Converting EPUB's for Kindle Paperwhite - AZW3 or MOBI?

[eschwartz]

All I mean is just treat it as two separate things.

Download to Kindle as godAmazon intended. Buy book ==> Download directly from Kindle
Import backups into calibre as per the K4PC method.


No need to email anything.

[speedlever]

Oh ok. It's still a 3 step process any way you slice it.

BTW, it appears the double format (AZW3, MOBI) that I'm seeing is caused by the Adding books option under preferences, Automatic tab. Automatically convert added files to the currrent output format is checked on mine. (This per cybmole).

[eschwartz]

The automatic conversion would do it, yes.

I leave it disabled, I can't really think of much use for it unless you mainly access calibre over the content server.

[speedlever]

Good point. Thanks.

[BionicGecko]

Originally Posted by victorhooi

I just tried an experiment, which may solve this mystery.

I converted several books in Calibre into MOBI (dual-format, or Hybrid). I also used KindleUnpack to unpack the hybrid MOBI generated by Calibre, so we could compare this to the file downloaded onto the Kindle later.

I then used OSX Send-to-Kindle to upload these to Amazon.

I then downloaded them via WiFi onto my Kindle Voyage.

I then plugged my Kindle Voyage in by USB, and looked at the books - it would appear that *some* books were downloaded as AZW and *some* books were loaded as AZW3

Book 1 is an example of a book that was sent as an AZW.

Book 2 is an example of a book that was sent as an AZW3.

I've attached examples of each book at each stage:

1. Original Source AZW3 Book
2. Hybrid MOBI Generated by Calibre
3. Split up by KindleUnpack - MOBI7 component
4. Split up by KindleUnpack - Mobi8 component
5. Copy of book downloaded onto Kindle voyage

It should be fairly easy to do a comparison here to prove what happened.

I am quite curious why some books got uploaded as AZW and some as AZW3 though.

And also not sure how the cover images (thumbnails) got broken in the download.

@speedlever - As in, books I upload via Sent-to-Kindle will appear under "Docs", as opposed to "Books". It's just a logical division used by Amazon - I believe it's there on any reasonably modern Kindle (PW, PW2, 7th Gen etc.). I'd like a way to get the books I upload to appear under "Books" - apparently I need to do some mucking around with some 501 CDE tag, I was hoping there was a reasonably easy way to do this from within Calibre.

Sorry to revive this old thread, but I am stumped with the same problem that victorhooi is having, and can't seem to find a solution on the forum.

Just like victorhooi, when emailing ePub files converted to "dual" mode mobi to my kindle, some of those are received as AZW files, and the rest as AZW3 files. I can't seem to find a clear reason for this, or any way to predict which one it will be.

I actually tried the sample files that victorhooi uploaded, and get the same results as him (book 1 is in AZW, book 2 in AZW3).

Was this mystery solved in the end?

Thanks!

[BionicGecko]

Hello all,

So I investigated a bit further, and it seems that it's an issue with Calibre. I converted some of my problematic epub files using Amazon's own KindleGen app, and after sending the file by email, the AZW3 file ends up being sent to the kindle. When I was previously converting the same epub with Calibre, the AWZ file was sent to the kindle.

Hope this helps someone!

[evianluw]

Originally Posted by BionicGecko

Hello all,

So I investigated a bit further, and it seems that it's an issue with Calibre. I converted some of my problematic epub files using Amazon's own KindleGen app, and after sending the file by email, the AZW3 file ends up being sent to the kindle. When I was previously converting the same epub with Calibre, the AWZ file was sent to the kindle.

Hope this helps someone!

Kindlegen works very well, except for the cover of the generated file, after sending to the personal documents, still doesn't show up.