File size Sigil vs Kindle Create - Page 4

Hitch · 04-24-2019, 10:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Notjohn

I haven't ignored you, Hitch -- I would never do that! But however many times I peruse your reply, I can't figure out why you think I would upload a clean Word doc, when my object is to see whether Kindle Select will tidy up a dirty one.

You're misremembering. Wasn't this part of the discussion about delivery file sizes, not cleanliness?

I simply meant that you can take the same file and test it, via your usual method (word processing file-->Clean-->Sigil-->Mobi) versus KC (Word processing file-->KC-->KPF-->upload to the KDP-->Get delivery size from the 3rd section/pricing page).

Hitch

JSWolf · 04-24-2019, 11:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by exaltedwombat

Well, I think we could almost always do fleurons and fonts? Though then as now, fleurons have a terrible habit of getting orphaned. And my grandfather, who worked a hot metal Linotype machine, impressed on me that unless you were printing a wedding invitation one font family per book was almost always plenty, and only cads chose sans-serif. :-)

Whether I'm editing a video or setting a book, 'Because I can' has never seemed a good enough reason for gimmickry. But if you insist on geometric transitions or Comic Sans, throw money at me and I'll deliver with a smile!

Sans-serif is used in a number of eBooks for the chapter headings. I see no problem with that. What I do have a problem with is an embedded font that's way too light for eInk screens and sometimes too light for an iPhone/iPad.

JSWolf · 04-24-2019, 11:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hitch

Have you gotten the ones where they think that the paragraphs that start with dialogue should be indented, and narrative block-style, or vice-versa? I don't know what asshat spreads that around, or tells people that's the right way to write a book, but it's MIND-boggling to me. I keep wanting to ask those folks, "have you ever SEEN a book?" I've seen more than a few now, and honest to crap, it leaves me speechless.

Hitch

Why is it that they also insist on having chapter headings that take up half the screen with a heck of a lot of wasted space that happens to look awful as well as waste space on screen?

There there are the books that use small font sizes for the main text. And some books when they try to simulate smallcaps use too small a font size. Sometimes there are indents that are just way too wide (5%). Big paragraph spaces with no indents (paragraph spaces are horrible anyway). When they do simulated blockquotes they do use margins that are too wide/big.

There are other issues like using ID's for ToC entries that just go to the top of the chapter. And <div> with no class surrounding each chapter. <body> with IDs. And many other really crappy coding examples.

JSWolf · 04-24-2019, 11:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by exaltedwombat

Speaking of widows and orphans, (and noting that there seems no clear agreement over the definition of either) there IS a solution to one variety, the single word in the last line of a paragraph. Particularly ugly in a multi-line header or a block of centered text. And all it takes is replacing the last space in the paragraph with a non-breaking one. I'm surprised that a plugin to do this isn't standard.

I turn off widows and orphans as I cannot stand them when reading on my iPhone, or H2O. I don't mind it as much on my iPad, but I still prefer them off.

JSWolf · 04-24-2019, 11:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Turtle91

"is able to produce epubs" is not a very valid argument in, and of, itself. IIRC Atlantis' coding is one of the worst not very good either....

You still need to be able to understand basic coding....

Unless the eBook has tables or other complex formatting, it's much easier to convert the Word Document to text and convert it to an ePub and put back the styles. Msonormal is the most hated style.

JSWolf · 04-24-2019, 11:49 AM

To get back on Topic, Kindle eBooks are usually larger in size then ePub.

Hitch · 04-25-2019, 09:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I turn off widows and orphans as I cannot stand them when reading on my iPhone, or H2O. I don't mind it as much on my iPad, but I still prefer them off.

Actually, stub ends (a single short word at the end of a paragraph) are not considered widows/orphans. That's a completely different thing.

Widows and orphans are when the last line of a paragraph END on the top of a new page (widows) or the first line of a paragraph starts at the bottom of a page (orphans).

They're not stub-end single-words, left at the end of a normal paragraph. Stub-ends are also considered to be the 2nd half of a hyphenated word, as the last word in a paragraph, too. (Obviously, on a new line.) That's considered "messy," but not actually wrong.

FWIW.

Hitch

exaltedwombat · 04-25-2019, 12:50 PM

Like I said:

"Speaking of widows and orphans, (and noting that there seems no clear agreement over the definition of either)..."

:-)

Hitch · 04-25-2019, 02:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by exaltedwombat

Like I said:

"Speaking of widows and orphans, (and noting that there seems no clear agreement over the definition of either)..."

:-)

Well, Bringhurst seems to think that there is. :-) I'd agree that around the web, you can find people who think that they mean ANYTHING at all that came to their wee brains that very day...

Hitch

AlanHK · 04-27-2019, 03:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by handycrowd

The old file is quoted as 41,000kb plus, and the new one was 61,730kb plus, but only 13.6MB after conversion.

So you think that KDP's grinder is pretty good at stripping out all the rubbish then and delivering a pretty lean file size, regardless of the input format?

With files that size, the text and code is only a few percent of the file: you can get 1000 page book in a megabyte or two. No matter how lousy the HTML , it can't take up much more than that.
Files more than that are mostly images and/or fonts.
Images are compressed, and Amazon and Kindlegen don't give you any control over that that I know.
Fonts may be included, and Unicode fonts can be several MB each. Ther are tools to strip out the glyphs that you don't need, but they don't work very well in my experience. You may have a 5MB font when you only need 6 symbols from it.

But the quality of coding has other impacts than size. Crappy code may be slow to render and look awful in some, or all, situations.

Notjohn · 05-02-2019, 03:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

To get back on Topic, Kindle eBooks are usually larger in size then ePub.

Interesting!

Now, I upload the identical epub to the KDP and to Draft2Digital, except that the latter has an included cover. The included cover apart, do you think the the KDP meatgrinder bulks up more than the D2D version?

(I'm not doubting you. It just never occurred to me that they might differ.)

Hitch · 05-02-2019, 03:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Notjohn

Interesting!

Now, I upload the identical epub to the KDP and to Draft2Digital, except that the latter has an included cover. The included cover apart, do you think the the KDP meatgrinder bulks up more than the D2D version?

(I'm not doubting you. It just never occurred to me that they might differ.)

What's your question? Are you saying you're using D2D to make a MOBI, or are you comparing apples and oranges, an ePUB from D2D to a MOBI from the KDP?

You already know that a MOBI has 3 full sets of files inside it. What's the question here? A MOBI will typically contain an ePUB inside it, in addition to the KF8 mobi and the KF7 mobi/prc file, so OF COURSE, the bloody thing is larger. Is that what you're asking about?

Hitch

exaltedwombat · 05-03-2019, 01:44 PM

Drifting off-topic:

Idly clicking through the link in @Hitch's signature, I note that her company boasts "2500 eBooks, 2000+ Clients". Is that really right? It suggests a distressingly low level of repeat business for what is obviously a thriving operation. My experience is that eBook publishing is addictive, a fair proportion of my clients are on their third or fourth book!

No put-down intended, just askin'...

Hitch · 05-03-2019, 02:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by exaltedwombat

Drifting off-topic:

Idly clicking through the link in @Hitch's signature, I note that her company boasts "2500 eBooks, 2000+ Clients". Is that really right? It suggests a distressingly low level of repeat business for what is obviously a thriving operation. My experience is that eBook publishing is addictive, a fair proportion of my clients are on their third or fourth book!

No put-down intended, just askin'...

Actually, around 4,000 now, for ~3000 or so clients. I'm soooo delighted to know that you're so interested in my business, to the point of opining that we don't have repeat customers.

I find that there's a huge difference between those who write porno, or el-cheapo how-to scamphelts, turning them out like popcorn shrimp, and those who write non-fiction and larger fiction works.

Hitch

exaltedwombat · 05-03-2019, 03:47 PM

Nothing to do with opinion, it's in the numbers! Though skimming down your Author List at http://www.booknook.biz/author-list/letter/ many of them DO show two or more publications. And your revised average of 1.5 books per client is up from the original 1.25 :-) Don't do yourself down!

Nice counter-attack - though I really wasn't attacking. I haven't had an enquiry for a porn book yet, but send 'em over!

05-03-2019, 01:44 PM	#58
exaltedwombat Guru Posts: 878 Karma: 2457540 Join Date: Nov 2011 Device: none	Drifting off-topic: Idly clicking through the link in @Hitch's signature, I note that her company boasts "2500 eBooks, 2000+ Clients". Is that really right? It suggests a distressingly low level of repeat business for what is obviously a thriving operation. My experience is that eBook publishing is addictive, a fair proportion of my clients are on their third or fourth book! No put-down intended, just askin'... Last edited by exaltedwombat; 05-03-2019 at 01:52 PM.

05-03-2019, 03:47 PM	#60
exaltedwombat Guru Posts: 878 Karma: 2457540 Join Date: Nov 2011 Device: none	Nothing to do with opinion, it's in the numbers! Though skimming down your Author List at http://www.booknook.biz/author-list/letter/ many of them DO show two or more publications. And your revised average of 1.5 books per client is up from the original 1.25 :-) Don't do yourself down! Nice counter-attack - though I really wasn't attacking. I haven't had an enquiry for a porn book yet, but send 'em over! Last edited by exaltedwombat; 05-03-2019 at 03:50 PM.

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04-24-2019, 11:49 AM	#51
JSWolf Resident Curmudgeon Posts: 74,015 Karma: 129333114 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3	To get back on Topic, Kindle eBooks are usually larger in size then ePub.

04-25-2019, 12:50 PM	#53
exaltedwombat Guru Posts: 878 Karma: 2457540 Join Date: Nov 2011 Device: none	Like I said: "Speaking of widows and orphans, (and noting that there seems no clear agreement over the definition of either)..." :-)

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