KFX Format

[shalym]

Originally Posted by jhowell

I just tried it again and On Basilisk Station downloads to my PW2 as AZW3 and to my iOS app as AZK (JSON). I purchased it long before KFX was introduced. There is no update available on the Manage Your Content and Devices page. (And there haven't been updates listed for any of the other books that I purchased previously which are now available with enhanced typesetting and do download as KFX for me.)

There must be something different between my situation and yours. Would you mind comparing notes to see what may be different, if anything?

The book I am testing is On Basilisk Station by David Weber at amazon.com with ASIN B00ARPJBS0 purchased on March 9, 2013. I am using a Kindle PW2 with 5.6.5 firmware and an iPad Air 2 running Kindle for iOS 4.10.

ETA: I did another test: Delete the book from all of my devices, delete it from my Amazon account, sync all devices, verify that the book is no longer found on any device or in Manage Your Content and Devices, re-purchase the book (it is free). It again downloaded as AZW3 to my PW2.

My copy was purchased on August 13 of this year, with the same ASIN that you have. I'm not sure why your copy isn't downloading to your Kindle as kfx and mine is. I am not able to test with my PW2, as I don't have it with me right now, but I did try with my PW3 and my Voyage before, and it downloaded as kfx onto both of them.

Shari

[badgoodDeb]

Having botched some books (managed to get double copies with some Calibre meta-data work), I did a Voyage factory reset a month ago or so. Books that I downloaded after THAT, even though purchased a long while ago, did come down as .KFX . I had to use "download to my computer so I can use USB to put it on my Kindle" to force a non-KFX version to download. (Not actual terminology.)

JHOWELL, have you tried going to your Kindle as a mounted device on your computer, and deleting ALL the parts to that particular book? That might force the next download to bring it down in a new format. Maybe?

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

Having botched some books (managed to get double copies with some Calibre meta-data work), I did a Voyage factory reset a month ago or so. Books that I downloaded after THAT, even though purchased a long while ago, did come down as .KFX . I had to use "download to my computer so I can use USB to put it on my Kindle" to force a non-KFX version to download. (Not actual terminology.)

JHOWELL, have you tried going to your Kindle as a mounted device on your computer, and deleting ALL the parts to that particular book? That might force the next download to bring it down in a new format. Maybe?

I have checked using USB to be sure that no files or directory related to the book remained after deleting and before downloading again.

I went ahead and de-registered the kindle, reset it back to factory default and registered it again. I connected via USB to verify that none of my books remain and then re-downloaded On Basilisk Station and it is still delivered as AZW3.

At this point I am out of ideas. Perhaps someone else running firmware 5.6.5 (2730300038) on a Kindle Paperwhite II can try this book and see which format they get on their device. (It is a free book.)

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by jhowell

I have checked using USB to be sure that no files or directory related to the book remained after deleting and before downloading again.

I went ahead and de-registered the kindle, reset it back to factory default and registered it again. I connected via USB to verify that none of my books remain and then re-downloaded On Basilisk Station and it is still delivered as AZW3.

At this point I am out of ideas. Perhaps someone else running firmware 5.6.5 (2730300038) on a Kindle Paperwhite II can try this book and see which format they get on their device. (It is a free book.)

No surprise here, but on my Voyage it downloads as KFX. Don't have an PW2.

[Section8]

I have a PW2 at the 5.6.5 level, so I tried this and it looks like I got a kfx:

/Kindle/documents/On Basilisk Station (Honor Harrington Book 1)_B00ARPJBS0.kfx

This is the first kfx I've gotten.

[AaronShep]

Originally Posted by jhowell

At this point I am out of ideas.

There's a difference between a new version that is just a conversion to KFX and a new version generated by a publisher's submission of a revision. You would automatically get KFX if the particular publisher's version you purchased had been converted. But you would NOT get KFX if Amazon had only converted publisher versions submitted AFTER your purchase. For those, you would have to contact Amazon and ask them to replace your older version with the new one.

In other words, say that a book had been updated by the publisher ten times, and you bought version 7. Amazon might have only converted versions 8-10. If so, you have to ask Amazon to replace your version #7 with the latest in order to get #10 with KFX.

At least, this is what it's looking like to me, and maybe this is what happened to you. Note that not all revisions are offered to you, even if you ask for automatic updating. Revisions are only announced and updated automatically when the publisher specially requests that for a specific revision. (And then it takes a few weeks.)

By the way, I've been writing on my blog about typographic problems of KFX and the new layout engine. If anyone's interested, the posts are here:

http://www.newselfpublishing.com/blog/

Aaron

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by AaronShep

By the way, I've been writing on my blog about typographic problems of KFX and the new layout engine. If anyone's interested, the posts are here:

http://www.newselfpublishing.com/blog/

Aaron

I just read your blog posts on KFX and the new typography. It sounds like a big step backwards.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by AaronShep

There's a difference between a new version that is just a conversion to KFX and a new version generated by a publisher's submission of a revision. You would automatically get KFX if the particular publisher's version you purchased had been converted. But you would NOT get KFX if Amazon had only converted publisher versions submitted AFTER your purchase. For those, you would have to contact Amazon and ask them to replace your older version with the new one.

In other words, say that a book had been updated by the publisher ten times, and you bought version 7. Amazon might have only converted versions 8-10. If so, you have to ask Amazon to replace your version #7 with the latest in order to get #10 with KFX.

At least, this is what it's looking like to me, and maybe this is what happened to you. Note that not all revisions are offered to you, even if you ask for automatic updating. Revisions are only announced and updated automatically when the publisher specially requests that for a specific revision. (And then it takes a few weeks.)

I believe that you have found the problem. I must have an old revision of the book associated with my account. I de-registered my Kindle and registered it to my wife's Amazon account. After buying the (free) book again there it was delivered to the PW2 in KFX format. I will see if I can get Amazon customer service to update that book under my account.

Originally Posted by AaronShep

By the way, I've been writing on my blog about typographic problems of KFX and the new layout engine. If anyone's interested, the posts are here:

http://www.newselfpublishing.com/blog/

Aaron

Thanks, Aaron! I found your blog to be very informative. It is sad to see how Amazon has botched its new book rendering software.

I have described a different problem with it in another thread.

[DuckieTigger]

@jhowell: just delete the book from your library in manage content, then rebuy it. I think that should work.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

@jhowell: just delete the book from your library in manage content, then rebuy it. I think that should work.

I tried that already and it didn't work. I still received the old version of the book after I deleted it and rebought it under the same account.

[AaronShep]

Originally Posted by jhowell

Thanks, Aaron! I found your blog to be very informative. It is sad to see how Amazon has botched its new book rendering software.

I have described a different problem with it in another thread.

That's an easy one. If calibre is inserting paragraphs with only nonbreaking spaces to produce vertical spacing, that won't work anymore. Kindle Format X is ignoring nonbreaking spaces, treating them as regular spaces instead. And to the browser software that the Kindle uses for basic rendering, a paragraph with only a space in it has no content and is no paragraph at all. So, the whole thing is just omitted. You need to use CSS for margin-bottom instead.

This is the kind of thing that makes KFX such a devil. None of the regular proofing methods will show you this new treatment of nonbreaking spaces, so it won't show up until weeks after publication, when the file is reprocessed for Enhanced Typesetting. And by that time, you're not likely to be paying attention. I doubt there's any ebook software out there that has yet caught up to these changes.

Aaron

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by AaronShep

That's an easy one. If calibre is inserting paragraphs with only nonbreaking spaces to produce vertical spacing, that won't work anymore. Kindle Format X is ignoring nonbreaking spaces, treating them as regular spaces instead. And to the browser software that the Kindle uses for basic rendering, a paragraph with only a space in it has no content and is no paragraph at all. So, the whole thing is just omitted. You need to use CSS for margin-bottom instead.

This is the kind of thing that makes KFX such a devil. None of the regular proofing methods will show you this new treatment of nonbreaking spaces, so it won't show up until weeks after publication, when the file is reprocessed for Enhanced Typesetting. And by that time, you're not likely to be paying attention. I doubt there's any ebook software out there that has yet caught up to these changes.

Aaron

I don't see the non-breaking space issue as a tragedy, myself. I've always felt that ebook makers who use paragraphs with only non-breaking spaces (or a non-breaking space followed by a br tag) for vertical spacing were shooting themselves in the foot all along. This change just confirms that.

Besides, they're (Amazon) not the first to have renderers that ignored empty paragraphs (or paragraphs with only an nbsp). That's why the nbsp followed by a br tag convention came into play in the first place (and so long ago).

They never had a format that rendered identically across all their devices and apps anyway. Publishers, creators and selfpubbers will survive this change too. They always do. It's always involved a lot of work planning and implementing a coding strategy to achieve similar rendering on the widest possible range of devices and apps (and formats) without resorting to maintaining 14 different versions of your ebook. This doesn't really change that.

And if it forces people to start using css for vertical spacing (like they should have been doing all along), I'm all for it. Makes it exponentially easier for the person [Hi Hitch!] that's eventually going to get called in to fix it all, at some point down the road, anyway!

[KevinH]

Hi All,

All of this makes we wonder if the kfx format is not really a variation of "better" reflowable pdf document of some type or - even worse - an "improved" version of a Topaz ebook, all reflowed to fit the specific Kindle's screen size. It would explain the improved layout and formatting capabilities, font anti-aliasing, and etc since both Topaz and Reflowable PDFs are page description languages and not some sort of xhtml document.

Just a thought that I truly hope is wrong.

KevinH

[jhowell]

This program is no longer working with the latest KFX variants and has been withdrawn.

Refer to calibre source code for KFX metadata extraction.

[AaronShep]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I don't see the non-breaking space issue as a tragedy, myself. I've always felt that ebook makers who use paragraphs with only non-breaking spaces (or a non-breaking space followed by a br tag) for vertical spacing were shooting themselves in the foot all along. This change just confirms that.

I certainly agree that it's the wrong way to add vertical space. Like I said, the proper way in CSS is with margin-bottom or margin-top. In Word, you would use Space After or Before, and that would translate to the proper CSS in exported HTML.

But that's not the primary use of the nonbreaking space. That space is meant to hold together phrases that should not be split into two lines. Every Kindle has supported this from the beginning. And now it's gone. So, you now can have line breaks in the middle of "OS X," or "7 inches." And that's just going to look dumb. It's bad enough that we haven't been able to use the nonbreaking hyphen on Kindle. This just makes it worse.

Aaron