[Conversion Output] KFX Output

[Anson]

]Hi everyone,

I'm a new Kindle user (just got the Paperwhite 12th Gen Signature Edition) and I'm currently migrating my library to the KFX format for the Enhanced Typesetting features.

While most conversions are successful, I'm encountering a persistent error with a subset of my Chinese novels:

"Conversion error: Kindle conversion has encountered an internal error while enabling Enhanced Typesetting on this book."

My Workflow:

1. Source: EPUB (originally Simplified Chinese).
2. Translation: Using the 'Chinese Text Conversion' plugin to convert from Simplified to Traditional Chinese.
3. Layout: Setting text direction from Horizontal to Vertical (vertical-rl) via the plugin's "Vertical" option.
4. Conversion: Using the KFX Output plugin with Kindle Previewer installed.

Observations:

1. Books that are only translated (Simplified to Traditional) but kept in Horizontal layout convert to KFX without any issues.
2. The error only triggers when I attempt to enable the Vertical layout for specific titles.
3. I have already tried fixing CSS errors (duplicate selectors/invalid properties) and ensuring the language metadata is set to zh-TW or zho, but the error persists.

Has anyone encountered this specific conflict between vertical Chinese layouts and KFX's Enhanced Typesetting? Are there any specific HTML/CSS requirements for vertical text that I might be missing?

Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by Anson

]Has anyone encountered this specific conflict between vertical Chinese layouts and KFX's Enhanced Typesetting? Are there any specific HTML/CSS requirements for vertical text that I might be missing?

Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance.

The Kindle Previewer does not support vertical Chinese. This plugin tricks it into sometimes working by setting the language to Japanese before conversion and then changing it back to Chinese in the resulting KFX book. That does not always work.

I can't promise anything but if you can provide an example of a book that fails in this way I may be able to tell what about it is triggering the Kindle Previewer to reject it.

[Anson]

Originally Posted by jhowell

The Kindle Previewer does not support vertical Chinese. This plugin tricks it into sometimes working by setting the language to Japanese before conversion and then changing it back to Chinese in the resulting KFX book. That does not always work.

I can't promise anything but if you can provide an example of a book that fails in this way I may be able to tell what about it is triggering the Kindle Previewer to reject it.

So the alternative way is to try converting the books into kfx first, then do the translation and vertical transition in the kfx? I will try that later and if the problem persists, I will send you the log of the conversation. Thanks.

[Anson]

Originally Posted by Anson

So the alternative way is to try converting the books into kfx first, then do the translation and vertical transition in the kfx? I will try that later and if the problem persists, I will send you the log of the conversation. Thanks.

Oh I just know KFX is not editable. So should I send you the log or send you the book but scramble the content of it?

[Anson]

Originally Posted by jhowell

The Kindle Previewer does not support vertical Chinese. This plugin tricks it into sometimes working by setting the language to Japanese before conversion and then changing it back to Chinese in the resulting KFX book. That does not always work.

I can't promise anything but if you can provide an example of a book that fails in this way I may be able to tell what about it is triggering the Kindle Previewer to reject it.

It worked! I change the language in the metafile to Japanese and it can now be converted to KFX, thanks!

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by Anson

It worked! I change the language in the metafile to Japanese and it can now be converted to KFX, thanks!

Great. I'm glad you found a way to make it work.

[Elaine T]

This morning I could convert to KFX using the Calibre plug in. This evening I can't. I get 67% through and everything stalls, while 'terminal' windows for the kindle previewer multiply on my taskbar. I usually eventually get an error about the book not being set up for enhanced typesetting. Since everything I convert is fanfiction, most often from Ao3 I have no idea what has changed.
of course, as I was trying again to get exact info for this plea for help, I got something different this time - attached below, it was long.



I have tried downloading the most up to date version of the previewer from Amazon. It gets stuck on install. Error screenshot included below. I tried uninstalling the old one. It got stuck, too. So far without an error message.

Please help. Thanks

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by Elaine T

This morning I could convert to KFX using the Calibre plug in. This evening I can't. I get 67% through and everything stalls, while 'terminal' windows for the kindle previewer multiply on my taskbar. I usually eventually get an error about the book not being set up for enhanced typesetting. Since everything I convert is fanfiction, most often from Ao3 I have no idea what has changed.of course, as I was trying again to get exact info for this plea for help, I got something different this time - attached below, it was long.

Your log shows the Kindle Previewer failing to convert the book without any specific error message. That can happen for some books that contain formatting that the Previewer does not handle properly.

I recommend trying again after updating to the latest Previewer version (see below). If that does not work then try converting a book that is known to work, such as this one, in order to see whether the problem is specific to the book you are trying to convert. If the problem is with that book then see the section "Dealing with Conversion Errors" in the first post of this thread for potential workarounds. If it fails for all books then there is something going wrong on your PC.

Originally Posted by Elaine T

I have tried downloading the most up to date version of the previewer from Amazon. It gets stuck on install. Error screenshot included below. I tried uninstalling the old one. It got stuck, too. So far without an error message.

I also tried to install the newly released Previewer version 3.105 and encountered the same problem. I was able to work around it by renaming the %localappdata%\Amazon\Kindle Previewer 3 folder to some else, installing the new version, and then rebooting.

[Elaine T]

Thanks for the advice. Last evening after posting my plea for help, I did try converting another fic. It also failed. And one that had converted successfully before failed on a repeat. Confirmed it was just the kfx conversion that was the problem by trying - successfully - to convert the failed fics to Azw3.
So I dug out my Revo Uninstaller that is supposed to uninstall everything properly when they are misbehaving like that, and used it to get rid of the Previewer program. Then shut down for the night.

This morning i re-downloaded the previewer, and got no errors on installation. Tried a conversion and it worked.
Still have no idea what was going wrong, exactly but it's working now.