Kindle Formatting: The Complete Guide

[kindleformatting]

George -- All you have to do is delete the book from your Kindle, then have Amazon re-send it (either in your Account Settings on the website or in the Archived books section on the K2).

Nate -- Thanks for the support. You would not believe my kids and their bare feet. I actually think that this book will be very useful for technical experts, too. As I mentioned in my reply above, the Kindle format is very specific in some cases and can be finicky to deal with. I don't expect most techies to know this stuff inherently, which is one of the reasons I have written it all down.

Daithi -- Thanks for getting the book. I hope you find it helpful and enlightening.

The image dimensions on the Kindle 1 actually are 524 x 640. I confirmed this with some precise testing I explain and show examples of in the book. If you make an image 525 x 640, it will be re-sized by the Kindle.


- Joshua
http://kindleformatting.com/book

[Daithi]

Joshua,

I read the book last night and found it very useful, especially in regards to hanging indents as it applies to poetry and to formatting table of contents. Very good advice.

The only area I'd disagree with you is on screen size. Here's an even simpler test than the method you described in your book --

• Make an image of a black line 10 pixels high and more than 600 pixels wide.
• View that image on the Kindle and do a screen capture.
• Load screen capture image into photoshop (or other image software) and check how wide the black line is now. (You will see that it is 525 pixels.)
• The same procedure is used determine the maximum height but with a black line taller than the maximum screen size.

Your method of testing can easily make you off by a pixel or two (i.e. the Kindle software doesn't expand the image that is one or two pixels off and thus no distortion to your image).

[llasram]

Originally Posted by kindleformatting

For the record, PRE tags do not work on the Kindle, at least not in any test I have run.

In my reverse-engineering of the Mobipocket formatting model, the Mobipocket renderer did not understand the <pre/> element or CSS 'white-space' property, but the most recent version of mobigen did understand <pre/> and transform it into <tt/> with all spaces replaced with non-breaking spaces and linebreaks replaced with <br/> elements.

I haven't looked at the book yet, but this plus even discussing CSS (which the Mobipocket renderer doesn't understand at all) makes me question the utility of this a bit. The various implementations of the Mobipocket renderer are so widely distributed that changes to basic behavior are probably not very likely. Changes to mobigen and whatever Kindle-focused tools Amazon provides are far more likely, which means that a new release could change many details.

In fact, I hope that Amazon does change details to make "official" Mobipocket generation more capable of dealing with standards-compliant content. In the meantime, calibre does a pretty good job of generating DRM-free Mobipocket books from markup which uses even fairly advanced CSS features.

[llasram]

Originally Posted by kindleformatting

In addition, the ePub and Mobipocket formats are not the same. The OPF support is different, the HTML support is different, and the CSS support is different. There are a large number of areas where you cannot make the two mesh, and it is best to treat them as different animals. Sure a fiction book can be easily converted from one to the other, but once you start getting into business books, textbooks, and other books with formatting irregularities, you are much better off dealing with two different source files.

I won't argue whether this is practically true or not, but it really gets my goat. Mobipocket doesn't use OPF or CSS at all, which means all the differences are in how Amazon/Mobipocket have so poorly implemented the OPF and CSS support in mobigen.

[AlexBell]

Joshua,

I use a Cybook rather than a Kindle, and would be very interested in a book which helps me to prepare ebooks in Mobipocket format. Could you tell me please whether your book is focussed mainly on the Mobipocket format or on Kindles as Kindles?

Also, for what it is worth, Fictionwise is my preferred vendor. Do you have any plans to make your book available on Fictionwise?

And is the DRM prc version available yet?

Regards, Alex

[kindleformatting]

Alex,

My book could be considered a guide to Mobipocket, though a lot of the information is Kindle-specific. The Kindle enforces some default formatting to every book for consistency, so I talk about how to work around that and how to use it to your advantage.

I can't get the book on Fictionwise because they don't allow independent authors to publish on their site. The book is available at Mobipocket and in some other places. Links are on my website:

http://kindleformatting.com/book

Thanks!
Joshua

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by kindleformatting

Also, I have some very unique information available in the book that you will not find out elsewhere, including:
[LIST][*]Formatting Poetry (a unique, tested format that allows for hanging indents at various levels)

I have personally always found that the obvious method of <div width="x"> or <p width="x"> works very satisfactorily for indenting poetry. Do you have better method for doing it?

[susan_cassidy]

Originally Posted by llasram

Mobipocket doesn't use OPF or CSS at all, which means all the differences are in how Amazon/Mobipocket have so poorly implemented the OPF and CSS support in mobigen.

Mobipocket Creator does use OPF files. See http://www.mobipocket.com/dev/articl...fxmetadata.xml. They also are created as interim files when you convert a file, and you can edit them and rebuild the .prc/.mobi file.

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by susan_cassidy

Mobipocket Creator does use OPF files. See http://www.mobipocket.com/dev/articl...fxmetadata.xml. They also are created as interim files when you convert a file, and you can edit them and rebuild the .prc/.mobi file.

Yes, but the OEB/ePub to MOBI conversion done by Creator (which does not currently import ePub) or mobigen is not at all optimal. MobiPocket has had several requests to let DRM be added to Calibre-generated MOBI files, which isn't currently possible (DRM on PRC Files), because they are significantly better.

[AlexBell]

Originally Posted by kindleformatting

Alex,

My book could be considered a guide to Mobipocket, though a lot of the information is Kindle-specific. The Kindle enforces some default formatting to every book for consistency, so I talk about how to work around that and how to use it to your advantage.

I can't get the book on Fictionwise because they don't allow independent authors to publish on their site. The book is available at Mobipocket and in some other places. Links are on my website:

http://kindleformatting.com/book

Thanks!
Joshua

Thanks, Joshua. I'm off to Mobipocket to buy the book.

Regards, Alex

[whitearrow]

Joshua,

I bought this book when it first came out and find it very useful.

When pushing a new version, are you putting a version number or update date somewhere easy to find it? There has been a lot of controversy about whether Amazon is really letting users download updated versions of books, and a "last updated" date on the title page would be one way to know for sure.

(Also, thank you for allowing the book to be open in Mobipocket Reader on the desktop. That is one of its most useful features.)

[kindleformatting]

@whitearrow - I did not put a version number on the book, but that is a good idea. I'll make sure to do that the next time I update it.

[crutledge]

Joshua,
I have broken a vow to myself to never buy a DRM'd book. You mentioned somewhere in ths thread that a non-DRM'd version will soon be available. I hope that will be downloadable by those of us who have alredy purchased. I also downloaded the PDF files from your site and printed them for ready reference.

I would like to see a recommended style sheet. Having seen little need for them, I haven't paid much attention. I work on books from Gutenberg and others and not specifically for Kindel. Besides, getting my wife's Kindel for experimentation is problematic. So I if it works in MP Reader, I go with it.

Perhaps you will inspire some good soul out on the forum to perform the same service for the other formats and readers. It's all out on the web but a single document makes things much simpler.

Remember! Our species may be called Homo Sapiens but there is a large infiltration of Homo Stupidus.

Good job. Keep it comming.
Charlie

[MejDam]

Originally Posted by kindleformatting

@whitearrow - I did not put a version number on the book, but that is a good idea. I'll make sure to do that the next time I update it.

Sounds like a great idea, and i justed bought a copy of the book. Seems very useful. Wonder how much of the $10 goes to you and how much amazon gets.

[crutledge]

I downloaded the Special Character PDF from Joshua's Web Site. What character set must be spcified in the HTML for these special characters to display properly.

In fact, is there a character set recommended for Kindel/MOBI formatting?

Charlie