Thanks for the impressions. As to epub->Kindle (KF8 most likely), Calibre is likely the issue if it created the epub. I used Amazon’s Kindlegen converter for literally hundreds of properly created epubs with absolutely zero issues. There are 500-600 of those currently on the Kindle store. I doubt Amazon got worse at it so that leaves the epub formatting quality as the culprit.
Edit, to put it i another way, Calibre has … unique ways of formatting ebooks which are usually okay to view as-is but asking an auto-converter to work with one is asking for trouble. When I got requests to fix Calibre epubs I asked for the original manuscript instead and made a proper epub. Faster and much easier than trying to decipher those things.
Interesting input thanks. I’m not sure where the fault(s) may be. Our own docs are created including epubs, with Quark Xpress.
And I use Calibre only as a tool for converting epubs, to kindle format but pretty much using the defaults. That being said the same epubs that had issues with Amazon’s conversion were seamless with the conversion via Calibre.
But I experienced similar formatting fails with epubs I had purchased from Tor and also from Kobo. (DRM free ones)
Obviously there are some additional variables involved as our experiences don’t match. If I do decide to keep the scribe I’ll likely dig a bit deeper in to that
See my edit. Of course, it is possible that Amazon is having a bug currently with their send to Kindle. But as that’s a very important part of their business and there’s no reason for the converter to be any different than what authors used to put their books up, I’m kind of doubting the problem is on their end. Again, I could be wrong and they could be having a problem and if so I’m sure they’ll fix it. It’s their business.
Yes If/when i keep the Scribe I’ll relay what I discover . To your point about it being a priority to do well from an Amazon business perspective, I agree in principle but Amazon’s track record across the business is mixed at best IMHO.
I have a good friend/ former colleague who could give you earfuls on the clusteF*** that was until very recently their production of MP3 audio files. So much so that Apple to this day still has a specific suite of tests for iPhones/iPads/Macs running iTunes to verify proper playback.
Yes, well, I can’t speak to other aspects of Amazon’s performance. And I’m not going to be their defender. I just know what I have experienced in a very narrow area.
I don’t have a Kindle Scribe here but with the Android Kindle app on my Duo Uno I did a Send to Kindle (to my library) with one of my own Epub conversions from manuscript and it came out absolutely perfect, exactly as I made the Epub. For what it’s worth.
Interesting. I just did a similar couple of tests including using the PDF versions of the manuals that seem the most broken with the EPUB versions. They did much better though not perfectly .
And I also tried an AppleScript tutorial book I reference frequently that comes from Apple in Epub format and it would not even open on the Scribe. If I have time, I’m going to go get my paper white at lunch and see how it compares to the scribe.
Taking a step back though, I’m strongly suspecting that a major component of this is each individual companies implementation /interpretation of “spec” especially of the parts that are optional versus required.
After all that issue and how well companies do or don’t implement is the reason my group exists.
This was is indeed true. I spent a lot of time and trial and error to get my epubs to look decent on iBooks as well as Kindle without having to make unique epubs for each. It requires making extremely clean and to-the-spec epubs and keeping it simple as possible. Which isn’t hard with novels since it’s just reflowable prose for the most part.
PS: just so it doesn’t seem that I 'm only just bashing the scribe, I will say that the pen feel on the display may be the best of all the devices I use on a regular basis. Just about the perfect amount of friction
You would think. But there’s a lot of interpretation going on with CSS and then you have your indie e-readers that don’t even read the CSS…
There are other factors as well in the non-HTML and structure portions of an ePub but I won’t get into that.
It’s like the web. It’s HTML for the most part but will come out looking different depending on browser engine and web pages might not even work correctly sometimes in a non-Chrome browser since everyone creates to that spec. We used to have the same issue with IE when so many web devs would create sites using its unique features.
Heh! Minor league compared to the jungle that is modern HDMI and DisplayPort. I have a Sony engineer friend that could go for days on that topic. Or an Intel engineer on USB…
That’s an ongoing pain point for developers from what I hear. They have always specified the displays in PPI and diagonal inches, so obviously a 10.2 inch 300 ppi display will more pixels than a 6 inch one.
Even when the displays are nominally the same size like with the Oasis and the new Paperwhite, the Oasis display has a handful more pixels both vertically and horizontally.
If it’s like past Kindles, we will have to wait until some creates a genuine full screen graphic page to actually know
BTW: speaking of the display. one additional discovery for the day. The Scribe has hands down the best grayscale graphics rendering of any Kindle. I have an engineer who’s a Manga fan and the difference is fairly dramatic.
which interestingly at 300ppi is ~157.5 x 210mm which is comfortably larger than A5 (148 x 210) and which makes me hopeful of an A4 sized display at some point.
