[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by notimp

@eschwartz:

I was under the distinct impression, that kindlegen created those dual packaged (kf8 and mobi) azw's (might not have been called azw3...) for quite some time. Should I be wrong?

(edit: Wait, let me use a comment JSWolf made back in 2013 to underline my point- https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...3&postcount=21

Shocking - I know...)

If Calibre packages the combi format as .mobi and not .azw I was wrong about that.

Which part of this was confusing?

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Um, not really?

Amazon always delivers split *.azw (MOBI) or *.azw3 (AZW3).
kindlegen generates dual-MOBI (has both) and names it *.mobi

So, no.
*.azw3 has never ever been a container for mobi7.
And they have never used *.kf8 as a file extension.

I ask only so in the future, I can avoid accidentally not being as clear as I should be....

Addendum: calibre can create MOBI, AZW3, or dual-MOBI. dual-MOBI is an option in MOBI Output settings, and follows kindlegen's precedent (of backwards compatibility in the filename) in naming the file *.mobi

Also - if this community resorted to in fact treating .kf8 as a production standard, I am suddenly much less confused about the fond relationship you guys seem to have with Amazon formats.

In my circles I never recommended anything other than using ePub as the production format - treating both kf8 (azw3) and mobi as "end formats" only.

Actually, as an end-user I recommend always treating the conversion originals as a gold standard.
Conversion processing can only ever get better over time, and conversion is inherently lossy.

If I was advising an ebook producer, I would say use EPUB as a master copy. It is well-supported as kindlegen input, and AZW3, in addition to being a weird binary format, has the whole "what are filenames" mentality.
EPUB has more support in ebook editing and creation tools, too.

calibre's Editor is the ONLY tool that handles AZW3.
But it takes a while to decompile and recompile the Palm database wrapper every time you open or click Save.
And it doesn't handle MOBI, even though Amazon requires both for upload.

So it is just stupid to work in a format that isn't really designed for editing.
One-shot fixes by consumers is still a handy crutch to have, though.

I understand the want to f.e. replace a cover in an azw3 without having it wander through the calibre conversion (i.e. replace every descriptor with calibre1-100) treatment - but have never realized to what extent you guys may actually have used it.

Lots. You wouldn't believe how many stupid publishers with stupid non-covers there are...

Hand editing the .css equivalent int .kf8 files was something I presumed most people wouldnt do - because of the obvious implications to the workflow (who produces a .kf8 separately from the .epub equivalent?), and that the internal structure of the file is much nicer than .mobi was - has implications for preservation -- but usability wise it really doesnt matter that much.

Then again - there is a discussion to be had if the .mobi interpreter in Kindles not recognizing pagemargin or even the text alignment tag for the default paragraph formating was a good or a bad thing.

It is in the format, not the interpreter.
Again, I would say that having the option is only a good thing.

And it means that converting from AZW3 to EPUB produces much better results (internally!) than converting from MOBI to EPUB.
(conversion == either calibre or KindleUnpack)

I do know that people will sometimes convert to MOBI in order to "lose" formatting they don't like, then back to their preferred reading format.