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slowsmile · 10-25-2019, 08:05 PM

@Hitch...I hope you don't mind me asking you some questions about the new Kindle format that are a little 'off-piste' but they do concern oddities or things that are somewhat unclear wrt KPF format.

I think it's pretty clear that Amazon Kindle have made some massive changes to their conversion platform at their end. And, as you've pointed out from their laissez-faire attitude towards the irksome problems with inoperable links in print replica or fixed format, they are not there yet. I'd like to add to this with several questions.

For reflowable ebook uploads only, is it best to upload an epub(with ET enabled) or a KPF file to KDP? The reason I'm asking is that if you upload an Epub, I've assumed that the epub will still be converted to mobi, KF8 as well as KFX format at the Amazon Kindle end whereas if you upload a KPF file then it will only display on KFX enabled devices only(and not on older mobi or older KF8 devices that don't have ET capability). I could be way out of the ballpark here but would still love to know the answer to the above question. And do you still upload reflowable ebooks to KDP as epubs?

Second question. Part of the ET specification mentions the new Progressive Download capability for KFX files, which allows the purchaser of any KFX or ET-enabled ebook from Amazon to actually start reading their ebook while its downloading. So, since file size and download time are now completely irrelevant for KFX ebooks, why the heck is Kindle still charging a download penalty of $0.15 per Mb for file sizes over 5 Mb for those ET-enabled ebooks??

Last question. How do you estimate the file size of a KPF file?? This is particularly important if you've created an image-dense ebook or fixed format ebook using Kindle Create and you wish to minimize or avoid Kindle's download penalty. And I realiize that this is, perhaps, an unfair question for you because I also know that you don't use Kindle Create. But perhaps someone else could help on this forum. Since KFX appears to be yet another proprietary epub format from Amazon, I currently estimate KPF file size by converting to epub using JP Howell's KFX Input plugin and then take the file size of the epub. Yes, I know that this method of estimating will only give me a very rough ballpark estimation of file size. But there seems to be no other way of doing it. I'ld really prefer a more accurate way of assessing the file size of KPF files before upload.

10-25-2019, 08:05 PM	#4
slowsmile Witchman Posts: 628 Karma: 788808 Join Date: May 2013 Location: Philippines Device: Android S5	@Hitch...I hope you don't mind me asking you some questions about the new Kindle format that are a little 'off-piste' but they do concern oddities or things that are somewhat unclear wrt KPF format. I think it's pretty clear that Amazon Kindle have made some massive changes to their conversion platform at their end. And, as you've pointed out from their laissez-faire attitude towards the irksome problems with inoperable links in print replica or fixed format, they are not there yet. I'd like to add to this with several questions. For reflowable ebook uploads only, is it best to upload an epub(with ET enabled) or a KPF file to KDP? The reason I'm asking is that if you upload an Epub, I've assumed that the epub will still be converted to mobi, KF8 as well as KFX format at the Amazon Kindle end whereas if you upload a KPF file then it will only display on KFX enabled devices only(and not on older mobi or older KF8 devices that don't have ET capability). I could be way out of the ballpark here but would still love to know the answer to the above question. And do you still upload reflowable ebooks to KDP as epubs? Second question. Part of the ET specification mentions the new Progressive Download capability for KFX files, which allows the purchaser of any KFX or ET-enabled ebook from Amazon to actually start reading their ebook while its downloading. So, since file size and download time are now completely irrelevant for KFX ebooks, why the heck is Kindle still charging a download penalty of $0.15 per Mb for file sizes over 5 Mb for those ET-enabled ebooks?? Last question. How do you estimate the file size of a KPF file?? This is particularly important if you've created an image-dense ebook or fixed format ebook using Kindle Create and you wish to minimize or avoid Kindle's download penalty. And I realiize that this is, perhaps, an unfair question for you because I also know that you don't use Kindle Create. But perhaps someone else could help on this forum. Since KFX appears to be yet another proprietary epub format from Amazon, I currently estimate KPF file size by converting to epub using JP Howell's KFX Input plugin and then take the file size of the epub. Yes, I know that this method of estimating will only give me a very rough ballpark estimation of file size. But there seems to be no other way of doing it. I'ld really prefer a more accurate way of assessing the file size of KPF files before upload. Last edited by slowsmile; 10-25-2019 at 09:29 PM.