[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Though Calibre CAN make a file that ends in mobi and has KF7, KF8 and fonts. What's called Dual mobi. I don't think those sensibly end in azw.

Which option is that? I see MOBI (KF7) and AZW3 (dual). I do not see any dual output with "MOBI" file extension that has both KF7 and KF8. I'm not intimately familiar with Calibre, but I do use it to perform some functions, on my Project Gutenberg downloads, for my personal consumption (for hyphenation, etc., for MOBI) and in my experience, you either get a KF7 .mobi, or a Dual AZW3. Can you elaborate, and show me where that dual MOBI option is, that is not AZW3?

A Kindle DXG can load a dual mobi ending in .mobi, it can't load an AZW. You only get the KF7 bit.

But...you can email an AZW3 file to your Kindle DXG, yes? I mean, it loads--what you're saying is you only get the KF7 part. I'm reasonably sure that I've done that, or perhaps, again, I'm hallucinating. The AZW3 gets converted to Amazon's current format-du-jour?

An up to date Kindle Keyboard can show the KF7 or KF8 of a dual mobi. It seems to also be able to load some azw, but Amazon only gives it mobi files.
The PW3 can work with old mobi/ KF7, dual mobi (and show the KF8), azw3/KF8 (Amazon's default USB transfer for it) or KFX (Whispernet/WiFi direct from Amazon).

Yes. I have several devices in those lines and they all work with KF8. Or KF7. That's not a problem. I was focusing, again, on the output that the OP would get, from Calibre, with a .mobi file extension.

In all cases even if it's KFX or Azw3/KF8 on my PW3, it seems to need the Aa option and Publisher to show embedded fonts, but if ALL the required fonts aren't embedded the results can look worse than selecting the built in font.

Yes.

OTH all the epub ereaders I have automatically use the embedded fonts, except an ancient Binatone, where that only works if you put the ebook in the Adobe directory rather than Books (I forget the exact name of both directories). There seem to be four common different Binatone LCD based ereaders, though one is actually a full Android Tablet with a QWERTY keyboard, too ancient for Playstore, but many USB transferred Android apps work. None have touch. There is allegedly also an old eink Binatone, but I've not seen it and reviews suggest it doesn't really work.

Yup, agreed here.

A user needs to carefully read all the screens the first time they use Calibre to convert.
Some old PDA ebook formats use the SAME file ending for incompatible unrelated ebooks for different Palm applications. Calibre can make the different kinds, if you set the options.

So in Calibre, it's not enough to set a Target Option (epub, pdb, mobi etc), there are additional options to set which can be made the new default. The fresh install defaults may not be what are needed.
Example: On Page and Image formatting there are a huge number of devices. Tablet actually means "Don't reformat". Selecting any other particular target can have unexpected results for images already generally suitable.

I'll defer to your expertise on this--I don't know enough about Calibre to intelligently discuss this last bit.

Hitch