Content WHat Kindle Does Behind the Scenes

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I used to share some eBooks with my mother. But then, I know my mother would never share with anyone else. She shouldn't have known how. I do share with my wife and my mother-in-law. I have no moral issues with that at all.

I've never understood why the eBook industry won't support transfer of the reading rights for a book from one person to another person (singular, not plural). You can easily pass along a printed book to a relative or friend, and you can easily pass along an analog music album or single. I understand the need to stop digital items from being mass duplicated and distributed without authorization. Napster showed that insanity. But we should be able to give or lend the rights to an eBook to someone else. We bought it and we should be able to pass it along to one other person at a time just like we can do with a printed book, and in doing so we would give up our rights to it. Unfortunately the industry doesn't want to see things that way. So I support the scofflaws who treat a digital book like they would a printed book and pass it along to one other person at a time. That is a right I believe we have earned through the centuries of printed books and that right should be carried over into the digital book world.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Perfect drop caps that don't require jumping through hoops, for example? You select how many lines the drop cap should be, and KFX does the rest. It is even smart enough to reduce the size when the font gets too large. Say, a 3 line drop cap automatically changes to a 2 line drop cap at a certain font size and line spacing. Wider line spacing jumps from 3 to 2 sooner, as expected.

The KF8 version of a book with drop caps does not look quite as nice. Selecting the drop cap still highlights the whole word for lookup in dictionary whether you have the kf8 or kfx version.

Now tell me again which minor changes to the KF8 renderer need to be done to have perfect drop caps?

How do you set a drop cap in KFX? You cannot program for KFX (as far as I know). The kerning and hyphenation can be done with KF8 if Amazon wanted.

Most eBooks do not use dropcaps. So for me, I could easily do without dropcaps and even the first letter being larger.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Most eBooks do not use dropcaps. So for me, I could easily do without dropcaps and even the first letter being larger.

You would need to ask Amazon how to prepare your ebook ready for publication so that drop caps work. KFX is not a hobby format for you to tinker around at home. From the beginning it was a grave mistake to use a subset of HTML for ebook formats.

[shamanNS]

And using encoded JSON-like format is excellent idea?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by shamanNS

And using encoded JSON-like format is excellent idea?

Very well said.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

You would need to ask Amazon how to prepare your ebook ready for publication so that drop caps work. KFX is not a hobby format for you to tinker around at home. From the beginning it was a grave mistake to use a subset of HTML for ebook formats.

I don't see a problem with HTML for eBook production. What the problem is is that they made ePub 3 with features that are ridiculous and they way they went about implementing some features is also silly. The standards board let Apple dictate some of the features and that was wrong. They really need to go back to ePub 2 and start over making a proper ePub 3 based on ePub 2 and do it properly.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by shamanNS

And using encoded JSON-like format is excellent idea?

It doesn't matter what language you use, it is the features that matter. HTML is a poor choice for typesetting is all I am saying. The markup style is okay, but not the missing features, like drop caps, for example.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

It doesn't matter what language you use, it is the features that matter. HTML is a poor choice for typesetting is all I am saying. The markup style is okay, but not the missing features, like drop caps, for example.

KFX is a lot worse then ePub 2 can every be.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

KFX is a lot worse then ePub 2 can every be.

Oh please elaborate what Epub2 can do and KFX cannot.

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by OtinG

I've never understood why the eBook industry won't support transfer of the reading rights for a book from one person to another person (singular, not plural).

Same reason they're actively squashing libraries: money. Every time someone gives a book to someone else, every time someone borrows a book from a library, the publishers see a lost sale. In the realm of physical media they chalk it up as a cost of doing business. If they could DRM-lock paper then they'd do it in an eyeblink.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Oh please elaborate what Epub2 can do and KFX cannot.

I can edit and ePub 2 eBook (without DRM of course). With RMSDK, I don't need a format like KFX to get ligatures, variable spacing, and hyphenation. It just works. ePub 2 is one file and is not split into multiple files. ePub 2 can be DRM free. ePub 2 converts well to other formats. ePub is a good archival format.

Most KFX start out as ePub 2 or ePub 3. So do most KF8 and Mobi.

[fduniho]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Besides... it's been a long time since Amazon billed ebooks as "DRM Free" on their site.

I very recently bought a DRM-free book from Amazon, coverted it to MOBI with Calibre, and began reading it with Moon+ Reader, which has much better font support than the Kindle app. It was volume one of the Wild Cards series, edited by George R. R. Martin.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by fduniho

I very recently bought a DRM-free book from Amazon, coverted it to MOBI with Calibre, and began reading it with Moon+ Reader, which has much better font support than the Kindle app. It was volume one of the Wild Cards series, edited by George R. R. Martin.

I never said Amazon didn't sell DRM-Free books. I said they don't call them that. They advertise them as "Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited" (or some such similar phrasing).

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I never said Amazon didn't sell DRM-Free books. I said they don't call them that. They advertise them as "Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited" (or some such similar phrasing).

Sometimes. And sometimes they list in the description something along the lines of:
at the request of the publisher DRM has not been applied.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Sometimes. And sometimes they list in the description something along the lines of:
at the request of the publisher DRM has not been applied.

And when you get stuck downloading KFX, I call BS on Amazon's part.