Epub Better Than Mobi

[fcm52]

Hi Everyone, I am a Kindle user but have also a Nook Simple touch just because of the epub format. Do you think that epub has any advantages on mobi that may justify owning the two devices just because of the format, once I clearly preferer to use the Kindle ereader? JFY, I have had some bad results converting original formats on Calibre or similar converters. Tkx for your help.

[DSpider]

AFAIK, the Mobi format doesn't do SVG (KF8 does, but I hear it's not that good). There may be other technical issues, but otherwise they're pretty much the same thing. I'd say about 98-99% the same thing.

Amazon is being a little b***h about supporting ePub (considered to be the standard in the publishing industry) and wants you in their ecosystem, just like Apple; a closed off ecosystem (or a "walled garden"), where only they control what content you may have on the device that you purchased. For this reason I'm never buying a Kindle, and also not another Apple product ever again.

[susan_cassidy]

When Amazon settled on .mobi, epub did not yet exist as a standard.

[DSpider]

According to Wikipedia, ePub came out in September 2007, while the first Kindle came out in November 2007.

But HTML and XHTML have been around for much longer than that.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Kindle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPUB

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by DSpider

According to Wikipedia, ePub came out in September 2007, while the first Kindle came out in November 2007.

But HTML and XHTML have been around for much longer than that.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Kindle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPUB

Mobipocket is based on HTML and the earlier OEB formats.
If you think two months between a standard being published, and a product being delivered means that it could have been adopted in that product, you have a very poor notion of product development and the time taken to get publishers to adopt a new format.

When Amazon adopted Mobipocket it was the major ebook format.

[DSpider]

OEB (ePub's predecesor), first came out in 1999:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_eBook

But I think the major e-book format was DOC, and some other obscure formats that PDAs could read (PalmDOC?). Maybe plain old TXT, as well, because back then people didn't know any better.

[Aerys]

Originally Posted by fcm52

Hi Everyone, I am a Kindle user but have also a Nook Simple touch just because of the epub format. Do you think that epub has any advantages on mobi that may justify owning the two devices just because of the format, once I clearly preferer to use the Kindle ereader? JFY, I have had some bad results converting original formats on Calibre or similar converters. Tkx for your help.

Well personally I like the EPUB better since it's easier to build/debug/convert from rather than MOBI but then again Amazon has the better content environment as far as "books" are concerned.

Oh, AFAIK this only applies to e-ink readers since if your using a tablet there is no need to own 2 devices because of the ebook format because you can install your preferred reader app each to handle epub and mobi.

[me too]

When it comes to the matter of creating ebook,i personally prefer .mobi.Just few months before i have pulished one book in both epub and mobi
thank you

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by DSpider

OEB (ePub's predecesor), first came out in 1999:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_eBook

But I think the major e-book format was DOC, and some other obscure formats that PDAs could read (PalmDOC?). Maybe plain old TXT, as well, because back then people didn't know any better.

MOBI is actually based on the Open eBook format. Amazon purchased Mobipocket to gain access to this format. See our wiki for more details.

Today KF8 is the new Amazon standard and it will based on ePub although the resulting file is not compatible. Most of the ePub features are available to an eBook publisher for the KF8 format. MOBI is being phased out of Amazon. Read about KF8 in our wiki.

Dale

[dgatwood]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

MOBI is actually based on the Open eBook format. Amazon purchased Mobipocket to gain access to this format. See our wiki for more details.

I'm fairly certain that's not correct. Although the HTML subset that MOBI uses is similar to that of the Open eBook Format, the Open eBook Format (OEF) itself is similar to EPUB in that it is basically a ZIP file. By contrast, MOBI files are a rather bizarre file format that looks like a slightly modified PalmDOC database with HTML data split across a series of records (or a compressed version thereof). It's a really nasty format to work with under the hood.

Note that if you build a MOBI file using kindlegen from an EPUB book, you can unzip it because it does happen to contain a ZIP file, but that ZIP file just contains the original EPUB contents, not the reduced form that the Kindle hardware actually reads.

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Today KF8 is the new Amazon standard and it will based on ePub although the resulting file is not compatible. Most of the ePub features are available to an eBook publisher for the KF8 format. MOBI is being phased out of Amazon. Read about KF8 in our wiki.

Careful there. KF8 is not based on EPUB. KF8 uses an HTML and CSS subset that is similar to that of EPUB, but AFAIK, the file format is still a bizarre mess based on PalmDoc.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by dgatwood

ICareful there. KF8 is not based on EPUB. KF8 uses an HTML and CSS subset that is similar to that of EPUB, but AFAIK, the file format is still a bizarre mess based on PalmDoc.

You might think of KF8 as a kind of compiled ePub, just as the original Mobi was a kind of compiled OEB.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

You might think of KF8 as a kind of compiled ePub, just as the original Mobi was a kind of compiled OEB.

Exactly. In OEB all the end users formats were compiled versions of OEB. There were three, IMP, LIT, and MOBI. All were based on OEB and if you had the source it was fairly easy to make any of them although all three formats had extensions to the format specification.

Amazon's KF8 is actually targeted toward ePub3 rather than ePub version 2 but, except for the Fixed layout version it is a proper subset of ePub3 although they succumbed to including some extensions to make some old mobi kludges continue to work.

Dale