Workflow

[Peter21]

Hi all

As a Sigil beginner, I would welcome comments on the workflow I am currently using for my travel guide..
I am using sigil to produce an epub document, for the kindle and apple/iPad markets.
I am previewing the epub in ibooks...easy....just importing the file.
For the kindle I am uploading the epub document in KDP, requesting the downloadable preview option and then exporting the downloaded .mobi file to my kindle, so as to preview it on the kindle itself, to get as close to the final user experience as possible. (Without of course going the final step to publish the document, before it is ready.)
Reading the forum, a lot of people are performing the epub to mobi conversion with a program called calibre, if I understand it right. Are there advantages to doing it his way? Does it exactly reproduce whatever fiddling and image compression etc. that kindle will inflict on it?

Thanks

Peter

[DaleDe]

Calibre is ok but I would not publish a book created in Calibre (It has a forum here by the way). Better to use KindleGen to create the mobi from your ePub. It will create a submittable file to Amazon and will create both the old mobi content and the newer KF8 content in the same file. It can be tested with whatever you wish and it will work the same as what you are doing now.

Dale

[phossler]

@Peter21 -- As a FYI if you embed fonts into an epub destined for iBooks

There's a Sigil User Manual, but the FAQ

http://web.sigil.googlecode.com/git/...mmon_questions

has a section "Why doesn’t my font show up in iBooks?" if you embed a special font in your epub.

I had imported an epub into my iPad, and my fonts weren't showing up

Paul

[Peter21]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Calibre is ok but I would not publish a book created in Calibre (It has a forum here by the way). Better to use KindleGen to create the mobi from your ePub. It will create a submittable file to Amazon and will create both the old mobi content and the newer KF8 content in the same file. It can be tested with whatever you wish and it will work the same as what you are doing now.

Dale

thanks....would I be better working with KF8 if this is the newer equivalent of .mobi?

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Peter21

thanks....would I be better working with KF8 if this is the newer equivalent of .mobi?

Absolutely. This is what your readers will see anyway on any device that supports KF8; Amazon only keeps .mobi's for the people who still use Kindle's so old it doesn't support KF8. Also I believe the iOS app doesn't have KF8 support yet, but K4PC and Kindle for Android do.

[Toxaris]

I might want to test it with ADE on your pc as well. IBooks uses its own interpretation for ePUB that not necessarily is the same as for the other readers.

[Peter21]

Thanks guys
I have downloaded kindlegen and using it in terminal, turned my epub into a .mobi file, which reads fine on my kindle fire. But no sign of an AZW or KF8 file........
also...what is ADE?
Peter

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by Peter21

Thanks guys
I have downloaded kindlegen and using it in terminal, turned my epub into a .mobi file, which reads fine on my kindle fire. But no sign of an AZW or KF8 file........
also...what is ADE?
Peter

Adobe Digital Editions - free PC software & also the basis for Sony E-reader firmware

on my PC for example, ADE handles any epub format library book loans that I take out. it downloads the books, deals with the DRM which library loans use and can "return" or expire books as needed, as well as acting as reader software.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Peter21

Thanks guys
I have downloaded kindlegen and using it in terminal, turned my epub into a .mobi file, which reads fine on my kindle fire. But no sign of an AZW or KF8 file........
also...what is ADE?
Peter

They are all in there. The file is bigger than it would normally be. It contains both the KF8 and the mobi (AZW) file. The reader application will pick the one it wants.

ADE is Adobe Digital Editions, an ePub reading program and the mobile version is used by many eBook Readers.

Dale

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Peter21

Thanks guys
I have downloaded kindlegen and using it in terminal, turned my epub into a .mobi file, which reads fine on my kindle fire. But no sign of an AZW or KF8 file........
also...what is ADE?
Peter

.azw is an alternative file extension for .mobi, the MOBI format, used exclusively by Amazon's servers, indicating it came from Amazon and also that it may or may not be encrypted with Amazon's DRM scheme (depending on the publisher's choice).

KF8 format will always use a file extension of .azw3, whether it came from Amazon or not.

The .mobi produced by kindlegen, as they said, is a joint MOBI file -- it contains both the .azw and the .azw3, and can thus be read by any program that supports either. (Other .mobi's are NOT joint files, they only have the MOBI portion.) It will use the KF8 and if the reader doesn't support KF8 it will fall back to the MOBI; when uploaded, Amazon takes care of splitting the file and sending the right portion to Kindles from the cloud, depending on what the Kindle supports.

[Peter21]

Thanks again...I'm getting there.
Another point....I read a lot about the kindle processing/publishing process degrading image files by compression, especially (only?) if they are above the 128 kb threshold. Will the .mobi produced by kindlegen be the exact same file that will be sent out to the kindle readers by amazon when the book is finally published? I understand that the 'component' of the .mobi file used by the destination kindle reader, will depend on how modern/ancient that reader is.
Peter

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Peter21

Thanks again...I'm getting there.
Another point....I read a lot about the kindle processing/publishing process degrading image files by compression, especially (only?) if they are above the 128 kb threshold. Will the .mobi produced by kindlegen be the exact same file that will be sent out to the kindle readers by amazon when the book is finally published? I understand that the 'component' of the .mobi file used by the destination kindle reader, will depend on how modern/ancient that reader is.
Peter

kindlegen is officially the same program Amazon will use if you upload an ePub to them. And if you upload a kindlegen-created joint MOBI they will directly use that. The only changes they may make are if you edit the metadata of your book record, and any DRM you ask them to apply. (Or don't ask them to not apply -- without claiming to be an expert in any way, I have heard they leave it on by default.) And of course they only send whichever piece is necessary.... None of this will change how the book displays, compared to what your copy looks like.