Thread: KF8 on Fire HD6 - Justification & Font Issues
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Old 03-13-2015, 02:30 PM   #72
DreamWriter
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Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: U.S.
Device: Paperwhite · Fire HD6/HD8/HD10 · Galaxy Tab A7
Quote:
Originally Posted by Notjohn View Post
Fascinating. The Gemini Effect enthusiastically hyphenates on my iPhone 4, but does not hyphenate at all on Kindle for PC, even when I narrow the "pages" until they have wide gaps between the words. (I haven't updated K4PC for months, perhaps a year or more.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by cybmole View Post
nothing hyphenates in K for PC, i don't think it supports it at all.
As far as I know, the affected e-books display auto-hyphenation only on the Fire HD6, Fire HDX 8.9, and Fire HD7 (2013). This does not show up in the KDP online previewer, although I do see it there for the iPhone.

The same e-books do not have auto-hyphenation on Fire HD7 (2012), Voyage, Paperwhite 1, Kindle for Android App, Kindle for iOS, and Kindle for PC.

* * *

I may be coming close to figuring out what's causing this, although I suspect the solution is in KDP's hands. This is what I've observed...

Remember, all four of my e-books have had auto-hyphenation on the Fire HD6 in post-February 14 uploads. There were no problems with these e-books prior to February. I had uploaded a file on 1-30-15 for one of my books, Lotto: Blood Money. I noticed a few interesting things about that version (which was still on my Fire last week since I hadn't requested that Kindle CS "push" a newer version yet).

Prior to February, when there was no body font specified, on Fire HD6 the main text of my e-books would default to an unknown serif font unlike any other on the device's font menu and there was no auto-hyphenation. This was evident in both purchased e-books and when the Kindlegen-created mobi was sideloaded to the Fire HD6. In those earlier versions, Publisher Font was a selectable menu item on the Fire HD6.

Fast forward to uploads since early/mid-February... Now, the newer Kindlegen-created mobi sideloaded to Fire HD6 still displays that unknown serif font and has no auto-hyphens, but after publication, the body font displayed is the one I last selected on the device (that unknown font, which I rather like, is gone). And there is auto-hyphenation! In addition, the Publisher Font is no longer available on the font menu. The embedded Chapter font has always displayed on the Fire HD6 and still does.

So, there is no longer a Publisher Font option on the Fire HD6 menu, but Publisher Font is available in the Kindle for Android app on my tablet. It seems that when KDP takes away the Publisher Font option, auto-hyphenation is introduced. Please read on...

Very few of my purchased e-books by other authors have the Publisher Font option on my Fire HD6, but most don't have auto-hyphenation. Perhaps those were published before recent changes at KDP?

The interesting thing is that some recently published Amazon-imprint e-books still have the Publisher Font option, no auto-hyphenation, and that mystery unknown serif font just like the one I used to see in my books on Fire HD6! Two examples are The One That Got Away, by Simon Wood (Thomas & Mercer - March 1, 2015) and Wreckage, by Emily Bleeker (Lake Union Publishing - March 1, 2015). Like my recently updated e-books, The Gemini Effect (published by 47North, currently a pre-order/Kindle First selection) does not have the Publisher Font option, does not display the unknown serif font, and does have auto-hyphenation. I have no idea how those three e-books were created and published, but perhaps the last book was published through KDP and the others weren't? (The Gemini Effect does not have a logical TOC, so I suspect it wasn't created with the same care as the others.)

As I've mentioned before, I saw these issues on my Fire HD6 with both software version 4.5.2 (December 2014) and 4.5.3 (February 24, 2015), so I don't think that has anything to do with it.

So why is there no Publisher Font option in my recently uploaded e-books, when that option WAS present in versions prior to early/mid-February? Why did the unknown serif font disappear after publication? It's still present when I sideload the Kindlegen-created mobi file to my Fire HD6 (the same file I upload to KDP), as is the Publisher Font option. Is this what introduces the auto-hyphenation?

And now I have a new problem. Although I've read that's it's been an issue for many for quite some time, I had never had this happen in the four years I've been publishing with KDP until yesterday...the e-book I'm working on now opens to the second page of the Table of Contents. It was fine until yesterday. I've tried a few things, but haven't been able to fix that yet. Any hints on how to remedy that would be appreciated.

Edit: I just sent this information to KDP's technical team investigating the auto-hyphenation issue. Maybe there's something there they can work with if they can wade through all the details.
Last edited by DreamWriter; 03-13-2015 at 03:10 PM.
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