Reading Poetry on my Kindle: a gripe

rogerVA · 03-31-2011, 06:35 PM

I've been downloading various poetry collections on Amazon and Gutenberg (free versions) from my Kindle 3 and it seems the poems are almost ALWAYS screwed up in the formatting. The poems become prose poems, the line breaks vanish. Or if they do have line breaks, they are often mis-arranged or jumbled. Is this just they way it is with most of these free collections?

I'm not picky when it comes to free, but if poems are published without proper line breaks and as paragraphs, well why bother publishing them?

Does anybody else have a take on this? Am I just having bad luck with all these books I'm downloading and is there a trick I'm missing?

Thanks for any replies.

Fbone · 03-31-2011, 07:12 PM

Have you checked Mobileread's library? They have poetry available lovingly formatted by our members.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/ebo...genreid=poetry

Giggleton · 03-31-2011, 09:24 PM

I just had a look at the Rime of the Ancient Mariner in my Kindle emulator, a font size of 3 does indeed preserve the formatting but anything larger and all havoc breaks loose.

I am of the opinion that a standardized fixed format is needed for epub et al. It's probably a hard thing to implement because of all the different screen sizes but I've had some decent success with setting my page size in Microsoft Word to equate to my Kindle's screen size and then saving the document as a PDF and then sideloading the PDF onto my Kindle.

For distributing these poems yourself, this is fine but you cannot use this method of fixed formatting if you choose to distribute your poetry through the Kindle Direct Publishing Program because PDF's are automatically converted when you upload them there. I think Amazon is aware of this and I assume they are working on the poetry problem as it is called.

03-31-2011, 06:35 PM	#1
rogerVA Connoisseur Posts: 82 Karma: 68114 Join Date: Jan 2011 Device: Kindle Paperwhite & Kindle 3	Reading Poetry on my Kindle: a gripe I've been downloading various poetry collections on Amazon and Gutenberg (free versions) from my Kindle 3 and it seems the poems are almost ALWAYS screwed up in the formatting. The poems become prose poems, the line breaks vanish. Or if they do have line breaks, they are often mis-arranged or jumbled. Is this just they way it is with most of these free collections? I'm not picky when it comes to free, but if poems are published without proper line breaks and as paragraphs, well why bother publishing them? Does anybody else have a take on this? Am I just having bad luck with all these books I'm downloading and is there a trick I'm missing? Thanks for any replies.

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03-31-2011, 07:12 PM	#2
Fbone Is that a sandwich? Posts: 8,288 Karma: 101697116 Join Date: Jun 2010 Device: Nook Glowlight Plus	Have you checked Mobileread's library? They have poetry available lovingly formatted by our members. https://www.mobileread.com/forums/ebo...genreid=poetry

03-31-2011, 09:24 PM	#3
Giggleton Banned Posts: 1,687 Karma: 4368191 Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: Oregon Device: Kindle3	I just had a look at the Rime of the Ancient Mariner in my Kindle emulator, a font size of 3 does indeed preserve the formatting but anything larger and all havoc breaks loose. I am of the opinion that a standardized fixed format is needed for epub et al. It's probably a hard thing to implement because of all the different screen sizes but I've had some decent success with setting my page size in Microsoft Word to equate to my Kindle's screen size and then saving the document as a PDF and then sideloading the PDF onto my Kindle. For distributing these poems yourself, this is fine but you cannot use this method of fixed formatting if you choose to distribute your poetry through the Kindle Direct Publishing Program because PDF's are automatically converted when you upload them there. I think Amazon is aware of this and I assume they are working on the poetry problem as it is called.

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