What is Amazon Topaz?

abrogard · 09-03-2020, 05:17 PM

I got a Kindle book for my child to learn to play recorder from. But I can't print out from it. Turns out that's a kindle standard. I didn't know that. So I try to use Calibre and it says it can't deal with the book because it is 'Amazon Topaz'.

What is that and is there anything I can do about it or I've just wasted money and time and effort on this thing?

chaley · 09-03-2020, 05:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by abrogard

I got a Kindle book for my child to learn to play recorder from. But I can't print out from it. Turns out that's a kindle standard. I didn't know that. So I try to use Calibre and it says it can't deal with the book because it is 'Amazon Topaz'.

What is that and is there anything I can do about it or I've just wasted money and time and effort on this thing?

Topaz is Amazon's proprietary PDF-like format, used for books that are scanned images, not text. There is very little that third party programs can do with them. Read it on an Amazon device or app, or return it if you still can.

theducks · 09-03-2020, 05:44 PM

There is a MR Wiki on Formats. Amazon (section) has many, with a short explanation (Link to WiKi at the top of the MR Forums screen)

stumped · 09-04-2020, 01:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by abrogard

I got a Kindle book for my child to learn to play recorder from. But I can't print out from it. Turns out that's a kindle standard. I didn't know that. So I try to use Calibre and it says it can't deal with the book because it is 'Amazon Topaz'.

What is that and is there anything I can do about it or I've just wasted money and time and effort on this thing?

if all you need to do is print a few pages, open it in kindle for PC then use the windows SNIP built-in app to grab individual page images as printable screenshots.
no fun for 100+ pages but I'm guessing a play recorder book is much slimmer

alternatively, if you have a large android tablet - open it in the kindle app on that, and place the tablet on a music stand...

personally, I'd still return it, get a proper PDF book with no limitations

its been ages since I messed with topaz but as I recall there are other ways to get the images out of the book file, if you can firstly de-drm it

abrogard · 09-04-2020, 02:43 AM

Yep. I did screenshots. It seems to be a very slim volume indeed. I got about 10 or maybe as many as 15 little tunes out of it. Then faststone resized them easily enough for printing decent copies. Just a couple spread over a couple of screenshots. They'd need a bit more editing work. I probably won't bother.

The thing is not so much the songs from this book, now, but what it seems to mean for the future: for I've now got to be wary of buying Kindle, don't I? In case this happens again with some book I want printouts from.

which isn't many, I admit, but the annoyance when you want and can't get....

and I don't think amazon tells you when they offer a kindle version whether or not it is in this difficult format, do they?

So unless I can develop a technique for dealing with them then I'll just have to shut Kindle generally.

09-03-2020, 05:17 PM	#1
abrogard Groupie Posts: 168 Karma: 10 Join Date: May 2017 Device: kindle	What is Amazon Topaz? I got a Kindle book for my child to learn to play recorder from. But I can't print out from it. Turns out that's a kindle standard. I didn't know that. So I try to use Calibre and it says it can't deal with the book because it is 'Amazon Topaz'. What is that and is there anything I can do about it or I've just wasted money and time and effort on this thing?

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09-03-2020, 05:44 PM	#3
theducks Well trained by Cats Posts: 31,047 Karma: 60358908 Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: The Central Coast of California Device: Kobo Libra2,Kobo Aura2v1, K4NT(Fixed: New Bat.), Galaxy Tab A	There is a MR Wiki on Formats. Amazon (section) has many, with a short explanation (Link to WiKi at the top of the MR Forums screen)

09-04-2020, 02:43 AM	#5
abrogard Groupie Posts: 168 Karma: 10 Join Date: May 2017 Device: kindle	Yep. I did screenshots. It seems to be a very slim volume indeed. I got about 10 or maybe as many as 15 little tunes out of it. Then faststone resized them easily enough for printing decent copies. Just a couple spread over a couple of screenshots. They'd need a bit more editing work. I probably won't bother. The thing is not so much the songs from this book, now, but what it seems to mean for the future: for I've now got to be wary of buying Kindle, don't I? In case this happens again with some book I want printouts from. which isn't many, I admit, but the annoyance when you want and can't get.... and I don't think amazon tells you when they offer a kindle version whether or not it is in this difficult format, do they? So unless I can develop a technique for dealing with them then I'll just have to shut Kindle generally.

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