4-13-15 UPDATE: The solution to the e-book problems described below is posted here.
I have been researching and experimenting for days, and I haven't been able to come up with solutions to several problems. I would be most grateful if anyone here can lead me in the right direction.
This is a previously published e-book, and I hadn't observed this behavior until I made changes and uploaded a new file to KDP a few days ago. I tweak the epub in Sigil before uploading a Kindlegen-created mobi to KDP.
From my experience with several revised e-books uploaded in recent days, it seems that KDP has made changes in file processing, which results in darker fonts (both chapter and body) and weird justification
on the Fire HD6 only.
(This may be happening on other Fires as well, but I don't have any others to test.) The e-book sample looks great on my 10" tablet using the latest version of the Android Kindle app (KF8); both fonts and justification are perfect on that device.
Please see the three examples below.
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Example #1: This is the way I
want the e-book to look. I downloaded this file from KDP directly during the publishing process (after it was "converted" there) and viewed it on my Kindle Fire HD6. Notice the weight of all fonts compared to the two examples below, especially the chapter title, and the universally even justification with no auto-hyphenation (
early- is intentional).
The CSS for Example #1 includes:
body
{-webkit-hyphens:none;
hyphens:none;}
and
text-align:justify; is included for paragraphs.
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Example #2: This is Fire HD6's default behavior when no hyphenation rules or justification are specified in the CSS.
The words
early- and
panic- are intentional hyphens on my part. The other ugly, improper hyphenation comes from KDP's process and is that way
only on my Fire HD6 (which is the only Fire I own). There are no soft hyphens in either the source MS Word file or epub that would trigger these hideous Fire HD6 hyphenation decisions. Notice the justification isn't completely even, as it is in Example #1, although it does try.
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Example #3: This is how the downloaded
sample looks when CSS includes:
body
{-webkit-hyphens:none;
hyphens:none;}
and
text-align:justify; is included for paragraphs. Note that this is the SAME code as in Example #1, but after publishing is complete.
(Again, the words
early- and
panic- are intentional hyphens on my part.) It tries to justify, but there are still a lot of ragged-right lines.
The fonts were FINE in earlier versions of this e-book, and no changes in those areas of code were made by me in this updated version. And note that the fonts are fine in Example #1, which was downloaded from KDP
after the updated file was processed there.
KDP must change things on their end during the final publishing process specifically for the Fire HD6 (maybe other Fires, too?). ??? On my Android tablet's Kindle app, which also appears to use KF8, the e-book is absolutely fine in regard to fonts and justification when hyphen and justification aren't specified in the CSS; the right margin is perfectly justified with no auto-hyphenation on the Android tablet.
I
have seen e-books on the Fire HD6 that have perfectly justified text.
The One That Got Away, by Simon Wood (Thomas & Mercer, publisher) is an example. So, are these problems the fault of KDP or is there something I don't know about formatting the e-book?
Has anyone else observed this behavior on the Fire HD6 recently after publishing to KDP?
Is there any way to get my e-books to look like Example #1 on the Fire HD6? Any suggestions would be very much appreciated because I don't know what else to try at this point! And if it's not possible to get results like Example #1, which is the better option: #2 or #3?
Thanks!