font size Kindle Touch (compared to K3)

[franklekens]

Here's a weird thing. I have a sample version of the first chapters of A Game of Thrones, and a bought copy of the full text. On the Kindle Keyboard, these have the same font size. But on the Kindle Touch, the font size of the sample is noticeably larger than that of the full book.

Unfortunately, I like the sample's font size, and like the full book's font size rather less. And there's no way to adjust it to the exact size of the sample.

In fact, my first impressions of the Kindle Touch that that's often the case with the font: for books that I have on both devices, the font size on the Kindle Touch is slightly different and always either a tiny bit too small or too large to my taste, compared to my preferred font size on the Kindle Keyboard.

No doubt this is partly because I've grown used to the Kindle Keyboard font size over time.

But I don't understand that weird difference between the sample and the full e-book of Game of Thrones. Is this a know issue with the KT?

[ixtab]

Originally Posted by franklekens

Here's a weird thing. I have a sample version of the first chapters of A Game of Thrones, and a bought copy of the full text. On the Kindle Keyboard, these have the same font size. But on the Kindle Touch, the font size of the sample is noticeably larger than that of the full book.

Unfortunately, I like the sample's font size, and like the full book's font size rather less. And there's no way to adjust it to the exact size of the sample.

In fact, my first impressions of the Kindle Touch that that's often the case with the font: for books that I have on both devices, the font size on the Kindle Touch is slightly different and always either a tiny bit too small or too large to my taste, compared to my preferred font size on the Kindle Keyboard.

No doubt this is partly because I've grown used to the Kindle Keyboard font size over time.

But I don't understand that weird difference between the sample and the full e-book of Game of Thrones. Is this a know issue with the KT?

This is just an educated guess, but...

It's probably because of the Kindle Touch using a different "version" of the book. Most books seem to be made available in KF8 format now, which the K4 and K5 (Touch) can display, but the K3 can't. So the K3 uses the "old" format, while the K5 uses the "new" one. You're in fact reading two different books, which are formatted differently. (And the sample would be "non-KF8", thus displaying the same on both devices).

Edit: A workaround seems to be to use calibre to "convert" the book from mobi to mobi. This results in an "old-style" mobi book, which would look the same on the K3 and K5. See this post and the follow-up discussion for a related (but not identical) problem.

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by ixtab

... You're in fact reading two different books, which are formatted differently. (And the sample would be "non-KF8", thus displaying the same on both devices).
...

Why KF8 behaves differently on K3/K5 (according to the MobileRead KF8 wiki):

https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/KF8:
KF8 replaces MOBI but actually includes both a MOBI database and a KF8 database in the same file for backwards compatibility using older Amazon Kindle readers.

But Amazon has this to say about it:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.htm...cId=1000729511:
Q: Will I have to provide two versions of my titles going forward?
A: No. The upcoming updates to our Kindle Publishing Tools will take care of this for you. KindleGen 2 will convert your content to both Mobi and KF8 formats so that it works on all Kindle devices and apps. You will be able to preview how your title will look on the range of Kindle devices and apps using Kindle Previewer 2.

So, it seems that MobileRead and Amazon are not in agreement here.

It does point out that "Kindle Previewer 2" will show you what your book will look like on different kindles, which looks useful.

[NiLuJe]

@GM:

When you compile a mobi yourself with KG/KP 2, it produces a 'dual' mobi. A .mobi file with both a legacy mobi6 part, and a KF8 mobi8 part. When you view such a file on a legacy device, you see the mobi6 part, when you view it on a KF8 capable device, you see the mobi8 part. (The KP lets you chose which device you want to emulate).

(Enjoy the bajillion of different names used to describe the 'new' format: KF8, mobi7, mobi8, azw3... I usually go with mobi8 when talking about the internals, since it's the mimetype used by amazon for KF8 files (application/x-mobi8-ebook) and KF8 for the rest since it's the 'marketing' name).

When you convert a mobi via Calibre, you can choose what to do: a dual mobi, a mobi6, or a mobi8. Right now it's a tweak, in the next release (0.8.65) it'll be a setting in the mobi output plugin. It defaults to a single mobi6 part right now.

When you get a book from Amazon, they will automatically send you the *single* part adapted to the target device. Usually a mobi6 as a .azw file for legacy devices, or a mobi8 as a .azw3 file for latest gen devices.

And to get back to the OP's question: I've indeed seen a bunch of KF8 files from Amazon where the font size (among other things...) was slightly different than the 'older' mobi6 version I got on my K3. Nothing you can do about it, except strip it and tweak it, or strip it and convert it to mobi6. That's the joy of extended CSS capabilities: more chances for people to get it wrong.

Once simple way (for now) to check if you're reading a KF8 is to take notice of the line spacing. It's currently, let's say... 'broken' on FW 4.1.x/5.1.x, and forced at a slightly larger size than usual (on the lowest setting, it's still larger than the medium setting on a mobi6 file). [Although, in this specific case, since it depends a bit on the font size, that might not be the perfect example to check... ]

[tomsem]

I think that GoT uses embedded font also. You can turn that off in the Fonts (Aa) menu.

[NiLuJe]

Oh, yeah, there's that too .

If you see a big 'Publisher's Fonts' switch in the [Aa] menu, it's a KF8 . And that, of course, will most definitely change the layout if it's enabled .

[franklekens]

I can no longer check this since I've hauled the file through Calibre now. But I don't recall seeing that button on any book yet.

However, the other suggestions seem to be correct. I copied the book to my Calibre library from the K3, then uploaded it from Calibre to the KT, and lo and behold: the font size was more like the one on K3.

Thanks for the helpful explanation.

I'm wondering -- do other people feel the font sizes for those K8 files for the KT are unwisely chosen, or is it just me? (I'm ruling that out. Habit is a great part of this, and I've been reading on the K3 for quite a while now, so I'm very much used to its font sizes.)

[NiLuJe]

@franklekens: When the book is produced/converted correctly, the font sizes are fine. The only real issue right now is the line height thing, and it's an issue on the Kindle side.

[haydnfan]

If you visit the amazon forums you'll see that many people have complained, some of which have contacted customer support and were told that they were aware of and working on the problem. For every person that is bothered by that bug, 20 people are bothered by the new airplane mode implementation. I expect the next firmware update will fix both of those problems.

I have not seen a single kf8 with good font sizes. Nor have I seen a single one to even remotely use the new formatting features. Right now they look like they were processed through an autoconvert program. Since some publishers like Penguin can't even be bothered to ensure that their ebooks are largely typo free, I think it will be quite awhile before we see publishers embrace the new format.

[NiLuJe]

@haydnfan: Must have been lucky then, I haven't encountered that many (a couple books, at most, in over a good two dozens that I bothered to check) issues with font sizes in the bunch of stuff that switched to KF8 in my archive.

[haydnfan]

I think that you're not being observant. It affects the display of all kf8 books.

[NiLuJe]

@haydnfan: Err, sorry, but no. Unless FW 4.1.0 is even more broken than FW 5.1.x, which I doubt...

So while I can confirm that *some* KF8 books have font sizes that differ (sometimes vastly) from their mobi6 counterpart, that's not the case for the majority of *my* archive .

On the other hand, what *does* affect the display of *all* KF8 books is the line height/line spacing issue, which I mentioned earlier.

[franklekens]

Correction: I was too hasty. Running the file through Calibre and re-uploading to the KT did *not* affect the font size. The font is still either smaller or bigger than the default font I use don the K3. No way to get them identical.

On the plus side -- I've more or less got used to the new font size, so I'll just let it rest. :-)

Originally Posted by franklekens

I can no longer check this since I've hauled the file through Calibre now. But I don't recall seeing that button on any book yet.

However, the other suggestions seem to be correct. I copied the book to my Calibre library from the K3, then uploaded it from Calibre to the KT, and lo and behold: the font size was more like the one on K3.

Thanks for the helpful explanation.

I'm wondering -- do other people feel the font sizes for those K8 files for the KT are unwisely chosen, or is it just me? (I'm ruling that out. Habit is a great part of this, and I've been reading on the K3 for quite a while now, so I'm very much used to its font sizes.)

[NiLuJe]

@franklekens: You mention the font you 'use' on the K3. If it's a custom font, and not Caecilia, don't be surprised if the size doesn't match exactly .