Quote:
Originally Posted by DiapDealer
Didn't the Kindle Publishing Guidelines used to recommend (for the purposes of maintaining compatibilty with epub publishing standards) marking the cover-page (html) as "linear=no" as well as including the cover image meta/property? That way, the html cover page needn't be deleted and there was no duplication. Is that not a recommendation of Amazon's any more?
I admit it's been a hell of a long time since I downloaded/read their publishing guidelines.
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It's no longer in the Amazon Kindle Publishing Guidelines, but it definitely works for html cover pages
that don't contain additional text. With a linear="no" spine entry for cover.xhtml, cover.xhtml will be suppressed and KindleGen will display the following message:
Code:
Info(prcgen):I1052: Kindle support cover images but does not support cover HTML. Hence using the cover image specified and suppressing cover HTML in content. URL: \OEBPS\Text\cover.xhtml
So far so good, however, if the cover.xhtml file contains additional text, KindleGen will also display the above message but it'll keep the cover html page and move it to the end of the book. (If the additional text in cover.html is deleted, the cover page will no longer be displayed at the end of the book.)
For the above reasons, I recommend deleting cover.xhtml before running KindleGen or uploading epub books to KDP,
I attached a sample file that you can play with. It contains a cover.xhtml file (with additional text) and a linear="no" spine attribute.
1. If you compile it as is, cover.xhtml will be moved to the end of the book.
2. If you remove the text from cover.xhtml before running KindleGen, it'll be completely suppressed.
3. If you remove the text from cover.xhtml and the linear="no" attribute before running KindleGen, it'll be completely suppressed.
BTW, the Kindle Publishing Guidelines only mention the cover metadata entry for epub2 books and the properties="cover-image" entry for epub3 books and warn against using any other method:
Quote:
4.2 Internal Content Cover Image Is Mandatory
Kindle books must have an internal cover image provided for use within the book content. Provide a large, high-resolution cover, because Amazon quality assurance will fail the book if the cover is too small.
Do not add cover images to the content in any way other than those described in this section or the cover might appear twice in the book.
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IMHO, these instructions and the
I1052 KindleGen message are a clear indicator that Amazon doesn't want authors to include a cover html page.