file that became messed up in the conversion, or was incompatible with the .azk format. So I set out to get an .azk file by some other means.
First, I tried to use the Send to Kindle Mac App to simply send my .mobi file to my iPad, hoping that Amazon's delivery system would convert it to .azk as part of delivering it. It did show up on my iPad, and I was able to open the file. However, when I used iFunbox to examine the book on my iPad, it was an awz file (no encryption). So I failed to make an .azk file that way. (Note that I was only able to check this on my iPad 1 running iOS 5; my iPad 2 has iOS 8.1 and the file structure is different, I believe I'd need to jailbreak to examine the files.)
I became curious--if Send to Kindle delivered an awz file (which I believe is just .mobi with different compression & encrpytion, no?) to my K4iOS app when I send a .mobi, under what circumstances does it deliver an .azk file?
I realized I had several eBooks, purchased from Amazon, on my Kindle account, so I downloaded them to my iPad from within the K4iOS app. When I inspected them with iFunbox (iOS 5), I found that they were either azw files, or a folder that contained a book.kcr file and another folder called "resources", with a toc.ncx and a bunch of files which no extension. (Not totally sure what this other type of file is, but "kcr" seems like "kindle cloud reader".)
So basically, none of the books that I synced down from Amazon onto my K4iOS app seemed to be of the .azk extension.
The Questions
Thanks!
====================
Some relevant posts & articles:
http://pressbooks.com/blog/testing-p...kf8-azk-gahhh/
http://mandatedmemoranda.com/tag/azk-file/
http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/AZK
https://kdp.amazon.com/community/mes...ssageID=640003
http://www.newselfpublishing.com/ProofingKindle.html
TLDR; Does K4iOS still use .azk?
Introduction
I'm doing a fairly meticulous eBook creation process, which involves careful proofing of the book across the full range of popular devices. Obviously, with Amazon's share of the eBook market, this includes all things Kindle.
Making the AZK
Based on my internet research, I came to the conclusion that Amazon delivers the special ".azk" file type to your Kindle for iOS app. I managed to download Kindle Previewer on my OSX Yosemite machine, and work black magic to get it to run without crashing, at which point I was able to generate the .azk file. Hooray!
Loading the AZK
Now, I want to sideload my generated .azk onto my iPad. So I follow the simple procedure, going through iTunes -> iPad -> Apps -> Kindle -> Documents, drag it in there. After a short pause, the .azk does appear in my K4iOS library, with the correct cover image.
However, when I click on it to open it, I get an error: "The book could not be opened. Please remove the book from your device and redownload it."
Removing and re-sideloading the book doesn't help. Neither did un-registering and re-registering. I've tried this on an iPad 1, running Kindle for iPad v3.9.2, as well as an iPad 2, running Kindle for iPad v4.6.
Other AZK Files
I wondered if maybe there was something wrong with my .azk, or if I had some content in my .mobi file that became messed up in the conversion, or was incompatible with the .azk format. So I set out to get an .azk file by some other means.
First, I tried to use the Send to Kindle Mac App to simply send my .mobi file to my iPad, hoping that Amazon's delivery system would convert it to .azk as part of delivering it. It did show up on my iPad, and I was able to open the file. However, when I used iFunbox to examine the book on my iPad, it was an awz file (no encryption). So I failed to make an .azk file that way. (Note that I was only able to check this on my iPad 1 running iOS 5; my iPad 2 has iOS 8.1 and the file structure is different, I believe I'd need to jailbreak to examine the files.)
I became curious--if Send to Kindle delivered an awz file (which I believe is just .mobi with different compression & encrpytion, no?) to my K4iOS app when I send a .mobi, under what circumstances does it deliver an .azk file?
I realized I had several eBooks, purchased from Amazon, on my Kindle account, so I downloaded them to my iPad from within the K4iOS app. When I inspected them with iFunbox (iOS 5), I found that they were either azw files, or a folder that contained a book.kcr file and another folder called "resources", with a toc.ncx and a bunch of files which no extension. (Not totally sure what this other type of file is, but "kcr" seems like "kindle cloud reader".)
So basically, none of the books that I synced down from Amazon onto my K4iOS app seemed to be of the .azk extension.
The Questions
- ...Does Amazon even use .azk anymore?
- Does anyone have any proof of this?
- Does anyone have an .azk file that they have side-loaded onto their K4iOS App, that I can get and look at/try out on my own iPad?
- Anyone have a clue of what I could be doing wrong?
- Should I stop banging my head against the wall, trying to get a working .azk file? (I do care about proofing the book exactly how it's going to look on the device.)
Thanks!
====================
Some relevant posts & articles:
http://pressbooks.com/blog/testing-p...kf8-azk-gahhh/
http://mandatedmemoranda.com/tag/azk-file/
http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/AZK
https://kdp.amazon.com/community/mes...ssageID=640003
http://www.newselfpublishing.com/ProofingKindle.html