[sillypoint]

Originally Posted by pirl8

@sillypoint

There are different mobi formats. The older formats up to mobi6 and the new mobi8/azw3.

The latter has been added since the introducion of new generation kindles (Kindle Touch/Non Touch, Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle Fire). Even Kindle Keyboard latest firmware supports it (not sure about DX)..

As far as I know, if you're reading a old format mobi with an eInk kindle, the soft hyphens trick does not work (even if you convert a soft-hyphenated ePub to mobi).

New kindles (I see you own a K4NT so this is your case) can read mobi files tailored in three ways:

1. old format (mobi6, not supporting soft hyphens but compatible with any kindle device)
2. new format (mobi8 supporting soft hyphens)
3. "mixed" format (with both mobi6 and mobi8 versions)

They can also read the AZW3 format which is by all practical means a "new format" mobi with a different extension.

If you convert an hyphenated ePub to the "mixed" mobi format you will see hyphens on your reader because just the AZW3/mobi8 part is used. The AZW3 renderer on the kindle is indeed a distinct application.

In short:

• convert your mobi to ePub;
• add soft hyphens using the plugin;
• and convert it back to mobi ...
  • click on "mobi output"
  • select "both" (or new) on the "mobi type" drop down menu in the "Kindle output" section
• ... or convert to AZW3 (which is actually "pure" mobi8);
• Upload back to your kindle;
• Read!

Enjoy!


P.S.

Kindle Touch and Paperwhite owners can happily jailbreak their device and install JBPatch which adds "true" hyphenation support for old format mobis. This patch gives actually more than hyphenation and I can't use my kindles without it!

However it has a limitation: it can't hyphenate the newer mobi format and that's why this plugin is needed anyway!

Thanks a lot pirl8 for your detailed instructions.

I'd like to share that I hyphenated a few epub files using this plugin and converted those to mobi using Kindle Previewer. The resultant hyphenated mobi files work fantastic.

So, for K4-NT users, this is what I'd suggest:

1. Get the epub file of your ebook.
2. "Hyphenate" using this plugin.
3. Convert back to mobi using Kindle Previewer, or Calibre as mentioned by pirl8.
4. Read.

Reading on Kindle is a much better experience now that those irritating white spaces which Kindle Previewer used to put in are gone.

Many thanks to the developers of Calibre and this plugin. Cheers!