[Conversion Output] KFX Output

[yasirbilgic]

I've been dealing with the plugin like twenty minutes and searched all the internet about it.
I didn't know about the Turkish language issue.
(I didn't ever thought about it.)

So, I just changed language metadata of my book on Calibre and it worked.
After conversion you can change your books' language to Turkish again.
There is no font error as well.

Just to inform you all...

[Magic815]

Hi all - new Calibre user here. I recently got Calibre set up as a docker container (on UnRaid), and then installed the KFX output plugin, as I'd like to have KFX be my preferred format. (Typically, I'll be adding EPUB files to Calibre as I build my library, but will want to send KFX files to my Kindle device.)

I'm sure I've got something misconfigured or I've missed a huge step, but when I try to start a conversion to KFX, I get the following error:
Conversion error: Exception('Wine registry file / config/.wine/user.reg not found. Ensure that Wine is correctly installed and that Calibre is not installed within a separate container.')

Conversions to MOBI (and other formats) works just fine.

Is there a way for me to install Wine on my UnRaid server? In the above error message, it sounds like it needs to be installed within the same docker container as Calibre - but I'm not sure how to go about that. Any insight is appreciated!

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by Magic815

Is there a way for me to install Wine on my UnRaid server? In the above error message, it sounds like it needs to be installed within the same docker container as Calibre - but I'm not sure how to go about that. Any insight is appreciated!

In order to convert to KFX the Kindle Previewer application must be used and that only runs under Windows or MacOS. Wine is needed to make it work under Linux. More information is provided in the installation instructions in the first post of this thread.

I am not familiar with UnRaid or Docker. I don't know what steps are required to make Wine run on that platform. Perhaps someone else will provide assistance.

[unkn0wn]

when converting to kfx in calibre, kp3 will automatically start downloading update (if available) in the background and stop as the conversion ends.

if we are converting more files.. background update starts, stops and starts again as conversions keep going on. (and this puts around 1gb of files in %temp% at the end of the process without actually updating)

I'll have had to update it manually just to stop it from doing so in the future conversions.

can we stop this.. or stop it from connecting to internet during conversion.
there's no option to stop automatic updates in kp3.

and there's a new update in the past week.. and i'm not sure if the plugin supports this newer version.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by unkn0wn

can we stop this.. or stop it from connecting to internet during conversion.

I suggest that you investigate whether you can configure a firewall on your system to block that program from Internet access.

Originally Posted by unkn0wn

and there's a new update in the past week.. and i'm not sure if the plugin supports this newer version.

This plugin is compatible with the latest version of the Kindle Previewer. It is safe to update.

[unkn0wn]

Originally Posted by jhowell

I suggest that you investigate whether you can configure a firewall on your system to block that program from Internet access.



This plugin is compatible with the latest version of the Kindle Previewer. It is safe to update.

I tried with default windows defender advanced firewall application.. its not blocking.. guess i should use 3rd party apps like glasswire or something..

I've updated for now.

[mwaschbu]

Originally Posted by Magic815

Is there a way for me to install Wine on my UnRaid server? In the above error message, it sounds like it needs to be installed within the same docker container as Calibre - but I'm not sure how to go about that. Any insight is appreciated!

You need a docker image that contains Calibre, Wine and the Kindle Previewer. You may be able to build it by writing your own Dockerfile that is based on the Calibre docker image and that installs Wine and Kindle Previewer on-top. I'm not sure if it is possible at all for Kindle Previewer because you need an unattended installation method that doesn't show a GUI.

[KindleAZWorKFX]

I have used wine under ubuntu linux, and tried it under Arch based linux, it sounds like you have calibre installed but calibre you don't need to use wine for calibre itself, since
calibre has linux binary's or using apt-get install calibre on ubuntu, arch you can install calibre with

https://snapcraft.io/install/calibre/arch

https://calibre-ebook.com/download_linux

for Kindle Previewer and kfx plugin you install kfx plugin just like you do on a windows platform, but for kindle previewer 3 you do have to download the installed and like in command promplt you have to use a terminal on linux to run wine with the installer but once its installed from my experience with linux the linux version of calibre should be able to use wine and run the kindle previewer to make an kfx format, I had it working, but I have used linux for a few years and also use windows which windows is a lot easyer to use, but if you prefer linux or can't run windows 10 or windows 11, but getting calibre and kindle previewer working, then getting your kindle paperwrite working under linux can take a little or a lot more work to get right, its not as easy as using calibre from windows itself, in any case good luck, I stopped using linux dual booting with windows 10 or win 11 which I am currently using because it would miss up my local computers desktop's clock between the two Operatiing systems, in any case, I don't recommend trying to run kindle previewer under wine but it can be done,

I just don't know for sure how stable it is with the linux port of calibre software, which depends on which distro of linux you are trying to run, since there is a lot more operating systems under linux bases which each one requires you to do different commands to install software, its not for beginners that are not skilled in software like linux, but if your not new to linux that its a lot easyer to fix stuff like that, anyway again
I hope that helps, also I never ran unraid on linux
and the term docker refers to apps like on the mac operating system basically they are app trays that launch the software titles, like in kde plasma 5 or gnome shells, a docker is a app that runs and launches apps like how windows has its star menu and icons but a docker happens to be more in the style of the mac OS dockers that do the same type of thing but on Linux. I think when he refers to (unraid docker or term of that) the person writing may be talking about something like 7 zip or unzip but as a app with compression instead of the executable file maybe got that one confused maybe.

the other reason I stopped using Linux is because last time I tried arch Linux on my gigabyte motherboard, it did something strange to my motherboards bios, I had to reinstall my gigabytes dual bios, because the start up of the bios itself started running slower than normal, when I refreshed or reinstalled the bios from windows it fixed it and now its booting up windows normally again, but something in Linux was causing grub 2 boot loader for the menu that has both windows and linux defaults to linux unless you change that to load slower than normal but again my desktops problems were fixed by removing Linux in any case it started to have a delay on the arch port of linux on my desktop, that when I figure out I needed to reinstall the bios from the software at gigabytes website for F12 ver. bios which it uses, I have two hard drives in it and had windows 11 on hda 1 drive, and arch linux on hdb 2 drive but something was causing some problems or somehow the bios got cruppted also was using secure boot for awhile, but turned it back on after removing Linux, I think I had to turn it off in order to use Linux with my desktop without problems, but again my bios was last updated in 2013, and gigabyte has not release any updates for it, I do use a RTX 2080 3D card but again my motherboard is a few years old but it can handle windows 11 fine with its current patches it helps the start up , again sorry I got off topic, but that my reason at this time for stopping my use of Linux, otherwise maybe I could of better help with the matter of wine and kindle previewer not working correctly, or if simple you didn't have kindle previewer installed the logs in calibre would show under linux problems with wine and kindle previewer not working of course it needs to be installed, which I think is it correct on your linux system?

[KindleAZWorKFX]

Originally Posted by mwaschbu

You need a docker image that contains Calibre, Wine and the Kindle Previewer. You may be able to build it by writing your own Dockerfile that is based on the Calibre docker image and that installs Wine and Kindle Previewer on-top. I'm not sure if it is possible at all for Kindle Previewer because you need an unattended installation method that doesn't show a GUI.

also some linux or freeBSD have broken ports or locations for software which it fails to find the stuff required for wine or dlls but that most likely older versions of linux or freebsd I hope the newest titles have fixed those problems already. I have experience stuff broken in linux before that just causes problems it happens more with linux than windows from my experience with it.
in my last post or reply about this since it talks about I was guessing your talking about a linux port, but of course it could of also been something else besides linux like FreeBSD which also uses wine, but I don't have much experience with FreeBSD if the term Calibre docker image refers to FreeBSD images of software titles, then I can't help you, since my experience is more in native Linux than stuff like FreeBSD which is not really Linux, since its kernel is not Linux, but in any case I hope I help a little bit, since FreeBSD does use Linux like stuff in it, but its like apple and oranges just not the same animal, sorry bad example but I hope you get my point. I have also used gentoo linux distro that compiles software from sources packages but they are not prefer to as docker images, I don't think. I hope I was a little bit helpful in my last post, but if I was not sorry but I did try, I may of wrote too much which I can do, but I was trying to be a bit helpful with this Linux stuff with calibre, kindle previewer 3 and kfx format stuff. also make sure you got a kindle previewer 3 executable with wine, but kindle previewer older versions, you do need a current version for using with calibre version on Linux too. the kfx format requires the same type of windows software installed under wine as you would install it in a normal windows operating system.

[Magic815]

@KindleAZWorKFX - heh, I appreciate the very detailed reply. At this time, I've decided to stick with my Windows Calibre setup, instead of trying to deal with the custom docker container stuff. I'll log that away for the future, though!

@jhowell - Not sure if this is possible (or something you'd ever want it to do), but if we have the page count integrated with the custom column #pages from a 'Count Pages' plugin install - would it ever be possible to have the KFX Output conversion process first trigger the Page Count to run (if the custom column is blank for that book)? Right now I always just manually make sure I run Count Pages first, then run the conversion. But it would be nice to get that down to one click.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by Magic815

@jhowell - Not sure if this is possible (or something you'd ever want it to do), but if we have the page count integrated with the custom column #pages from a 'Count Pages' plugin install - would it ever be possible to have the KFX Output conversion process first trigger the Page Count to run (if the custom column is blank for that book)? Right now I always just manually make sure I run Count Pages first, then run the conversion. But it would be nice to get that down to one click.

That isn’t something I feel would be appropriate for this plugin.

You may want to look into Action Chains as a means of scripting within calibre.

[Magic815]

Originally Posted by jhowell

That isn’t something I feel would be appropriate for this plugin.

You may want to look into Action Chains as a means of scripting within calibre.

Cool, I'll check that out.

One other question. I've been recently trying to convert an extremely large eBook to KFX, and was wondering if you've seen these sorts of conversion times?



For what it's worth, the book is over 13,000 pages long. And the Count Pages plugin run (which normally takes ~20 seconds) took 42 minutes to run. I'm letting the KFX Output plugin to continue to run for now, but wasn't sure if you've heard mention of time-out issues or anything.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by Magic815

One other question. I've been recently trying to convert an extremely large eBook to KFX, and was wondering if you've seen these sorts of conversion times?

I have never allowed a conversion to run for that long.

The conversion time can increase drastically for larger, complex books. Splitting a large omnibus and converting each book separately will often result in a shorter overall conversion time.

Originally Posted by Magic815

I'm letting the KFX Output plugin to continue to run for now, but wasn't sure if you've heard mention of time-out issues or anything.

It should continue until it either completes of runs out of resources.

[jhowell]

Amazon has released Kindle Previewer version 3.65.0. It is compatible with the current release of this plugin.

[Gandulf]

Originally Posted by jhowell

Amazon has released Kindle Previewer version 3.65.0. It is compatible with the current release of this plugin.

Any advantage in upgrading it ?