Kindlegen for mac neophyte needs some help

[petercrowell]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

The standard mimetypes for png and jpeg are "image/png" and "image/jpeg", respectively. And the id needs to be unique, but you probably knew that already.

So, this should work (?) ...

<item id="item1" media-type="image/jpeg" href="imagefile.jpg">

(Is the extension .jpg okay, or does it need to match image/jpeg?)

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by petercrowell

Plus, hashing through it like this helps me learn. Subsequent ebooks will benefit from this experience.

That's very true. OK, some resources to help you.

The ePub specs can be found at http://idpf.org/epub You should look at the OPS 2.0.1 and OPF 2.0.1

See the Kindle Publishing Guidelines for some bits that you ought to include in the opf file to take best advantage of Kindle features. In general you can do this without breaking the epub specification: http://kindlegen.s3.amazonaws.com/Am...Guidelines.pdf

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by petercrowell

(Is the extension .jpg okay, or does it need to match image/jpeg?)

The extension can be anything at all, even nothing. You could name your file "imagefile.jpg", or "image.file", or "myimage", or "thisisreallyanimage.doc"... as long as the content is a JPEG file.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by petercrowell

So, this should work (?) ...

Nearly there! Since you're already using id="item1" for your bookfile.html, you have to pick a different id to use for each image. "item2" or "image1" or just about anything else will do. After that, you should be good to go.

The extension doesn't have to exactly match the mimetype, as long as the media-type matches the filetype content. You actually don't need to bother with filename extensions at all if your files don't have them; but they're useful to include for less well-made reader apps which can be overly picky at times.

[petercrowell]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

That's very true. OK, some resources to help you.

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Great! Thanks for the info. So much to learn!

[petercrowell]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

you have to pick a different id to use for each image. "item2" or "image1" or just about anything else will do.

Got it.

Thank you!

This should get me to the next hurdle.

[petercrowell]

Originally Posted by Jellby

The extension can be anything at all, even nothing.

I wondered about this, because some of my files don't have extensions. They just came out that way when I saved them for some reason.

Thanks!

[petercrowell]

Do each of the items need to be listed in the spine?

[ATDrake]

No for images, yes for html.

[petercrowell]

My final chapter isn't showing up in the ncx view of my toc in kindle previewer. I can't figure out what could be causing this. All the code seems to be the same for the chapters that do show up.

Any ideas?

[ATDrake]

KindleGen does that sometimes. It's one of the bugs that shows up to bite you*, especially if the <text> of the chapter title includes both a colon and an apostrophe in it.

My workaround for it is to create a final "dummy" <navPoint> entry which can go to any chapter for the href, as long as it's got a unique id and has a playOrder following the actual final chapter.

The trick is to leave the <text> for the dummy final chapter completely blank, which will keep it from being incorporated into the NCX, but usually manages to "force" KindleGen to create a functioning NCX point for the real final chapter it tried to skip.

Hope it works for you.

* One of these days I'm going to have to assemble and post the list of KindleGen's wonkier "features" and how to get around them if it's at all possible from the stuff I've tried.

[st_albert]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

* One of these days I'm going to have to assemble and post the list of KindleGen's wonkier "features" and how to get around them if it's at all possible from the stuff I've tried.

Please do!

[petercrowell]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

create a final "dummy" <navPoint> entry which can go to any chapter for the href, as long as it's got a unique id and has a playOrder following the actual final chapter.

The trick is to leave the <text> for the dummy final chapter completely blank, which will keep it from being incorporated into the NCX, but usually manages to "force" KindleGen to create a functioning NCX point for the real final chapter it tried to skip.

Hope it works for you.

It didn't work, but I'm not sure I'm doing what you've suggested. Can you seen anything wrong with what I've tried?

The first nav point is the actual final chapter, the second is the dummy...


<navPoint id="navPoint-23" playOrder="23">

<navLabel>

<text>Chapter 23: Hiding Wood</text>

</navLabel>

<content src="silverlance.html#chapter23"/>

</navPoint>


<navPoint id="navPoint-24" playOrder="24">

<navLabel>

<text></text>

</navLabel>

<content src="silverlance.html#chapter23"/>

</navPoint>

[ATDrake]

Yeah, that looks like it's done correctly and should work. About the only thing that I usually do differently is to point the final "dummy" src at either a different anchor point or a different file entirely from the real navPoints.

Maybe see what happens if you remove the #chapter23 at the end or point the src at one of your image files? It's not going to get included anyway and may be the key to solving KindleGen's weird buggy pickiness which I really wish the Amazon people would take the time to fix instead of expanding audio/video file format support.

[petercrowell]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Maybe see what happens if you remove the #chapter23 at the end or point the src at one of your image files? It's not going to get included anyway and may be the key to solving KindleGen's weird buggy pickiness which I really wish the Amazon people would take the time to fix instead of expanding audio/video file format support.

Tried your suggestions with no success. However, following your logic, here's what finally did work:

In my book.html file, I put in an extra sequentially correct nav anchor for a non-existent 24th chapter.

Then I created a nav point for that chapter in the toc.ncx file, with it's own sequentially correct play# and a blank <text></text>

That got chapter 23 to show up.