AZW3 support on PocketBook issue

tomsem · 07-30-2022, 05:32 PM

PocketBook has been updating various models to add AZW3 (KF8) support. I just got a PB Era a week ago and I thought it lacked this feature because I was getting a 'corrupt or copy protected' error when opening them. These were just the AZW3 files downloaded from Amazon Content page, imported into calibre with DeDRM plugin. I thought they'd be good to go, but evidently, there is something 'wrong' as far as PB is concerned.

However then I created a 'fresh' AZW3 from an ePub, and it opened just fine.

And then I took the AZW3 that failed, did a AZW3 to AZW3 conversion, and that opened just fine.

I'm not sure at this point if there is any reason to prefer AZW3 over an ePub file created from one (the AZW3 converted from AZW3 looked ugly compared to the ePub conversion).

But I'm wondering what gets tweaked during the conversion to AZW3, and which of these tweaks is required for PB to accept it as 'good' without a 'full' conversion (maybe this could be done on import to calibre).

I'm going to try KindleUnpack tool to see what changed and go from there, but welcome for any other suggestions or insights others might have.

Quoth · 07-31-2022, 07:22 AM

I think it sounds like a gimmick unless you can add a Pocketbook to your Amazon account (hell might freeze first).
So Download -> Add to Calibre (with the plugin having your Kindle Serial number) and then conversion to ePub. I have Styling on Look & Feel set to remove line-height
Paste it in Other CSS Properties.
I also "remove space between paragraphs" and Paragraph indent = 1.4em
I also check all converted epubs for sanity in the viewer before conversion.

So I can't see the point of mobi or azw3 on any non-kindle ereader except via the Kindle Android App.

tomsem · 07-31-2022, 04:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quoth

I think it sounds like a gimmick unless you can add a Pocketbook to your Amazon account (hell might freeze first).
So Download -> Add to Calibre (with the plugin having your Kindle Serial number) and then conversion to ePub. I have Styling on Look & Feel set to remove line-height
Paste it in Other CSS Properties.
I also "remove space between paragraphs" and Paragraph indent = 1.4em
I also check all converted epubs for sanity in the viewer before conversion.

So I can't see the point of mobi or azw3 on any non-kindle ereader except via the Kindle Android App.

It strikes me that this isn't really a new feature: they've presumably supported (dual format) mobi for a long time, and one of those formats has long been kf8. But by supporting .azw3, there's no need to require mobi container and the dead weight of a deprecated format along with it.

KOReader has mobi support, too. When running on a Kindle (I have yet to try this), maybe there's some argument to enhance it to open azw3 files in that context (so you can choose to use the Kindle app as well as the KOReader app?), but apart from that...

Thanks for the convert suggestions. I've dabbled with calibre for years, but it took me awhile to finally ingest my entire Kindle library, and with this new device, I have some actual need to convert to ePub.

I'm still curious about why it won't accept the sanitized AZW3. I tried just updating metadata (Download metadata and covers) and it didn't like that, either.

Quoth · 07-31-2022, 06:09 PM

And if it's from any PD site I select smarten punctuation and Justify. Only occasionally I get Amazon files with left align locked.

No-one should ever code line-height to any body text. Removing all references never breaks anything because the font size sets a default for each style and without a line-height the ereader or app user interface can increase or decrease it on epub, without having to have KOReader or some other app that can over-ride CSS.

I'd only manually edit other things, like alignment. The Calibre Alignment setting is only applied to body text, i.e. p tags. It won't mess alignment of headings or scene dividers etc.

07-30-2022, 05:32 PM	#1
tomsem Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,939 Karma: 27060151 Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: USA Device: iPhone 15PM, Kindle Scribe, iPad mini 6, PocketBook InkPad Color 3	AZW3 support on PocketBook issue PocketBook has been updating various models to add AZW3 (KF8) support. I just got a PB Era a week ago and I thought it lacked this feature because I was getting a 'corrupt or copy protected' error when opening them. These were just the AZW3 files downloaded from Amazon Content page, imported into calibre with DeDRM plugin. I thought they'd be good to go, but evidently, there is something 'wrong' as far as PB is concerned. However then I created a 'fresh' AZW3 from an ePub, and it opened just fine. And then I took the AZW3 that failed, did a AZW3 to AZW3 conversion, and that opened just fine. I'm not sure at this point if there is any reason to prefer AZW3 over an ePub file created from one (the AZW3 converted from AZW3 looked ugly compared to the ePub conversion). But I'm wondering what gets tweaked during the conversion to AZW3, and which of these tweaks is required for PB to accept it as 'good' without a 'full' conversion (maybe this could be done on import to calibre). I'm going to try KindleUnpack tool to see what changed and go from there, but welcome for any other suggestions or insights others might have. Last edited by tomsem; 07-30-2022 at 05:37 PM.

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07-31-2022, 07:22 AM	#2
Quoth Still reading Posts: 14,016 Karma: 105092227 Join Date: Jun 2017 Location: Ireland Device: All 4 Kinds: epub eink, Kindle, android eink, NxtPaper	I think it sounds like a gimmick unless you can add a Pocketbook to your Amazon account (hell might freeze first). So Download -> Add to Calibre (with the plugin having your Kindle Serial number) and then conversion to ePub. I have Styling on Look & Feel set to remove line-height Paste it in Other CSS Properties. I also "remove space between paragraphs" and Paragraph indent = 1.4em I also check all converted epubs for sanity in the viewer before conversion. So I can't see the point of mobi or azw3 on any non-kindle ereader except via the Kindle Android App.

07-31-2022, 06:09 PM	#4
Quoth Still reading Posts: 14,016 Karma: 105092227 Join Date: Jun 2017 Location: Ireland Device: All 4 Kinds: epub eink, Kindle, android eink, NxtPaper	And if it's from any PD site I select smarten punctuation and Justify. Only occasionally I get Amazon files with left align locked. No-one should ever code line-height to any body text. Removing all references never breaks anything because the font size sets a default for each style and without a line-height the ereader or app user interface can increase or decrease it on epub, without having to have KOReader or some other app that can over-ride CSS. I'd only manually edit other things, like alignment. The Calibre Alignment setting is only applied to body text, i.e. p tags. It won't mess alignment of headings or scene dividers etc.

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