Kindle to utilize epub format in late 2022

[Jacques Q.]

... AND the possibility to send EPubs was implemented before August, I tested it in early July (with the not-so-conclusive results I mentioned before, but still the EPubs were indeed for the most part accepted and converted).
So if there are measures to be taken (and IMHO there are, although I am not technically competent to do anything in person about it), I think the time is about now !

[odamizu]

Originally Posted by Jacques Q.

... SO : WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO if we are to try and retain decent e-book quality on our Kindles instead of seeing it go down steeply and actually LOSING some positive features by accepting the Amazon method ? ...

I've been sending epub to Kindle for years without any problems (though, yes, it loses covers on eink Kindles, which is a little annoying, but I still get covers on Kindle for iOS app).

I've been using the "change the extension to txt or png" method combined with the Send to Kindle app, and I am looking forward to when epub is officially supported by Send to Kindle and I won't have to change the extension anymore.

Note: I edit my epubs in Sigil and make sure they validate using EPUBCheck. I used to use Calibre, but Amazon seemed to have more problems with Calibre epubs. Once I switched to Sigil, I've never had a problem.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by jhowell

Edit: oops I wrote that backwards. It should be late 2922 for the sending apps and August for no MOBI.

amazon knows what it will be doing 900 years from now?

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

amazon knows what it will be doing 900 years from now?

Double oops!

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by Jacques Q.

I did the bolding, italicizing and underlining, but Aug. 20th is very clearly stated. Whether that is actually implemented, we'll see tomorrow...

That is interesting. The English version of the same email for the US just says August without a specific day.

[Jacques Q.]

Originally Posted by jhowell

That is interesting. The English version of the same email for the US just says August without a specific day.

Nothing happened so far, although a new update was sent to my Kindle(s) yesterday, whose only visible effect is to prevent showing the book cover when device is off for e-books not bought from Amazon, which is irritating but I can live with it.

Or rather something has been happening since yesterday, but probably not related with this : every time I send a book to my account by Send-to-Kindle (the software, not the e-mails), I also receive documents (e-books, obviously) in English or Portuguese or Chinese, as if there were "leaks" in the system. I destroy them immediately, but I rather don't like the idea.

[Jacques Q.]

Originally Posted by odamizu

I've been sending epub to Kindle for years without any problems (though, yes, it loses covers on eink Kindles, which is a little annoying, but I still get covers on Kindle for iOS app).

I've been using the "change the extension to txt or png" method combined with the Send to Kindle app.

Very interesting, I never heard of that method. Does it mean that if I have an EPub of some book and I just change its file extension to .txt or .png and then send it with Send to Kindle it will not only not be rejected but shown without the formatting issues of the recent Amazon conversion system ? (I tried again yesterday, sent the same book as Mobi and Epub : on arrival Mobi was perfect, ex-EPub as converted by Amazon had issues starting on page 1 - like weird characters instead of a plain apostrophe for instance.)

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Jacques Q.

Very interesting, I never heard of that method. Does it mean that if I have an EPub of some book and I just change its file extension to .txt or .png and then send it with Send to Kindle it will not only not be rejected but shown without the formatting issues of the recent Amazon conversion system ? (I tried again yesterday, sent the same book as Mobi and Epub : on arrival Mobi was perfect, ex-EPub as converted by Amazon had issues starting on page 1 - like weird characters instead of a plain apostrophe for instance.)

Those "wierd" characters are an encoding problem. Use the Modify ePub plugin to make sure the ePub is in UTF-8. Then that problem should not happen.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by Jacques Q.

Very interesting, I never heard of that method. Does it mean that if I have an EPub of some book and I just change its file extension to .txt or .png and then send it with Send to Kindle it will not only not be rejected but shown without the formatting issues of the recent Amazon conversion system ? (I tried again yesterday, sent the same book as Mobi and Epub : on arrival Mobi was perfect, ex-EPub as converted by Amazon had issues starting on page 1 - like weird characters instead of a plain apostrophe for instance.)

Amazon has long supported the conversion of EPUBs sent via email but until recently the file extension “.epub” was blocked. It could be tricked by just changing the file name so that it used a supported extension.

Conversion still occurs using Amazon’s kindlegen software. That tool was developed for use by publishers. It has some quirks that you need to deal with.

First, EPUBs use UTF-8 character encoding. Kindlegen assumes that HTML uses Latin-1 character encoding if the encoding is missing. This is a holdover from Mobipocket and unlikely to change.

Second, Amazon requires the logical table of contents to follow the same sequence as the content of the book and not contain any broken links. A surprising number of EPUBs fail this criteria.

There are other issues but they are much less common.

[jhowell]

Here are my reasons for believing that Amazon isn’t going to invest resources in improving kindlegen and that conversion from EPUB is likely to remain the same.

Amazon considers the kindle formats produced by kindlegen to be frozen, legacy products. All development has gone into KFX format for years. Amazon does not convert personal documents to KFX so that purchased books will yield a superior reading experience.

Kindlegen has been unchanged for almost a decade. Getting developers up to speed on it would be expensive.

Publishers have had to put up with kindlegen’s issues and yet Amazon did not improve it even though they stood to profit from the books it produces. Fixing it to help customers avoid buying books from Amazon would be silly.

[JSWolf]

If ePub > KF8 doesn't work well, that might get more people to buy eBooks from Amazon.

[odamizu]

Originally Posted by Jacques Q.

Very interesting, I never heard of that method. Does it mean that if I have an EPub of some book and I just change its file extension to .txt or .png and then send it with Send to Kindle it will not only not be rejected but shown without the formatting issues of the recent Amazon conversion system? ...

As jhowell notes, conversion still occurs with kindlegen, so there are quirks. But yes, if you have an epub (that meets their requirements) and change the extension fro .epub to .txt or .png, Amazon will accept it, convert it, and send it to your Kindle devices and apps as if it were any other personal doc.

I use Sigil to edit my epubs and EPUBcheck to validate them, and Amazon always accepts them.

Originally Posted by jhowell

Amazon has long supported the conversion of EPUBs sent via email ...

Also via Send to Kindle app. I use Send to Kindle app with my epubs sent with .txt extension.

[Jacques Q.]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Those "weird" characters are an encoding problem. Use the Modify ePub plugin to make sure the ePub is in UTF-8. Then that problem should not happen.

It works ! Thanks a zilllion times. So now I don't have to worry about what happens when Amazon switches to not accepting Mobis any more (which, by the way, did not happen yesterday contrary to their own French announcement) - supposing they do not suppress this possibility of just sending EPub files with changed extension at the same moment, that is -. The process will only take a bit longer because of the need to make an additional copy of the file and change its extension, which has to be done one by one and not as a batch like converting many EPub files to Mobi with Calibre.

Remaining issues (for me) :
- 1/ book cover doesn't show on device (not really an issue, actually) ;
- 2/ in order to receive the ebook with correct title and author's name, one has to change them manually in Send-to-Kindle (else title appears as "Title - Author's name" like in bloody PDFs, and author's name appears as latest name used) ; by e-mail title appears as "Title - Author's name" and author as "Unknown" and it can't be changed apparently. Does by any chance an option in "Modify EPub" or some other tool fix this ?...

And an additional question : is there any reason to use .txt rather than .png or the opposite ?

Thanks again to all the contributors who take the time to help computer-so-so-literates like me...

[odamizu]

Originally Posted by Jacques Q.

... 2/ in order to receive the ebook with correct title and author's name, one has to change them manually in Send-to-Kindle (else title appears as "Title - Author's name" like in bloody PDFs, and author's name appears as latest name used) ; by e-mail title appears as "Title - Author's name" and author as "Unknown" and it can't be changed apparently. Does by any chance an option in "Modify EPub" or some other tool fix this ?...

When using Send-to-Kindle app and .txt/.png file, I find that it will default to the filename for the title (so if the filename is the book title you're set) and last author used (so you do have to change this).

When I email an epub to my Kindle, however, the title and author are whatever is in the .opf file. I can change the title/author by editing the .opf file. Is this not what happens with you?

... is there any reason to use .txt rather than .png or the opposite ?

I've heard .txt doesn't work with some operating systems (Android?). So basically, if .txt doesn't work, try .png and vice versa. Otherwise, I don't think it makes a difference.

[Jacques Q.]

Originally Posted by odamizu

When I email an epub to my Kindle, however, the title and author are whatever is in the .opf file. I can change the title/author by editing the .opf file. Is this not what happens with you?

Unfortunately I don't know what an .opf file is, so I would know even less how to change it...