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Old 05-30-2012, 02:51 PM   #1
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mobi file not supported at KDP

Last night a client tried to upload to KDP a mobi file that I had produced through Calibre. KDP gave the message 'file not supported'. I reconverted it with HTML and MobiPocket but then had no NCX file. That uploaded fine.

The mobi opened for Previewing beautifully on Kindle Previewer, personal Kindle Fire, personal iPad and Kindle for PC app.

Anyone else have this problem? None of my other clients have mentioned a glitch with a Calibre generated mobi so far.
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Old 07-01-2012, 05:29 PM   #2
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Do a search on the KDP Forums--this subject came up a little while ago, but I'm not sure where!
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Old 07-02-2012, 06:44 AM   #3
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Most people who build e-books for a living regard Calibre as a very useful book-management tool but a rather poor publishing tool.

Much the same is true of Mobipocket Creator. It's obsolescent because it can't create a KF8 file for the Fire, Touch, etc.

As for the NCX file, I was amused to notice that the latest Kindle publishing guide--from Amazon!--nowhere mentions it. The NCX is required but not mandatory, evidently. The only thing you lose is the ability to skip from one chapter to the next (or previous), or such is the case on my K3. (I wouldn't know how to do it in the Fire.)
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Old 07-05-2012, 03:19 AM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Oldpilot View Post
Most people who build e-books for a living regard
As for the NCX file, I was amused to notice that the latest Kindle publishing guide--from Amazon!--nowhere mentions it.
The NCX (logical table of contents) is discussed in the Amazon Kindle Publishing Guidelines beginning on page 15.
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Old 07-05-2012, 12:50 PM   #5
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Originally Posted by Oldpilot View Post
The NCX is required but not mandatory, evidently.
That sounds like a contradiction. How can something be "required, but not mandatory"? If it's required, then it's mandatory; if it's not required, then it's not mandatory? No?
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Old 07-05-2012, 12:58 PM   #6
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That sounds like a contradiction. How can something be "required, but not mandatory"? If it's required, then it's mandatory; if it's not required, then it's not mandatory? No?
Could mean, "required by the TOS but not mandatory for upload; the automated process doesn't check for it."

Otherwise, I agree with you, required=mandatory; not sure how a thing could be one without the other. (And "the rules demand it but the code doesn't" should probably be phrased as "mandatory but not required." Or "mandatory but not enforced.")
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Old 07-05-2012, 01:15 PM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AThirstyMind View Post
Last night a client tried to upload to KDP a mobi file that I had produced through Calibre. KDP gave the message 'file not supported'. I reconverted it with HTML and MobiPocket but then had no NCX file. That uploaded fine.

The mobi opened for Previewing beautifully on Kindle Previewer, personal Kindle Fire, personal iPad and Kindle for PC app.

Anyone else have this problem? None of my other clients have mentioned a glitch with a Calibre generated mobi so far.
The way to do it that should work without a hitch is to create an ePub and once that is done and looks good, use the current Kindlegen to generate the KF8/Mobi combination file for sending to Amazon. Check it out using Kindle Previewer and if the Mobi part of the the file looks good, send it in. But since I've never used Kindle Previewer, I don't know if it will display the Mobi part or just the KF8 part or either. If you need to display the Mobi part, use Mobipocket Reader to view it.
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Old 07-05-2012, 03:44 PM   #8
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Originally Posted by JSWolf View Post
But since I've never used Kindle Previewer, I don't know if it will display the Mobi part or just the KF8 part or either.
The latest version of Kindle Previewer can emulate Kindle Fire, Kindle, Kindle DX, iPhone and iPad. If your ebook has features specific to KF8 (like drop caps), it'll show that in Kindle Fire mode. Views for the other devices only show Mobi formatting.
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Old 07-05-2012, 08:05 PM   #9
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Originally Posted by DreamWriter View Post
The latest version of Kindle Previewer can emulate Kindle Fire, Kindle, Kindle DX, iPhone and iPad. If your ebook has features specific to KF8 (like drop caps), it'll show that in Kindle Fire mode. Views for the other devices only show Mobi formatting.
Thank you. Now I can give proper information if there is a next time.
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Old 07-06-2012, 05:57 AM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AThirstyMind View Post
Last night a client tried to upload to KDP a mobi file that I had produced through Calibre. KDP gave the message 'file not supported'. I reconverted it with HTML and MobiPocket but then had no NCX file. That uploaded fine.

The mobi opened for Previewing beautifully on Kindle Previewer, personal Kindle Fire, personal iPad and Kindle for PC app.

Anyone else have this problem? None of my other clients have mentioned a glitch with a Calibre generated mobi so far.
This problem has been known for nearly a month, please see here: http://bit.ly/LHD8N4

Amazon, as Kovid will tell you, rejected books throughout 2009 through mid-2011; a woman who wanted to produce a mobi complained on the Calibre forum in 2011; Calibre was tweaked to solve one problem, and they worked for a while, but Amazon has now again taken the position that they will not accept Calibre-generated mobi's. If your client's OTHER books have gotten through, you may have cheated death on those--but I'd highly recommend you find another way to make professional mobis for which you are selling your services as a formatter.

By the way: unless you have express written legal consent to upload books for your clients, which authorizes you to bind them, contractually, to Amazon, uploading someone else's books, even a client's, is against Amazon's Terms of Service. Uploading creates a contract by and between the author/publisher and Amazon (like when you click off all those wee boxes). If someone else (like you) does the uploading, the contract is, technically, null and void, because you can't bind another individual to a contract. IF something goes bad down the road, one side or the other could argue that no contract EVER existed between your client and Amazon. One of the other companies on the Professional Converter's List lost their standing over this, FWIW. Will you get caught? Unlikely--but if you do, all the weight of the non-existence of that contract will fall on you--not to mention, you'll have avowed that you had the right to publish that book, and owned all the necessary rights--posing as someone else. Might want to give that some ponderment, while you're contemplating your Calibre issue.

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Old 07-06-2012, 07:23 AM   #11
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Yes, I read the article... never have Calibre construct a KF8 file, just simple Mobi... and haven't had a file rejected since that one. And I never upload my clients files to any of the venues. That would make me a publisher and would add many levels to my business that I just don't want or need.

Adding an epub into Kindle Previewer just hasn't worked very well for me yet, text is fine but the resultant centered text looses its centering. That seems to be the only issue. I can't find the problem in the HTML though.
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Old 07-06-2012, 07:36 AM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AThirstyMind View Post
Adding an epub into Kindle Previewer just hasn't worked very well for me yet, text is fine but the resultant centered text looses its centering. That seems to be the only issue. I can't find the problem in the HTML though.
Has to be a CSS thing. Centering text has never never been an issue with me. Plenty of other quirks to keep one busy, though.

One huge tip for converting ePubs with Kindlegen? Don't assign multiple CSS classes to the same element. Just don't do it:

NO: <p class="italic centered">Stuff</p>
YES: <p class="centered"><span class="italic">Stuff</span></p>

Or just make a single CSS class that does everything you want. But don't stack those classes.
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Old 07-06-2012, 03:26 PM   #13
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Originally Posted by DiapDealer View Post
Has to be a CSS thing. Centering text has never never been an issue with me. Plenty of other quirks to keep one busy, though.

One huge tip for converting ePubs with Kindlegen? Don't assign multiple CSS classes to the same element. Just don't do it:

NO: <p class="italic centered">Stuff</p>
YES: <p class="centered"><span class="italic">Stuff</span></p>

Or just make a single CSS class that does everything you want. But don't stack those classes.
Agreed on the class stacking. We have not had any issues with centering or any other items from ePUB-conversions, it's the only way we make them.

@AThirstyMind: sorry, misread your first sentence in your first post--thought you were uploading the mobi. Feel free to ignore my discussion on that. I'll leave it, though, for others to read who come along. I do think, though, that K8 formatting or not, it's clear that, at least for this time, Amazon is rejecting Calibre-made mobis, at least sporadically enough for it to be problematic.

Can you show us what coding you're using for the centering you cannot get to work?

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Old 07-07-2012, 06:30 AM   #14
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That sounds like a contradiction. How can something be "required, but not mandatory"? If it's required, then it's mandatory; if it's not required, then it's not mandatory? No?
It's required by the guidelines (not the TOS, I think) but none is looked for and nothing happens if none is there. I think a mandate is much more tremble-making than a requirement. I'm required to stop at the red octagons, but if the day is clear and no traffic is in sight, I drive right on through. Perhaps I'm just lawless.

Mandate: An official order or commission to do something:

So if the copper looked me in the eye and told me to stop at the red octagon, I would do it.

Requirement: required activity;

That's much weaker, seems to me.

However that may be, I have yet to build my first NCX file, despite Hitch's good advice. There is so much more I want to do!
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Old 07-07-2012, 07:11 AM   #15
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I'm guessing the "mandatory (but not required/enforced)" NCX (logical ToC) situation represents a bit of a grace period. Given the way the very latest Kindle devices/firmware allow you to directly view and navigate an ebook using an NCX "view" (with collapsible, nested sections and everything), I fully expect the enforcement of the inclusion of a full featured NCX file to happen somewhere down the road. In other words... use the grace period to figure it out if you haven't already done so.
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