Dealing with Kindle for PC/Mac 1.19 and KFX in calibre

[StuartC]

I am a complete novice to Calibre and conversions. I copied my wife's books from a Kindle Paperwhite to a folder on my iMac, installed Calibre and copied those to the Calibre Library. They are all predominantly in KFX format!
My intention was to copy them to a new Paperwhite 5, however, it seems this is not as simple as I had been led to believe. What steps do I need to take to achieve this? I presume conversion is not possible without some of the steps described here or is there another way?
Any help or advise very welcome.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by StuartC

I am a complete novice to Calibre and conversions. I copied my wife's books from a Kindle Paperwhite to a folder on my iMac, installed Calibre and copied those to the Calibre Library. They are all predominantly in KFX format!
My intention was to copy them to a new Paperwhite 5, however, it seems this is not as simple as I had been led to believe. What steps do I need to take to achieve this? I presume conversion is not possible without some of the steps described here or is there another way?
Any help or advise very welcome.

Most Kindle books are "protected" by DRM which ties the book the the particular device they were downloaded for. This is what's causing you problems.

If this new Kindle is for you, on your Amazon account, the simplest solution is to set up Family Library sharing. You will both be able to access books bought on the other account from your own Kindles.

If it's a replacement for your wife's Kindle, just register it to her account. No need to manually move files around.

If you want to remove the DRM you'll need to get detailed DRM removal help elsewhere.

[StuartC]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Most Kindle books are "protected" by DRM which ties the book the the particular device they were downloaded for. This is what's causing you problems.

If this new Kindle is for you, on your Amazon account, the simplest solution is to set up Family Library sharing. You will both be able to access books bought on the other account from your own Kindles.

If it's a replacement for your wife's Kindle, just register it to her account. No need to manually move files around.

If you want to remove the DRM you'll need to get detailed DRM removal help elsewhere.

Oh, I had the distinct impression that this wasn't an issue for Kindle books and that the transfer was quite straightforward. I new DRM was an issue for some other books but not for a Kindle to Kindle transfer.
The complication is that because of Amazon's recent change to UK credit cards I am about to close my Amazon account and had hoped to use the new Paper white in a standalone mode!

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by StuartC

Oh, I had the distinct impression that this wasn't an issue for Kindle books and that the transfer was quite straightforward. I new DRM was an issue for some other books but not for a Kindle to Kindle transfer.
The complication is that because of Amazon's recent change to UK credit cards I am about to close my Amazon account and had hoped to use the new Paper white in a standalone mode!

Closing your Amazon account will probably cause you to lose access to any Kindle books you've purchased on that account. If you really need to close the account, you should certainly (IMO) make sure you have DRM-free backups of your Kindle books.

Unfortunately, DRM is still an issue on ebooks. Music went DRM-free years ago. But book publishers (on the whole) are still convinced DRM does them some good. (It doesn't.)

[Nicor]

Hi, I hope someone can help me.
My setup is:
- K4PC 1.17.0 (44170) - upgrade blocked
- Calibre 5.34 + DeDRM 7.2.0 + KFX input 1.45.0
I can import the book into Calibre as AZW, but I cannot convert it to epub.
Any idea?
Thanks in advance

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by Nicor

Hi, I hope someone can help me.
My setup is:
- K4PC 1.17.0 (44170) - upgrade blocked
- Calibre 5.34 + DeDRM 7.2.0 + KFX input 1.45.0
I can import the book into Calibre as AZW, but I cannot convert it to epub.
Any idea?
Thanks in advance

Several things.

If you are using K4PC 1.17 then you will never receive KFX format and do not need the KFX Input plugin.

Your DRM removal plugin is outdated. Apprentices Alf and Harper have passed the torch to NoDRM. https://github.com/noDRM/DeDRM_tools/releases

If the error you receive when converting relates to DRM then ask for help at NoDRM’s site. Otherwise post the the details of the error in the calibre conversion sub forum.

[RobertDDL]

I've never had a Kindle, nor do I want to have one, but, over the last few years, I've bought 40 ebooks from Amazon. I kept an older version of Kindle for PC, had no problems to de-DRM them, converted them to epub, and read them on my PocketBook reader. I always assumed that Amazon was aware that some of their customers wanted to read ebooks on non-Kindle devices, and knew, and tolerated it, that their DRM could be removed.

Now, without asking, and without my permission, Kindle for PC updated to 1.33, and, in the process (again without asking or even telling), changed the downloaded ebook files in the "My Kindle Content" folder, so that DRM removal doesn't work anymore on them. (Rather pointless, since, of course, I had already done that whenever I bought a book, and saved the de-DRM'd files somewhere else.)

This, to me, is malware behavior - installing software, and manipulating content on my computer, without my permission. To me, this is unacceptable.

What I do not understand is, why Amazon is doing this - are there really so few people who like to buy ebooks from them, but prefer to read them on non-Kindle devices, and without having Amazon looking over their shoulders while they read? I buy a lot of other stuff from them, too.

So, where else could I get ebooks from? I looked at Kobo, they sent me to Tolino, looked at Pocketbook - both talk a lot about the cloud, about how to register their readers, about Adobe DRM - they want me to register with Adobe, tell Adobe my name, my date of birth, accept the terms of Adobe's privacy policy, etc.

I do not want that shit. I want to download an ebook file, and, using an USB cable, copy it to the reading device of my choice, without anyone interfering or observing me, without anyone installing malware on my computer, and without having to hack the registry. Whoever I buy it from knows what I buy, that's ok (or rather, we have come to accept it as unavoidable), but this is definitely where it has to stop for me. This is how it works with music files, and, so far, this is how it worked with Amazon ebooks.

If anyone could tell me how I could have this, I'd be grateful. If not, I'll simply return to reading printed books.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by RobertDDL

I always assumed that Amazon was aware that some of their customers wanted to read ebooks on non-Kindle devices, and knew, and tolerated it, that their DRM could be removed.

Now, without asking, and without my permission, Kindle for PC updated to 1.33 ...

As the dominant e-book seller Amazon has more to lose than to gain by allowing their books to be read outside of their ecosystem. They want to make doing that inconvenient, however it isn't worth the cost and effort to make it impossible.

It takes a bit of effort to block Kindle for PC from updating, but you can certainly do so by following the instructions in the first post in this thread. If you want to continue to purchase e-books from Amazon you can still do so. If you decide to go elsewhere I doubt that Amazon will not be bothered by that.

[Nicor]

Originally Posted by jhowell

Several things.

If you are using K4PC 1.17 then you will never receive KFX format and do not need the KFX Input plugin.

Your DRM removal plugin is outdated. Apprentices Alf and Harper have passed the torch to NoDRM. https://github.com/noDRM/DeDRM_tools/releases

If the error you receive when converting relates to DRM then ask for help at NoDRM’s site. Otherwise post the the details of the error in the calibre conversion sub forum.

Thank you!!! Updating the DRM removal solved the problem. I owe you one.

[RobertDDL]

Originally Posted by jhowell

(...) It takes a bit of effort to block Kindle for PC from updating, but you can certainly do so by following the instructions in the first post in this thread.

I'm afraid not. I did, of course, have automatic updates disabled. Often enough before, K4PC had suggested an update, and I had politely refused. This time, it didn't bother to ask, and neither did Windows ask if I was ok with letting the program make changes to my computer. The capacity to override the "automatic updates disabled" setting must have been built into K4PC from the beginning, and also Amazon's ability to remotely trigger this override.

When I tried to re-install 1.17, it started, but it didn't let me register - the dialogue box opened, but didn't let me enter any data. So, all I could do was install 1.33 again, register it again, and now hope for someone to come up with a DRM removal tool that will work with Amazon's recent file format. I'm still saying that K4PC is malware, though.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by RobertDDL

When I tried to re-install 1.17, it started, but it didn't let me register - the dialogue box opened, but didn't let me enter any data. So, all I could do was install 1.33 again, register it again, and now hope for someone to come up with a DRM removal tool that will work with Amazon's recent file format. I'm still saying that K4PC is malware, though.

Why not start K4PC 1.33 with the batch file that disables the KFX renderer which prevents the download of KFX format ebooks? That will get you KF8/mobi downloads that can be deDRMed with the current tools. See message #1265 in this forum for that batch file.

If you haven't updated your DeDRM tools, you might want to check the link in the first post in the New version of DRM removal tools ("DeDRM") thread in the News section.

[lkmiller]

How were you blocking automatic updates? Just checking the box isn't enough. The method in the first post continues to work for me. Kindle for PC asks me to update every time I open it, but I click skip this version.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by RobertDDL

When I tried to re-install 1.17, it started, but it didn't let me register - the dialogue box opened, but didn't let me enter any data.

That is a commonly reported problem, but it does not happen for everyone. It appears that K4PC uses the PC's HTML rendering software to handle the sign in screen and something interferes with that. One possibility is an ad blocker.

[RobertDDL]

Thank you for the various suggestions - one or the other of them will probably work. But two facts remain:

a) Amazon does not WANT me to buy ebooks from them.
b) K4PC behaved in an unacceptable way - installing software, and modifying data files on my computer, without warning and without my permission.

They could have done it differently. "We have great news for you, we have a new improved file format that makes reading ebooks twice as enjoyable as before, all you have to do is click here to update to our new improved version of K4PC - otherwise, we're sure you'll understand that for technical reasons you won't be able to download any more ebooks to your computer from now on. Find more information about the update here."

The way they did it instead, home-invasion style, they lost my trust.

[sadievan]

Originally Posted by lkmiller

I've had no issues staying on K4PC 1.17 with the info at the bottom of the first post about preventing updates.

I know Amazon dropped their Windows store app awhile back, but Kindle for PC continues to get updates.

Thanks. I have run the .bat file. Fingers crossed

Well I ran the .bat file and then downloaded the book again. It will not open in Calibre. I am running Calibre 4.21, could that be the problem?

Also running an older version of Tools 6.5.4