KF8 on Fire HD6 - Justification & Font Issues

[DreamWriter]

Originally Posted by dgatwood

If it is any consolation, I'm about to file a bug report with Apple against Safari/WebKit, pointing out that the word "eyes" cannot be hyphenated....

Edit: Appears to be fixed in 10.10.

Oh, my! I'm glad the problem's been fixed. As a reader, that would be very irritating.

UPDATE: I received a reply from Amazon KDP this morning (below). I just sent them everything they asked for, so we'll see what happens.

I understand your concern about default auto hyphenation, mostly seen on Kindle Fire devices.

I can confirm that this is not a new feature on the KDP publishing process, but could be a conversion error.

In order to help resolve this issue, we would like to have more information about what you're seeing, so we can further investigate.

Please write back with the titles or ASINs of the books that you see are displaying automatic hyphenation, if the issue is also present when previewing the books, and if possible include a screenshot of what you're seeing, so we can resolve this as soon as possible.

We appreciate your cooperation and patience.

I asked if other KDP authors have reported the same problems I'm having: (1) auto-hyphenation, (2) bolder title/chapter fonts, (3) bolder body font, and (4) smaller graphics than before.

I'll wait until I hear back from them before putting more effort into attempts to fix my e-books. If anyone has suggestions regarding HTML/CSS, I'll certainly consider them.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DreamWriter

Oh, my! I'm glad the problem's been fixed. As a reader, that would be very irritating.

UPDATE: I received a reply from Amazon KDP this morning (below). I just sent them everything they asked for, so we'll see what happens.



I asked if other KDP authors have reported the same problems I'm having: (1) auto-hyphenation, (2) bolder title/chapter fonts, (3) bolder body font, and (4) smaller graphics than before.

I'll wait until I hear back from them before putting more effort into attempts to fix my e-books. If anyone has suggestions regarding HTML/CSS, I'll certainly consider them.

Hi:

A couple of questions/ponderments:

1. Can you remove "font-weight:normal" and tell us if that has any effect? I know it shouldn't--I'm just asking.
2. Also, the font-sizing mechanism, for the chapter heads--can you try that in ems? Rather than 240%, can you try 2.5ems, and see if that alters anything much?
3. I'm also wondering if the weight of the chapter head is just throwing everything off. May I ask, is Laheb.ttf a bold version of that font? The bold member of the family, or are you manually "bolding" it with that weighting factor? (What font is this, BTW?)
4. What happens if you set the body to a serif? Not a specific font, just a font-family:serif? Does that change anything?

You're saying that you have no body font, no p font, etc., set anywhere, is that right? Are there any vestigial font settings left over from whatever it was in, before you converted it?

One of the things that we have a lot of experience with--but, I want to be clear, this doesn't make us experts, just frustrated bookmakers--is font-y weirdness at the KDP. I know that, for example, just because you have that chapter-head font embedded, you'll only ever see the body font on the PPW as Helvetica. (One of the reasons I mentioned setting it expressly to a serif font, even if that doesn't affect the bizarro-world hyphenation issue.)

Before your html moves to Sigil, what was it in its earlier life?

Sorry for what must seem like a boatload of random questions--I'm just sort of flailing around, seeking threads to pickup, when I ask these things. Only because of the weirdnesses we've seen, in at least hundreds of books with fonts.

Hitch

[DreamWriter]

Thanks, Hitch! I'll address your questions individually below.

Originally Posted by Hitch

Hi:

A couple of questions/ponderments:
[*]Can you remove "font-weight:normal" and tell us if that has any effect? I know it shouldn't--I'm just asking.

I did try that earlier this week, and it made no difference. Actually, Last Mulligan is the only one of my three e-books that currently has that code in the paragraph CSS. The other three books do not have paragraph font weight specified, and recently uploaded versions of those are also displaying text darker than before (on the Fire HD6; Android Kindle app is fine).

[*]Also, the font-sizing mechanism, for the chapter heads--can you try that in ems? Rather than 240%, can you try 2.5ems, and see if that alters anything much?

I can certainly try that, but I've always specified the chapter font/headings as a percentage, and it always worked fine before this week's uploads. Same fonts as before. The font size is displaying correctly. Both chapter and paragraph fonts are too dark only on the Fire HD6 now, whereas they used to be fine. All fonts still look good in the Android Kindle app.

I should point out that the current downloadable sample of Last Mulligan has a font weight of 600, which is too bold. As I recall, 500 seemed to work fine, but I don't want to change it back to test until I hear from KDP again. It used to be font-weight:bold; which now comes out extra-bold on the Fire HD6, so that's when I changed it to 500/600.

[*] What happens if you set the body to a serif? Not a specific font, just a font-family:serif? Does that change anything?

I haven't tried that. Since everything looks fine in KDP's online previewer and KDP-converted e-book downloaded to my Fire HD6, I can't really test that unless I actually publish to KDP and look at the sample. But I need to wait until they respond so I don't complicate their investigation.

You're saying that you have no body font, no p font, etc., set anywhere, is that right? Are there any vestigial font settings left over from whatever it was in, before you converted it?

I can confirm that the latest version of Last Mulligan, uploaded to KDP on February 19, has no font specified in either body or p. There is no body code in CSS at all. I searched all HTML for the word font. There are no matches.

One of the things that we have a lot of experience with--but, I want to be clear, this doesn't make us experts, just frustrated bookmakers--is font-y weirdness at the KDP. I know that, for example, just because you have that chapter-head font embedded, you'll only ever see the body font on the PPW as Helvetica. (One of the reasons I mentioned setting it expressly to a serif font, even if that doesn't affect the bizarro-world hyphenation issue.)

Before your html moves to Sigil, what was it in its earlier life?

All four books were written using MS Word 2007. All were then converted to HTML from Word using Web Page, Filtered.

For my first book, published in 2010, I hand-cleaned the HTML and created the CSS (which was a very laborious process, but a good learning experience!). Some time after that, I discovered word2cleanhtml.com and Sigil, so later books were created using those tools. I've used Kindlegen (command line) from the start. In the past, I submitted the KG-created mobi file to KDP but recently have submitted epub also to see if that fixed the problems, with no difference in results.

Sorry for what must seem like a boatload of random questions--I'm just sort of flailing around, seeking threads to pickup, when I ask these things. Only because of the weirdnesses we've seen, in at least hundreds of books with fonts.

The weird thing is that I've never had these problems until this week's uploads. The HTML/CSS is currently a bit different in each of my four books, and these problems with darker fonts, auto-hyphenation, and smaller chapter graphics are affecting all the recently uploaded books in the same way...and only on the Fire HD6 as far as I know. They were fine before. And the e-books look as they should in the Kindle App for Android on my 10" Acer Iconia A500, which seems to use KF8 since the specified chapter font is displayed. Very odd!

I wish I had other devices to use for testing. I'd love to know if this problem is showing up on any other Fire devices, or just the HD6. Does the Voyage use KF8 or mobi? The downloaded samples look fine on my Kindle Keyboard, which reads mobi (I haven't updated that device's software for a few years).

I'm grateful for your ideas and assistance! I hope KDP can narrow down the problem so I'll know if the issue's on their end or mine.

EDITED TO ADD: The Kindle-specific epub for Last Mulligan does validate at http://validator.idpf.org/. That doesn't necessarily mean that something in there isn't throwing off KDP's conversion, but I thought I'd mention it in case anyone wondered.

[Hitch]

Hi:

I'm not doing a big quoted reply, because we're getting lengthy. I'm sure I'll regret it as I decide I just GOTTA quote x, y and z, before I"m done.

A couple of semi-random notes:

1. I know that {font-name here redacted per OP request] has an actual bold face. You might get better results by simply using that, instead of faux-weighting the regular font.
2. Not to go off the reservation here, but...my recollection is that {ditto on font name redaction) doesn't *have* an eBook or app licensing option. Now, these are your books, not mine, but I spend all day dealing with OPIP (other people's IP), and I just want to be sure that you are not running into any possible problems by embedding a font that you MAY NOT have licensed.
3. I think I have a similar font, somewhere, that's OS, if you need one. FWIW.
4. The Voyage uses KF8.
5. I can confirm that there is a process, called the PW (Publishing Workflow) that occurs after a file, of whatever origin, is uploaded at Amazon. Now, this happens AFTER the Step-6 mobi is created. During the PW process, the SRL (Start Reading Location) is set, and other things can happen. Mostly, the SRL is what gets altered, but now it sounds like something else is occurring. What's weird is that it's only for the Fire 6"--or, actually, am I right in saying, you THINK it's only for the Fire 6", because you have nothing else upon which to test, is that right?
6. More stupid questions: how long have you had the 6", and do you regularly use it for reading OP's books? You've downloaded and read/tested/viewed the original mobi files, that you made in 2010-11, right? I know you said, Word-->Filt. HTML-->whatever in here-->Sigil-->Command line Kindlegen, is that right? Just confirming.
7. Do you know/remember if those were KF6-7 files? Rather than KF8? Did they also have fonts, at that time, for the chapter head?
8. When you built those files, what devices did you test them on, then? And again, in case I didn't ask, you built those books with the same chapter head font, and confirmed that it was working?

Given that your four books are all having the same issue, and presumably, they weren't all created at the same time, nor in precisely the same way, I'd guess that Amazon has a bug, just as they do with the Voyage (on images). Amazon has a number of weirdo issues related to fonts and font embedding. I would ask, have you tried a version that has NO fonts embedded? For the Chapter head? Call something else, one of the sans-serifs, maybe Trebuchet, say? (For a true bracket navigation test, start with NO fonts, and work up to even trying to call something from the firmware/software). Remove the fonts folder from the file altogether, and see if that has an impact?

And for those who think that idea is a bit nutty--I've seen books that would have the font folder entirely ripped out, if a mobi was uploaded, not build with fonts if an ePUB was uploaded, but worked perfectly FINE if you break the ePUB into its constituent parts, zip it, and then upload THAT. Same exact content--just in a different wrapper. So...trying the whacky is almost a necessity.

I tend to think that I'm off the rails here--that the hyphenation issue is utterly unrelated to fonts, but the font WEIGHT issue mayn't be. I think I've mentioned here on MR before that I've seen things affected, by the simple inclusion of a font, that, in no common-sense way, should have been (affected). I've posted screenshots of the myriad font weirdnesses we've had, so...it will be interesting to see what Amazon says. ($5 says, the first thing they say is, remove fonts. Just because that's kind of their "go-to" on weirdness issues. That, or you never hear from them again.)

[DreamWriter]

Hitch,

Regarding fonts... All rendered fine on the Fire HD6 before updates sent to KDP within the last week. None were extra-bold as I'm seeing now. They are the same fonts that were in previous editions.

My primary concern right now is why the books have auto-hyphenation, but I'll also address the font issues once I hear back from KDP.

I've had the Fire HD6 since late November 2014. I don't recall if I checked my e-books right away after that, but I did look at them on the Fire right before making the recent changes. Every book was fine on the Fire HD6 then.

We didn't have KF8 when I started publishing. When that became available, I updated the existing books to take advantage of that. I've published several more since then. I have two cascading style sheets, one for mobi and the other KF8, and use media queries within the HTML. Never had any problems with that, and nothing's changed on my end in that regard.

For my first book, I exported filtered HTML from Word 2007-->fixed the HTML/created CSS, OPF, and NCX by hand/created the epub manually-->Kindlegen. Now, I copy the text from Word, paste into word2cleanhtml.com-->fix what I need to in Sigil-->command-line Kindlegen. These are not brand-new books I've recently uploaded; they're revisions to books previously published using those methods, without any problems before now.

Since the first book was only mobi, I tested then using my Kindle Keyboard. When KF8 came into being, I also tested on my Android tablet using the Kindle app. And now I check on the Fire HD6, too. Of course, I also preview the books at KDP before hitting the publish button. Everything looks fine there, even now...no extra-bold fonts, full justification, and no auto-hyphenation. I don't think their previewer is really accurate, though.

....you THINK it's only for the Fire 6", because you have nothing else upon which to test, is that right?

That's correct. The books look fine, even now, on my Kindle Keyboard (mobi) and 10" Android tablet (KF8). I only have the Fire HD6. That's where I see the problems--and only in the downloaded sample or purchased book. The sideloaded book from KDP, which I download from KDP after publication, looks fine on all my devices, including HD6. No one has said whether they see these problems in my books on their larger Fire HD/HDX tablets or on the KF8 Kindles. I'd like to know.

I'll try some of your suggestions if KDP confirms that the problem is on my end. As I said earlier, I only see the problems on my Fire HD6 after the books are published and available to purchase. I don't want to interfere with KDP's investigation by uploading anything new right now.

Thanks again!

[Notjohn]

I think KDP Support is being, um, disingenuous in saying this not a new feature. I read a lot of books on my Fire HD (a 7-inch tablet, I believe) and I never saw it before reading The Secret Knowledge. What makes autohyphenation especially weird in this case is that the book is formatted ragged right! So there's no need to break words at all.

(And yes, Hitch, I see this on the Fire HD, so it's not limited to the 6-inch tablet. It doesn't however seem to affect any of my books, including those updated and republished within the past month.)

I reported The Secret Knowledge for the formatting problem, as someone on the KDP forum suggested.

The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture by David Mamet
Link: http://amzn.com/B004IYIU0Q

[DreamWriter]

Notjohn, would you (or anyone else) please check the downloadable sample for Last Mulligan on your Fire and tell me if you see the auto-hyphenation? You may need to increase the font size for it to become obvious. It would also help to know which size Fire you have, whether it's an HD or HDX, and the current software version on the device (a new version is currently being pushed to some Fires). Tell me what time you viewed the sample, too, since I'll be uploading new files today. I need to determine if this is happening only on my Fire HD6 or on other Fire devices as well.

I heard back from Amazon KDP yesterday. Here is the meat of their reply:

Thank you for your reply. I hope you are having a great day. I'm really sorry to hear that you've been having problems with the conversion of your files on KDP.

I've checked your files and found that you have uploaded into KDP both e-Pub format and .Mobi; these two formats are final format conversions, and it's possible that the auto-hyphenation problem is being caused due to the original format used for your documents.

If your source file is Word we recommend that you check the line spacing, as it won't be considered when uploading the file, it's possible that this might be affecting and automatically including the hyphens, if your book was created using HTML, we recommend that you verify the tags and that there are no extra tags that could cause this.

I understand that you also found that there some other issues such as bolder chapter, darker body font or chapter graphics; and that you also found that the problems are not present in the KDP previewer. I've opened your files with our previewer and found that the issues are present in the previewer, so it seems that the source of the problem is the original format of your books.

Based on that feedback, I searched for anything to do with line spacing in the CSS and HTML. I did find this in CSS span code for the initial chapter paragraph font (which is larger than the paragraph text): line-height:0; This code was probably a vestige from years-ago experiments with drop caps. Since it is unnecessary anyway, I deleted that line and re-uploaded to KDP. Note that there's never been line height specification in any paragraph code.

Late in the five-hour KDP "full publishing" process, the "Send sample now" section of the e-book's product page went missing. It didn't come back for about 10 hours! During that time, I was unable to check the sample to see if deletion of that line fixed the problem. When I was finally able to download the sample to my Fire HD6 this morning, it turns out that my change had NO effect at all.

So, I decided to go back to square one and re-uploaded the Kindlegen-created mobi originally sent to KDP on October 23, 2014, when Last Mulligan was published. I'm quite certain that the auto-hyphenation was not present on my Fire HD6 for that version, although after trying to fix things for over a week now, I'm beginning to wonder if I just didn't notice it. My other recently updated books also have the same problems, though, and I didn't notice auto-hyphens in earlier versions of those either.

It's been less than an hour since I uploaded that original file, so I'm still waiting for a new sample to become available. If it turns out that the original version just re-uploaded IS free of auto-hyphens on the Fire HD6, then I'll know for certain that my recent efforts introduced the problems. Then I can slowly re-introduce code and back matter I was trying to change and (hopefully) determine what triggered it.

I don't understand why the auto-hyphenation shows up on the Fire HD6, while it's not present in KDP's online previewer or in my KF8-reading Android Kindle app on my other tablet. And there are no auto-hyphens in the file I download directly from KDP after their initial conversion process (the "Book Preview File") and sideload onto the HD6.

I'll keep you posted...

[Hitch]

I've just ordered the sample: 2/23/15 at 1:38p.m. MST.

FYI, this:

I'm beginning to wonder if I just didn't notice it.

...is one of the things I was endeavoring to determine in my fairly endless list of questions.

I'll report back on the sample.

UPDATE: I am not seeing ANY hyphenation, at all, on the new sample. I don't know of what it is representative, mind you, but I'm not seeing it on my FireHD. (Original version).

Hitch

[DreamWriter]

Originally Posted by DreamWriter

So, I decided to go back to square one and re-uploaded the Kindlegen-created mobi originally sent to KDP on October 23, 2014, when Last Mulligan was published. I'm quite certain that the auto-hyphenation was not present on my Fire HD6 for that version, although after trying to fix things for over a week now, I'm beginning to wonder if I just didn't notice it. My other recently updated books also have the same problems, though, and I didn't notice auto-hyphens in earlier versions of those either.

I just viewed the downloadable sample of the file as it was originally submitted to KDP on October 23, 2014. This is the one I uploaded again this morning. The e-book has auto-hyphenation on my Fire HD6 and no auto-hyphens on my Android tablet Kindle app. Same as other recent uploads.

Originally Posted by Hitch

I've just ordered the sample: 2/23/15 at 1:38p.m. MST.

FYI, this:



...is one of the things I was endeavoring to determine in my fairly endless list of questions.

I'll report back on the sample.

UPDATE: I am not seeing ANY hyphenation, at all, on the new sample. I don't know of what it is representative, mind you, but I'm not seeing it on my FireHD. (Original version).

Hitch

Thanks, Hitch! That's very helpful to know.

EDIT: Are you saying that words intentionally hyphenated by me (like early- and panic- aren't hyphenated, or did you mean you aren't seeing the added auto-hyphenation? [I'm confused by your capitalization of the word ANY quoted above.]

The sample you downloaded today at 1:38 p.m. MST should've been from my latest upload (which was the same file I originally submitted when the book was published in October. That sample is auto-hyphenated on my Fire HD6, yet you didn't see any...interesting! Is yours a 7" or 8.9" Fire? Did you have the device set to a fairly large type size?

A new software update (4.5.3) is being pushed to some Fire devices now. My HD6 is still at version 4.5.2, so it'll be interesting to see if the software update changes anything.

I need to know how the text looks on other Fire devices, so if anyone else can report that, I'd appreciate the info. I'd particularly like to know if this is happening on anyone else's Fire HD6 (please mention which software version if you know).

I e-mailed KDP support this morning to see if we can discuss these issues over the telephone. I've been working on this problem for over a week, and back-and-forth emails are getting nowhere.

The thing that perplexes me most is why auto-hyphenation is showing on my Fire HD6, but isn't on Hitch's original Fire HD or in the Kindle for Android app. Those all read KF8. And why does the side-loaded file, downloaded directly from KDP, look fine on my Fire HD6? KDP tech support has told me they see auto-hyphenation in their previewer. So, why isn't it showing up on all KF8 devices? So many unanswered questions....

[Hitch]

Sorry!

I simply meant, no auto-hyphenation. Deliberately-hyphenated words (smile) are showing up just fine.

Mine is the 7", and I opened the file at font-size 5, and pushed it to 7, and 9, (largest size) and still didn't see a single optional/soft/whatever-we're-calling-them-this-week hyphen. And I certainly saw rivers of white, so, I SHOULD HAVE seen hyphens, IMHO. I mean, assuming arguendo that hyphenation wasn't turned off, etc.

Hitch

[DreamWriter]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Sorry!

I simply meant, no auto-hyphenation. Deliberately-hyphenated words (smile) are showing up just fine.

Mine is the 7", and I opened the file at font-size 5, and pushed it to 7, and 9, (largest size) and still didn't see a single optional/soft/whatever-we're-calling-them-this-week hyphen. And I certainly saw rivers of white, so, I SHOULD HAVE seen hyphens, IMHO. I mean, assuming arguendo that hyphenation wasn't turned off, etc.

Hitch

Thanks for clarifying! That's very helpful.

What I know so far: Auto-hyphenation in the downloaded Last Mulligan sample does not appear on the first-generation Fire HD7 and Android Kindle app. It also does not appear when I sideload the file itself (downloaded from KDP after "conversion") onto my Fire HD6. However, it does show up when I download the sample (from the book's product page) to my Fire HD6. And KDP tech support told me they see auto-hyphenation in their previewer.

I need to know if anyone sees auto-hyphenation in this book's downloaded sample on their HD6; maybe my individual device is wonky. And does anyone see it on Kindle e-ink devices that read KF8?

[Notjohn]

Originally Posted by DreamWriter

Notjohn, would you (or anyone else) please check the downloadable sample for Last Mulligan on your Fire and tell me if you see the auto-hyphenation?

It doesn't seem so. For hyphens, I see dew-laden in Chap 2.

I enlarge to Font 8, and in Chap 3 see ten-spot. Twice.

There are several lines with significant gaps between words.

I would say there were no wild hyphenations.

That's a Fire HD, the seven-inch tablet.

[DreamWriter]

Notjohn, thanks for checking and letting me know.

From the information reported here thus far, it seems auto-hyphenation may appear only on the Fire HD6. I don't know yet whether the issue is caused by the epub/mobi I submit to KDP, a glitch in their conversion process, or if there may be something in Fire HD6's built-in reading app that doesn't play nice with my code.

I just submitted another file to KDP a short time ago; I'll review those results later today. This time, I changed a lot of CSS (mostly font-related stuff), so if those modifications do eliminate auto-hyphens on my HD6, it may be difficult to figure out exactly what made the difference!

[dgatwood]

Originally Posted by DreamWriter

From the information reported here thus far, it seems auto-hyphenation may appear only on the Fire HD6. I don't know yet whether the issue is caused by the epub/mobi I submit to KDP, a glitch in their conversion process, or if there may be something in Fire HD6's built-in reading app that doesn't play nice with my code.

My only question is whether they're doing something special in the Fire HD6's firmware, like enabling automatic hyphenation unless it is explicitly disabled. The reason I'm curious is that I know for a fact that Kindle for OS X crashes if you enable automatic hyphenation in a KF8 book. It not only won't let you open the book, but also won't let you delete the book without an instant crash. So if KDP is adding it on ingest, then every book they import from now on is going to cause their buggy Mac reader to turn into an almost literal Kindle fire....

Edit: Apparently, I don't know that for a fact anymore. Some time since I sent a bug report to Amazon on 12/29, Amazon released an updated version of Kindle for Mac. I don't know if they fixed the crash or not yet; I'm downloading it now. I hope so, because if so, I'm reenabling automatic hyphenation and resubmitting three books tonight.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by dgatwood

My only question is whether they're doing something special in the Fire HD6's firmware, like enabling automatic hyphenation unless it is explicitly disabled. The reason I'm curious is that I know for a fact that Kindle for OS X crashes if you enable automatic hyphenation in a KF8 book. It not only won't let you open the book, but also won't let you delete the book without an instant crash. So if KDP is adding it on ingest, then every book they import from now on is going to cause their buggy Mac reader to turn into an almost literal Kindle fire....

Edit: Apparently, I don't know that for a fact anymore. Some time since I sent a bug report to Amazon on 12/29, Amazon released an updated version of Kindle for Mac. I don't know if they fixed the crash or not yet; I'm downloading it now. I hope so, because if so, I'm reenabling automatic hyphenation and resubmitting three books tonight.

dg:

Can you kindly report back anon, and let us know? Most interested!

Hitch