PNG in KF8 yet?

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by robertosaenz

Hello guys, I have one question, if I use SVG images (in an html file) for KF8/KFX devices only, they will remain reflowable after the amazon conversion? or they would be converted to JPG/GIF ?

Converted to JPG/GIF. The KF8 and KF7 devices cannot display SVG, unless, again, something has DRASTICALLY changed in the last few days. You can read that here: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/to...5V4YX5X8GRGXWV which has been up for some time now.

You'll also note that automatic conversion, by KDP, is done without your consent or even notification for anything like images of text, etc. (to GIF) and all that.

Hitch

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by robertosaenz

Hello guys, I have one question, if I use SVG images (in an html file) for KF8/KFX devices only, they will remain reflowable after the amazon conversion? or they would be converted to JPG/GIF ?

Most customers will receive your book from Amazon in KFX format. And so far Amazon's generation of KFX converts SVG images into rasterized JPEG, sometimes poorly.

[robertosaenz]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Converted to JPG/GIF. The KF8 and KF7 devices cannot display SVG, unless, again, something has DRASTICALLY changed in the last few days. You can read that here: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/to...5V4YX5X8GRGXWV which has been up for some time now.

You'll also note that automatic conversion, by KDP, is done without your consent or even notification for anything like images of text, etc. (to GIF) and all that.

Hitch

Thanks Hitch, does it mean that some devices will get GIFs with transparent background? or KDP uses only white box GIFs?

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by robertosaenz

Thanks Hitch, does it mean that some devices will get GIFs with transparent background? or KDP uses only white box GIFs?

No, as I said, upthread, there is no transparency in Kindles.

Hitch

[Quoth]

GIFs simply as fixed palette alternative to png, no transparency or animation, though no idea why png without transparency not used too. Predates first kindle by 10 years. Perhaps a decision made by Mobipocket.

It's an electronic version of a printed book. Printed book files don't usually allow transparency or animation and white is regarded as transparent on paper books.

Thus if the file is printed on cream paper, the white areas are cream.

[KevinH]

I thought kf8.p/azw3 books did support svg (without any rasterization needed). Kindlegen will properly create and store them and Kindleunpack will certainly unpack the svg from a .azw3 and the result will work in the resulting epub.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by KevinH

I thought kf8.p/azw3 books did support svg (without any rasterization needed). Kindlegen will properly create and store them and Kindleunpack will certainly unpack the svg from a .azw3 and the result will work in the resulting epub.

Right, amazon has and uses tools to do the right thing, yet they go out of their way to convert and otherwise degrade images, as discussed the past few weeks in this thread.

[KevinH]

But how do you degrade an svg? It is a vector format and not rasterized.

[AlanHK]

Originally Posted by robertosaenz

Hello guys, I have one question, if I use SVG images (in an html file) for KF8/KFX devices only, they will remain reflowable after the amazon conversion? or they would be converted to JPG/GIF ?

I've done some tests by converting epub with Kindlegen, then Kindleunpack to see what was done.

KF8 supports SVG graphics. These pass through conversion unaltered, as far as I can tell. KF7 files though I think SVG are just omitted.

Look at the code in some commercial books and they use media queries to provide alternates like "* * *" as an ornamental divider for KF7, and an SVG graphic for KF8.

SVG go through.
PNG are converted to sometimes GIF, sometimes JPEG. Usually larger and lower quality.
So I always convert PNG to those formats myself and optimise them, as GIF and JPEG are unchanged (except perhaps huge files might be downsampled). BW diagrams I reduce the colourspace to 4 colours, get a file much smaller than a similar looking JPEG.

[AlanHK]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Converted to JPG/GIF. The KF8 and KF7 devices cannot display SVG, unless, again, something has DRASTICALLY changed in the last few days. You can read that here: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/to...5V4YX5X8GRGXWV which has been up for some time now.

You'll also note that automatic conversion, by KDP, is done without your consent or even notification for anything like images of text, etc. (to GIF) and all that.

Hitch

That page says:

Originally Posted by Amazon

Computer-generated visuals are best represented as Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) however, SVG tags can lead to errors. We recommend removing SVG tags and using the image tag in HTML for images.

i.e. they do support it but don't "recommend" SVG, presumably some have submitted weird code and caused problems.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by AlanHK

i.e. they do support it but don't "recommend" SVG, presumably some have submitted weird code and caused problems.

I read that differently. Like much of Amazon's documentation for publishers it is unclear what they actually mean.

I see it as saying that there are some cases when using SVG is the best choice for an image. But you should put the SVG image in a separate file and reference it from your HTML using an img element as opposed to placing it inline within the HTML document. But I can see how it could be interpreted in different ways.

I miss the days when there were actual standards.

[AlanHK]

Originally Posted by jhowell

I see it as saying that there are some cases when using SVG is the best choice for an image. But you should put the SVG image in a separate file and reference it from your HTML using an img element as opposed to placing it inline within the HTML document.

I often use the "InsertImageSVG" plugin to wrap an image in SVG. Using image tags, I can't find another way to have both maximum size and prevent distortion in all cases.

Anyway, if it works without error converted by Kindlegen and then loaded on a Kindle, I assume it will work when Amazon converts it.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by AlanHK

I often use the "InsertImageSVG" plugin to wrap an image in SVG. Using image tags, I can't find another way to have both maximum size and prevent distortion in all cases.

Anyway, if it works without error converted by Kindlegen and then loaded on a Kindle, I assume it will work when Amazon converts it.

Alan,

No offense, but I would never assume that. I always check the for-sale book, once it's online, if we used SVG or anything remotely unusual; the PW-- Processing or Publishing workflow, I can't remember the actual term--I have a medical issue that is temporarily affecting my recall--by which they mean their own internal conversion stage can do some weird-ass things.

Hitch

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by AlanHK

I often use the "InsertImageSVG" plugin to wrap an image in SVG. Using image tags, I can't find another way to have both maximum size and prevent distortion in all cases.

Anyway, if it works without error converted by Kindlegen and then loaded on a Kindle, I assume it will work when Amazon converts it.

For large images we use:

height: auto;
width: 90%; /* or whatever you want */

or if a portrait image
width: auto;
height: 90%; /* or whatever you want */

We have that inside a p or div with class something like this, which allows for a centred caption

{
display: block;
font-family: "Droid Sans", sans-serif;
font-weight: bold;
margin-bottom: 3pt;
margin-left: 0;
margin-right: 0;
margin-top: 0;
padding-bottom: 0;
padding-left: 0;
padding-right: 0;
padding-top: 0;
text-align: center;
text-indent: 0
}

We'd never use SVG on something also going to Amazon.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Quoth

For large images we use:

height: auto;
width: 90%; /* or whatever you want */

or if a portrait image
width: auto;
height: 90%; /* or whatever you want */

We have that inside a p or div with class something like this, which allows for a centred caption

{
display: block;
font-family: "Droid Sans", sans-serif;
font-weight: bold;
margin-bottom: 3pt;
margin-left: 0;
margin-right: 0;
margin-top: 0;
padding-bottom: 0;
padding-left: 0;
padding-right: 0;
padding-top: 0;
text-align: center;
text-indent: 0
}

We'd never use SVG on something also going to Amazon.

That's very similar to our coding, nearly identical. (Great Minds Think Alike! Ha!).

And I try to stay away from SVG, for all the obvious reasons. When it's fully supported, which may be ten years out yet, great (with any damn luck, I'll have sold the biz and be retired by then), but before then, the chances for disaster are just too high. We do a lot of things that other companies don't--we give our customers not one but two epubs, one optimized for Amazon with media queries and all that, and one for "everybody else," but SVG is just a bridge too far, for us, with all the potential for problems, post PW. (I'm 99% sure, now, that it's Publishing Workflow, sorry for the brainfart earlier.)

Hitch