KFX Format

[lkmiller]

As far as I'm aware, Kindle for PC does NOT support kfx/enhanced typesetting. At least, none of my books which have enhanced typesetting available have downloaded in that format to Kindle for PC yet.

[Notjohn]

K4PC has always been an outlier among Kindle apps. It seems to have improved since its introduction, but it still renders things in its own way.

FWIW, it's still true on the Amazon KDP forums that any of my posts that mention Kindle Format Ten are sent to moderation and may or may not appear at all. Amazon doesn't seem to want publishers to know about it, or anyhow to speculate about it.

[cerem0ny]

Still finding it difficult to see why a certain book is rejected for Enhanced Typesetting... Checking the logs there are no real giveaways as to why a book was rejected or not...

New to all this ebook f**kery but as a noob I must admit, I never knew that putting text to pages could be so mind numbingly complicated!!!

Anyone care to enlighten me?

Info(cssparser):I10004: @rules other than @import, @charset and @font-face are not supported.

Info(prcgen):I1052: Kindle support cover images but does not support cover HTML. Hence using the cover image specified and suppressing cover HTML in content. URL: C:\Users\jacob\AppData\Local\Temp\mbp_7E0_2_1D_17_ 4_2F_158_20A4_500_1\OEBPS\xhtml\cover.xhtml

Info(prcgen):I1002: Parsing files 0000049

Warning(htmlprocessor):W28001: CSS style specified in content is not supported by Kindle readers. Removing the CSS property: 'max-width' in file: C:\Users\jacob\AppData\Local\Temp\mbp_7E0_2_1D_17_ 4_2F_158_20A4_500_1\OEBPS\styles\stylesheet.css

Warning(htmlprocessor):W28001: CSS style specified in content is not supported by Kindle readers. Removing the CSS property: 'max-height' in file: C:\Users\jacob\AppData\Local\Temp\mbp_7E0_2_1D_17_ 4_2F_158_20A4_500_1\OEBPS\styles\stylesheet.css

Info(prcgen):I1016: Building enhanced PRC file

Info(prcgen):I1015: Building PRC file

Info(prcgen):I1006: Resolving hyperlinks

Info(prcgen):I1008: Resolving start reading location

Info(pagemap):I8000: No Page map found in the book

Info(prcgen):I1045: Computing UNICODE ranges used in the book

Info(prcgen):I1046: Found UNICODE range: Basic Latin [20..7E]

Info(prcgen):I1046: Found UNICODE range: General Punctuation - Windows 1252 [2018..201A]

Info(prcgen):I1046: Found UNICODE range: Latin-1 Supplement [A0..FF]

Info(prcgen):I1017: Building PRC file, record count: 0000210

Info(prcgen):I1039: Final stats - text compressed to (in % of original size): 52.55%

Info(prcgen):I1040: The document identifier is: "The_Three-Body_Problem"

Info(prcgen):I1041: The file format version is V6

Info(prcgen):I1031: Saving PRC file

Info(prcgen):I1032: PRC built successfully

Info(prcgen):I1007: Resolving mediaidlinks

Info(prcgen):I1011: Writing mediaidlinks

Info(prcgen):I1009: Resolving guide items

Info(prcgen):I1017: Building PRC file, record count: 0000216

Info(prcgen):I1039: Final stats - text compressed to (in % of original size): 53.48%

Info(prcgen):I1041: The file format version is V8

Info(prcgen):I15000: Approximate Standard Mobi Deliverable file size : 0000680KB

Info(prcgen):I15001: Approximate KF8 Deliverable file size : 0000707KB

Info(prcgen):I1036: Mobi file built successfully



thanks...

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by cerem0ny

Still finding it difficult to see why a certain book is rejected for Enhanced Typesetting... Checking the logs there are no real giveaways as to why a book was rejected or not...

That is a typical looking log from kindlegen and doesn't show anything about the conversion to KDF (enhanced typesetting). The more detailed logs produced during the conversion process are even more cryptic and besides that they are deleted by the conversion software shortly after being produced!

Here is Amazon's (unhelpful) advice from the Previewer web page:

Q6: My book is not compatible with Enhanced Typesetting. What should I do to make it compatible with Enhanced Typesetting?
A6. We are continuously working to make Enhanced Typesetting enabled for more titles and will automatically enable it for your book when possible. You need not resubmit your book. When Enhanced Typesetting is enabled for your book, you will see "Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled" on that book’s detail page.

Besides not answering the question in respect to the Previewer, it basically says, "There's nothing you can do. You're out of luck." This just isn't true.

As a software developer, I know that it is difficult to provide provide helpful error messages. The conversion pipeline has a number of processing steps and the original content has been mangled beyond recognition by the time a problem is discovered so it is hard to determine what in the original source file lead to the failure. This is beta software, maybe the final version will improve on this.


ETA: In my own testing using books from the Patricia Clark Memorial Library I found that more than half of the books I tried failed to allow enhanced typesetting. I didn't delve into the reasons very deeply but I noticed that some of the ones that didn't work showed problems when checked with calibre's editor. I also noticed that those with SVG (other than a simple cover image) failed.


ETA2: As an example of a book being rejected, I just came across another e-book that failed to convert to KDF even though it showed no problems when checked by EPUBCheck and the calibre editor. Capturing the conversion log showed the error:

[[STYLE,DIV,font-weight:[700.0->900.0],null:null]]
Feb 29, 2016 11:28:15 AM com.amazon.source.analyser.application.SourceAnalyserApp main
INFO: C:\Users\John\AppData\Local\Temp\64b7-1f93-df6d-80e2\conv_tmp\BOOK.epub,false
Exception in thread "main" com.amazon.source.analyser.a.c: IsLiveable FAILED because of invalid 'style/tag' combinations
	at com.amazon.source.analyser.application.SourceAnalyserApp.main(Unknown Source)

As the error apparently refers to font-weight, I looked at the book again with the calibre editor and saw that it uses the style "font-weight: 800". I changed this to "font-weight: bold" and the EPUB converted to KDF without error.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by lkmiller

As far as I'm aware, Kindle for PC does NOT support kfx/enhanced typesetting. At least, none of my books which have enhanced typesetting available have downloaded in that format to Kindle for PC yet.

Amazon has just released version 1.15.0 of Kindle for PC. It does not support enhanced typesetting.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by jhowell

Amazon has just released version 1.15.0 of Kindle for PC. It does not support enhanced typesetting.

Excellent news. Thanks.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Excellent news. Thanks.

Excellent indeed. I may have confused Kindle4PC with enhanced typesetting when Bookerly was introduced.

[odamizu]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Just like jhowell did. Run through previewer, convert with a script from kdf to kfx, sideload.

@jhowell: Thanks for the amazing work you're doing with KFX.

Am I understanding correctly that you're using your own script to convert from KDF to KFX? It's not something pulled directly from the Previewer Beta that the rest of us could also pull?

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by odamizu

Am I understanding correctly that you're using your own script to convert from KDF to KFX? It's not something pulled directly from the Previewer Beta that the rest of us could also pull?

The process I used to convert that one book from KDF to KFX involved quite a number of manipulations through trial and error. It is far from being something that anyone else could use. (Many attempts crashed the indexer on my Kindle.)

I haven't found any hidden ability of the Previewer to directly produce KFX files. Amazon claims that it isn't possible.

Q22. How can I side load and preview my book with Enhanced Typesetting on my Kindle device or application?
A22. You can’t side load your books with Enhanced Typesetting. You can, however, side load the Mobi file without Enhanced Typesetting. You may find this Mobi file under "My Kindle Books" folder.

I am waiting to see what changes Amazon makes to the Previewer in their next release. Perhaps they will relent and add the ability to produce KFX themselves. It would certainly be easy for them to do.


ETA: On the other hand they might take steps to make it difficult or impossible to use the previewer to generate KFX, such as encrypting the KDF file.

[odamizu]

Originally Posted by jhowell

The process I used to convert that one book from KDF to KFX involved quite a number of manipulations through trial and error. It is far from being something that anyone else could use. (Many attempts crashed the indexer on my Kindle.)

I haven't found any hidden ability of the Previewer to directly produce KFX files. Amazon claims that it isn't possible.

Thanks! I got excited when you had succeeded in making a KFX, and then I found EpubToKFXConverter-1.0.jar buried in the Previewer package contents (Mac OS). I thought maybe you were using that

[cerem0ny]

Originally Posted by jhowell

The process I used to convert that one book from KDF to KFX involved quite a number of manipulations through trial and error. It is far from being something that anyone else could use. (Many attempts crashed the indexer on my Kindle.)

I haven't found any hidden ability of the Previewer to directly produce KFX files. Amazon claims that it isn't possible.


I am waiting to see what changes Amazon makes to the Previewer in their next release. Perhaps they will relent and add the ability to produce KFX themselves. It would certainly be easy for them to do.


ETA: On the other hand they might take steps to make it difficult or impossible to use the previewer to generate KFX, such as encrypting the KDF file.

Hehehe, thanks very much for the info... Got very excited so downloaded the previewer to do some converting but the first book I tried was not available. Not surprised Amazon is divulging as little information on any tech as possible - the walled garden is in fact the most successful tech business model to date. Thanks, Apple!

[Notjohn]

I've mentioned this before, but when I uploaded a new book last month, Enhanced Typesetting wasn't enabled when I purchased the book. I found some typos, fixed them, uploaded a revision, and hours later it was on the Amazon store with ET Enabled! I asked Support to push the new version to my archives, which they did (the main typo was fixed), but I saw no auto-hyphens when I downloaded it.

Perhaps it's only the newer Fire tablets that support Enhanced Typesetting? I bought a Paperwhite for testing, and I don't think I ever saw auto-hyphenation on it.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by odamizu

Thanks! I got excited when you had succeeded in making a KFX, and then I found EpubToKFXConverter-1.0.jar buried in the Previewer package contents (Mac OS). I thought maybe you were using that

EpubToKFXConverter is used by the Previewer to produce KDF files. Despite the name it doesn't appear to be able to actually generate KFX.

That software is complex and may have hidden features. I know that others are looking at it and hopefully someone will report if they find anything interesting.

Originally Posted by Notjohn

I've mentioned this before, but when I uploaded a new book last month, Enhanced Typesetting wasn't enabled when I purchased the book. I found some typos, fixed them, uploaded a revision, and hours later it was on the Amazon store with ET Enabled! I asked Support to push the new version to my archives, which they did (the main typo was fixed), but I saw no auto-hyphens when I downloaded it.

That is very odd. What is the ASIN of the book? Anyone can get a free sample and see whether it is delivered in KFX format to a device that supports it.

(I assume that you didn't accidentally put "-webkit-hyphens: none" in the css.)

Originally Posted by Notjohn

Perhaps it's only the newer Fire tablets that support Enhanced Typesetting? I bought a Paperwhite for testing, and I don't think I ever saw auto-hyphenation on it.

Only 4th and 5th generation Fire tablets running Fire OS 5.0.1 or 5.1.1 support enhanced typesetting.

The original PaperWhite does not support enhanced typesetting. The newer models do, but only if they are using firmware 5.6.5 or later. (5.7.2 or later for books containing HTML tables.)

ETA: If you have an iOS or Android device you can get the free Kindle app and try that. The latest versions support enhanced typesetting.

[odamizu]

Originally Posted by jhowell

EpubToKFXConverter is used by the Previewer to produce KDF files. Despite the name it doesn't appear to be able to actually generate KFX.

Well, that's certainly a disappointment from Amazon

Thanks again for the tremendous work you're doing and for taking the time to share your findings!

[mattmc]

Originally Posted by odamizu

Thanks again for the tremendous work you're doing and for taking the time to share your findings!

Seconded, you're awesome @jhowell, thanks for all your work thus far.

(Been watching this thread via email notifications for a while now, had to chime in and say something.)