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Old 10-08-2013, 10:42 PM   #1
teotjunk
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Epub versus Mobi
Is Epub a much better format than mob ?. I have an ebook reader that reads only epub ? But amazon sells e-books much cheaper than elsewhere . Is there a loss of quality when converting mobi to epub ?


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Old 10-08-2013, 11:09 PM   #2
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What kind of books? For pretty much all linear fiction type books it's not much of a difference and they convert fine.

Most books I get from Amazon now are AZW3/KF8 as opposed to old school Mobi and AZW3/KF8 is very similar to being an ePub in an Amazon wrapper and convert great.
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Old 10-08-2013, 11:25 PM   #3
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Old 10-09-2013, 05:30 PM   #4
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Right now; .azw3/.kf8 format is better than ePub2.
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Old 10-09-2013, 07:11 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RbnJrg View Post
Right now; .azw3/.kf8 format is better than ePub2.
So what tool should be used to make one of these superior .azw3/.kf8 ebooks then...
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Old 10-10-2013, 05:25 AM   #6
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Originally Posted by RbnJrg View Post
Right now; .azw3/.kf8 format is better than ePub2.
I'd rather say that the newer Kindles are better than Adobe-based readers. We can't really compare the formats, because there is no public specification of KF8, all we can compare is the readers.
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Old 10-10-2013, 09:13 AM   #7
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Originally Posted by PeterT View Post
So what tool should be used to make one of these superior .azw3/.kf8 ebooks then...
That is the chicken/egg issue, since a number are using epub tools to create the amazon files! If you have huge resources to throw at it, you can get the job done, but for the rest of us, the question is less easy.

Text books are a big problem because they tend to rely on fixed layout, which not the forte of any existing format except pdf. But pdf has no sizzle these days.
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Old 10-10-2013, 10:50 AM   #8
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@mrmikel: I know! I was being facetious in asking that question. The approach I normally see mentioned is to make an ePub and then convert it via one of the Amazon tools.

So i was basically implying how can the .azw3/.kf8 be superior to an epub when it is a machine conversion from an ePub!
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Old 10-10-2013, 06:17 PM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PeterT View Post
@mrmikel: I know! I was being facetious in asking that question. The approach I normally see mentioned is to make an ePub and then convert it via one of the Amazon tools.

So i was basically implying how can the .azw3/.kf8 be superior to an epub when it is a machine conversion from an ePub!
I think (and I haven't tried it) that you could use your regular tools (Sigil, or vim or notepad) to create an epub2 file, then unzip it and use a text editor (like vim or notepad) to manually add the epub3 features and attributes you require. Then run it through Kindlegen tog et your final kf8 file.

That's the theory, I think. The practice will undoubtedly be different...
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Old 10-10-2013, 06:27 PM   #10
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Originally Posted by Jellby View Post
I'd rather say that the newer Kindles are better than Adobe-based readers. We can't really compare the formats, because there is no public specification of KF8, all we can compare is the readers.
While there is no public description of the binary format there is a description of the supported CSS and HTML code so there is a way to compare the source formats knowing that the binary is just a compilation of the source for KF8 and a zipping of the source for ePub. KF8 has a few features missing in ePub 2 but again as has been said there are no automatic tools to take advantage of these new features.

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Old 10-10-2013, 06:32 PM   #11
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So what tool should be used to make one of these superior .azw3/.kf8 ebooks then...
First Sigil and then Kindlegen/Kindle Previewer. Sigil supports many css3/ePub3 properties that Kindle can handle.
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Old 10-11-2013, 12:52 PM   #12
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Most AZW3/KF8 eBooks start off life as an ePub eBook. That is then run through Kindlegen to create the KF8/Mobi versions. So really overall, there is no difference at all between KF8 & Mobi given that most start life as ePub.

Now, the best way to convert KF8 to ePub is to use Calibre with the KindleUnpack plugin. It will allow you to shift the files from KF8 into an ePub container. Then you check the ePub with epubcheck 3.x and then use Sigil to fix the errors. Fonts can be sorted out with Sigil if there are any embedded fonts.
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Old 10-18-2013, 01:41 PM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by teotjunk View Post
Is Epub a much better format than mob ?. I have an ebook reader that reads only epub ? But amazon sells e-books much cheaper than elsewhere . Is there a loss of quality when converting mobi to epub ?
Note that when Amazon sells an e-book, it exists in both formats, Mobi 7 and KF8, with the latter essentially being an epub.

If you format for KF8, then you really ought to use media calls to control how the older Kindles handle the instruction.

"Mobi" is really an outdated format. Amazon has for all practical purposes switched over to epub, though its books must be backwards compatible. Therefore there is really no way to create a mobi any longer, short of using the (outdated) Mobipocket Creator. The "mobi" that comes out of KindleGen is actually a two- or three-layered book: Mobi 7, KF8, and sometimes though apparently not always your original submission.

It is for this reason that the old mail-to Kindle.com conversion is no longer much used. It gives you a mobi file, sure, though under a different extension as I recall, but it doesn't give you any forecast of what your book will look like on a Fire or PaperWhite.
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