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katl · 04-30-2013, 02:44 AM

Hi! I'm Kat. New to the forum. Thanks for having me!

I'm converting my self published e-book to mobi to sell on Amazon.

I don't own a Kindle, so I've been using Kindle Previewer to figure out what works and what doesn't. I used InDesign CS6 to typeset a PDF, converted to epub (which was a nightmare...), and cleaned up the HTML and CSS in Sigil. Then I used KindleGen (via KindlePreviewer) to create a Mobi and view the results. I'm currently going back and forth between Sigil and KP to clean up discrepancies.

After finally coming to grips with the notion that e-book readers want to control the font face themselves, I've removed the font-family style from my <p> tag. I've also removed font-size, alignment, and color, as per Amazon's HTML guidelines for "normal" text.

There are still some p classes and headers with defined font-family, but I am under the impression that Amazon allows this. (Please correct me if I'm wrong!) I don't have any embedded fonts, because the typefaces I would have used may not have been strictly legal to "redistribute".

So, I'm hoping to avoid negative reviews for locking the font. But, when I open the book in KP and click through the devices, and the only one that has the option to change the Font Face is Kindle Paperwhite.

I thought Kindle Fire had the option to change font face as well, but it's grayed out when I preview those devices.

Is this an issue with KP? Is it potentially a problem with my book/html/css/conversion?

I'm just terrified that I'll upload the book and get a slew of negative reviews from people who are upset that they can't change the font to Courier (however bad that may look...)

I'll gladly include any additional information that will help solve this mystery for me. Thank you!

04-30-2013, 02:44 AM	#1
katl Junior Member Posts: 4 Karma: 10 Join Date: Apr 2013 Device: none	Kindle Previewer Font Face grayed out? Hi! I'm Kat. New to the forum. Thanks for having me! I'm converting my self published e-book to mobi to sell on Amazon. I don't own a Kindle, so I've been using Kindle Previewer to figure out what works and what doesn't. I used InDesign CS6 to typeset a PDF, converted to epub (which was a nightmare...), and cleaned up the HTML and CSS in Sigil. Then I used KindleGen (via KindlePreviewer) to create a Mobi and view the results. I'm currently going back and forth between Sigil and KP to clean up discrepancies. After finally coming to grips with the notion that e-book readers want to control the font face themselves, I've removed the font-family style from my <p> tag. I've also removed font-size, alignment, and color, as per Amazon's HTML guidelines for "normal" text. There are still some p classes and headers with defined font-family, but I am under the impression that Amazon allows this. (Please correct me if I'm wrong!) I don't have any embedded fonts, because the typefaces I would have used may not have been strictly legal to "redistribute". So, I'm hoping to avoid negative reviews for locking the font. But, when I open the book in KP and click through the devices, and the only one that has the option to change the Font Face is Kindle Paperwhite. I thought Kindle Fire had the option to change font face as well, but it's grayed out when I preview those devices. Is this an issue with KP? Is it potentially a problem with my book/html/css/conversion? I'm just terrified that I'll upload the book and get a slew of negative reviews from people who are upset that they can't change the font to Courier (however bad that may look...) I'll gladly include any additional information that will help solve this mystery for me. Thank you!