RTL Hebrew Kindle

[HarryT]

The problem does not come from Calibre - it comes from you using Calibre incorrectly.

[thomass]

Originally Posted by hakossem

The bug come from Calibre and not the Kindle. When I use kindlegen ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.htm...cId=1000765211 ) to convert the files, they work perfectly

If you find out how to create KF8 with RTL properly on Calibre please share here.

[thomass]

Originally Posted by chaditrad

- Is there a group/page on this forum for Arabic font discussions? I only saw some small threads on the subject.

You can create a group here (for example with a name like: "RTL Languages on Kindle: Arabic, Hebrew,..." )

[chaditrad]

@Doitsu, many thanks for your detailed and helpful reply. I'm thinking of writing some example books and post them with the source. I believe some collaboration with those who are interested can result in some good quality books and at least pay tribute to the Arabic language.

[DudleyT]

I built a book for kindle with English as the primary language. There are Hebrew text words included in several locations. When I build with Kindle preview on my PC all looks good on my PC and I-Phone. However, when uploaded to Kindle and viewed on the Online viewer, the Hebrew text appears as boxes. Will end users have to install Hebrew fonts on their Apple devices? If so, which ones?

Originally Posted by tomsem

KF8 format supports Hebrew rtl properly. You should not need to 'fix' anything. The HTML source needs to be properly marked up.

http://kneidlach.info/

Also, you should be able to send such ebook files to Personal Documents service now, as it preserves KF8 formatting (something that was added recently). However I don't know if it will properly convert .doc/.rtf/.txt files in Hebrew (probably not). Send To Kindle browser extension doesn't, it seems. So you may need to learn how to create kf8 files (or use Kindle Previewer or kindlegen to convert epub files you may have).

And the pd conversion service will only create mobi7 which does not supprt rtl.

Consider creating kindle-sized PDF. It is WYSIWYG, easier to author.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by DudleyT

When I build with Kindle preview on my PC all looks good on my PC and I-Phone.

Kindle Previewer is not 100% reliable, however, all currently supported Kindle models support Hebrew text out of the box, if you used Kindle Previewer to build the file.
If you want to support all Kindle models, you'll have to use media queries to display transliterated Hebrew text (or no Hebrew at all) on older Kindle models (K1, K2 and DX).

BTW, do you mean by "all looks good on the IPhone" that you tested it with the iOS Kindle app? If so did you follow the Kindle Previewer instructions and generated an .azk file?

(If you post a short .mobi sample file, I could test it on a K3 and a PW2.)

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

Kindle Previewer is not 100% reliable, however, all currently supported Kindle models support Hebrew text out of the box, if you used Kindle Previewer to build the file.

Hardware Kindles, yes, but note that the iOS Kindle App doesn't support KF8. I don't know whether or not the Android App does.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Hardware Kindles, yes, but note that the iOS Kindle App doesn't support KF8. I don't know whether or not the Android App does.

The latest iOS Kindle App actually does have KF8 and Hebrew support. However, source files need to be compiled as .azk files with Kindle Previewer.

To test this rename hebrew_test_azk.zip to hebrew_test.azk and sideload it to your iOS device with iTunes.

[HarryT]

AZK format is similar to KF8, but is not actually KF8. See the Wiki for more details.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by HarryT

AZK format is similar to KF8, but is not actually KF8. See the Wiki for more details.

It close enough for the OP's purposes, because, unlike Mobi7, it supports Hebrew without an embedded font.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

It close enough for the OP's purposes, because, unlike Mobi7, it supports Hebrew without an embedded font.

Yes, it's rather irritating, though, that one can't simply sideload KF8 files to the iOS app.

[thatworkshop]

@Doitsu: I found it quite interesting and worthy of reporting it here. When I open the KF8 file, I get square characters, but it's RTL.

My device info is humbly on the left.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by idoit

@Doitsu: I found it quite interesting and worthy of reporting it here. When I open the KF8 file, I get square characters, but it's RTL.

AFAIK, the Kindle DXG doesn't support RTL at all. Starting with the K3, eInk Kindles shipped with a special fallback font, code2000.ttf, which can also be found in the %localappdata%\Amazon\Kindle Previewer\lib folder of Kindle Previewer. This fallback font contained Arabic glyphs, which the regular fonts are missing.
However, K3 Kindles only started to get full RTL support with the 3.4 firmware. If you've already installed the unofficial 3.4.2 DX update, you might have to add the code2000.ttf font or fiddle with the font configuration files.

If you're interested in RTL support, try to find fbKindle (fbKindle-bin.tar.gz), which used to be hosted at http://dev.mobileread.com/dist/h1uke...dle-bin.tar.gz, but that site was retired.
You'll also need to replace the executable with a custom RTL build by MR user Matan, which you can download from his website.
Also the first Duokan generation, Duokan Lite 2011, supported RTL text. (Later versions used a different rendering engine.)

[itfs]

I have created AZW3 files with KF8 support and the hebrew appears correctly for reading those documents in my Kindle Paperwhite. But when highlighting words, the last letter of every word/phrase is not displayed in My Clippings. And the fact that the last letter doesn't appear, this makes it impossible to look words up in the dictionary. Does anyone else including

Originally Posted by Doitsu

@Doitsu

, experience this or is it just an error with my Kindle Paperwhite?

[Doitsu]

I just tested this on my Paperwhite 2 and had no problems with highlighting Hebrew words.
Most likely there's a problem with the encoding of the original Hebrew text and/or the azw3 conversion.
Try to highlight words in my test file. If it works, there's something wrong with your file or, if you used Calibre to generate your azw3 file, maybe it's a Calibre bug. (I used Kindle Previewer/KindleGen to create my test file.)

Did the words that you tried to highlight end in one of the 5 Hebrew letters that have a special final form, e.g. ץ?
If so, maybe the word contained an invisible Unicode character before the last letter.