Copying books to Kindle

[jackm8]

Originally Posted by tamhas

The only answer I see to the technical issues is the gift an ebook, which is not what I am asking. The question is, if I have a book in KFX or AZW3 (don't see KF8 as a Calibre option) format on the hard disk of her computer and I copy it to her Kindle connected vi USB, does that work ... even though looking at the Kindle directly in the USB mount shows the books as directories, not files.

As long as your files are without drm, you only need to copy .kfx file into documents folder. Kindle will create extra files on its own. You can even copy files into different folders inside documents folder, for organising purposes, and Kindle will detect it. In case things start disappearing, you may look at "Amazon removed books from my Kindle" thread here. In short, it's best that you learn how to tag .kfx files as 'personal documents'.

[tamhas]

OK, finally we are getting close. I am trying to avoid Calibre on her machine because I think it adds complexity and little value for her (as fond of it as I am for myself. Not sure where all the epub stuff came from. I can easily provide AZW3 or KFX. Can someone confirm Sirtel's assertion about AZW3 for KFX as well? I suppose I can always convert a KFX into AZW3, but it would be handy not to have to worry about it.

Thanks for the help everyone.

[Quoth]

KFX IMO is inferior to AZW3. You can't even create KFX from epub without Amazon SW, so it doesn't work on Linux.

Even if your readers have already bought your book, no worries! You can encourage them to give your books as a gift (Learn more at: https://www.smashwords.com/about/gifts)

Note: PLEASE, only copy Public Domain works to your friend. Copying copyright works, even if DRM free, or free direct from the author (without written explicit permission) is cheating the author, a Civil offence everywhere, Criminal offence in some countries, and morally wrong. This also applies to paper books even if you have a free-to-use paper book copying machine.

If you don't know where an epub came from lookup the author and see if they are alive, or died not long enough ago for copyright to expire.

It's trivial to copy DRM-free ebooks in azw3 format to a Kindle. All but the K1, K2, and DX(G) family can read AZW3. But only PD content should be copied to someone else's ereader.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Quoth

...

Copying copyright works, even if DRM free, or free direct from the author (without written explicit permission) is cheating the author, a Civil offence everywhere, Criminal offence in some countries, and morally wrong. ...

I'm not sure the bolded part is completely accurate? For example, there are, I believe, non-public domain ebooks that can be copied, for example:

https://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/

some fine print from the site:

The Baen CDs hosted here are freely-distributable disks provided to promote the sale of the books contained within. Baen allows these CDs to be distributed not simply to provide free electronic copies of their books, but to generate sales for those same books. They are a medium of advertising.

These CDs are generally available bound into the first edition of the books they are titled for. A few of the CDs (those marked with the P prefix) are not bound in any book and were made available as publishing industry promotional material.

Please remember that just because these books are being provided at no cost does not mean that they are in the Public Domain. Just because Baen isn't asking for any money for these copies doesn't mean that they are giving up any of their copyrights. Copyright doesn't mean that you have to pay for something, it means that someone legally owns the right to distribute something (or not) in any fashion they desire - including doing so at no charge. So all the rules that apply to an ebook you bought and paid for also apply to these titles.

If you download any of the disks, please take the time to go to the Baen eBooks site and buy a copy of at least the CD's primary ebook. For a modest investment of about $$9.99, or less, you can buy the eBook. Or you can buy the entire Webscription month that the CD accompanies for $18 and/or buy the book in paper form.

For more freely downloadable Baen books, visit the Baen Free Library.

While these CDs are provided to commercially promote Baen, there is no financial gain for me, the hosting-guy.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by John F

I'm not sure the bolded part is completely accurate? For example, there are, I believe, non-public domain ebooks that can be copied, for example:

https://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/

some fine print from the site:

You missed where I wrote:

(without written explicit permission)

[jackm8]

Originally Posted by Quoth

KFX IMO is inferior to AZW3.

Imo, KFX is far superior to AZW3.

[DNSB]

If you happen to like the way that KFX forces an ebook to be displayed, you may find it superior. For me, the removal of my control over how the ebook displays is not acceptable.

[jackm8]

Are you talking about advanced typesetting? What exactly do you think is forced about that?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by jackm8

Are you talking about advanced typesetting? What exactly do you think is forced about that?

Makes me wonder if you have ever used KFX.

The margin adjustment sucks compared to most other formats. Line spacing is forced to a minimum of 1.2. Try a bit of text that uses non-breaking spaces and find that KFX does not support them. Hyphenation has weird items such as a period always being considered as a break point so 5.4GHz will break at the . leaving 5. on one line and 4GHz on the next line. Perhaps you happen to use em or en dashes? Again weird breaks around them. Again, you may not be bothered by such oddities but not everyone is so oblivious.

As for the "enhanced typesetting"? From what Amazon claims to be advanced typesetting, it makes little sense.

Page Flip? hardly a typesetting feature.

Progressive download? Again hardly a typesetting feature.

High definition visuals (HDV) support: That might be useful. Sadly even on an iPad Pro, images are seldom of a high enough resolution to make zooming, panning, etc. useful.

Font size layout improvement. Hmmm... the automatic adjustment is supposed to help with large gaps between words. Of course, this seems to be mostly done by falling back to left-aligned (ragged right) and dropping two column text to one column in landscape mode. And trust me, it ain't pretty when either or both of those happen.

Drop caps: Drop caps that auto-adjust. Sadly, I tried a KFX book with drop caps and changing from the smallest to largest font size made the drop card display do some weird adjustments.

Ragged right justification. Hmmm... let's the customer switch from justified to left aligned (ragged right). Gee, gosh, golly, my antique ereaders from ~2010 could do that.

Hyphenation and smoother word spacing. Again something that has multiple glitches. Comparing between KFX on a PW 12th gen and RMSDK on a Kobo Touch, the difference is not all that noticeable.

Kerning and ligatures. Hmmm... Again something that ADE 1 was able to handle. KFX also suffers from issues with keming when font sizes are changed. and yes that is k-e-m- not k-e-r-n.

MathML. Again something that my antique ereaders handle when using their ePub3 renderer.

[jackm8]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Comparing between KFX on a PW 12th gen and RMSDK on a Kobo Touch

It's me that wondering if you've ever really compared KFX and AZW3.

And why are you even comparing Kobo Touch and Paperwhite? If you're in Kindle ecosystem, you can only compare KFX and AZW3. That's all there is, and the discussion is between these formats. KFX has better typesetting than AZW3, and it has more features than AZW3. It makes sense, as all their support and development stopped on AZW3 when KFX was introduced. AZW3 is a legacy format.

For the use in native amazon reader, I've all my sideloaded books in KFX format and they all work better than if they're in AZW3 format. Drop caps are a niche feature, but hyphens, ligatures and kerning, are absolutely vital, simply because AZW3 doesn't support them at all. Covers work, thumbnails work, text is always the same or better compared to AZW3 on the same files. I really don't see a reason to use AZW3 at all.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by jackm8

It's me that wondering if you've ever really compared KFX and AZW3.

And why are you even comparing Kobo Touch and Paperwhite? If you're in Kindle ecosystem, you can only compare KFX and AZW3. That's all there is, and the discussion is between these formats. KFX has better typesetting than AZW3, and it has more features than AZW3. It makes sense, as all their support and development stopped on AZW3 when KFX was introduced. AZW3 is a legacy format.

For the use in native amazon reader, I've all my sideloaded books in KFX format and they all work better than if they're in AZW3 format. Drop caps are a niche feature, but hyphens, ligatures and kerning, are absolutely vital, simply because AZW3 doesn't support them at all. Covers work, thumbnails work, text is always the same or better compared to AZW3 on the same files. I really don't see a reason to use AZW3 at all.

Personally, I preferred AZW3 to KFX when I used Kindles. For several reasons:

- KFX has a fixed line-height that's too large for my taste
- KFX didn't work with the FONT_RAMP hack (custom font sizes), which was essential for me
- I hate hyphenation and disable it on all my ereaders, so AZW3 not supporting it was a plus
- I couldn't care less about ligatures and kerning (yes, I do know what they are)

In short, KFX being superior or inferior is pretty subjective and depends on your preferences. For me it was inferior, YMMV.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by jackm8

It's me that wondering if you've ever really compared KFX and AZW3.

Oddly, I have compared mobi to KF8 to KFX on Amazon devices and apps. I have also compared ePub to KF8 to KFX. That the latter comparison shows that many of the "enhanced" features for KFX have been available elsewhere for decades does not make me feel very impressed with KFX. As for KF8? An ePub wannabe.

Originally Posted by jackm8

And why are you even comparing Kobo Touch and Paperwhite? If you're in Kindle ecosystem, you can only compare KFX and AZW3. That's all there is, and the discussion is between these formats. KFX has better typesetting than AZW3, and it has more features than AZW3. It makes sense, as all their support and development stopped on AZW3 when KFX was introduced. AZW3 is a legacy format.

Given that the Kobo Touch is an older device, I felt comparing KFX on a Paperwhite to ePub3 on a Kobo Touch was a fair comparison. Once again, that many of the "features" claimed for Enhanced Typesetting are available on old non-Amazon devices does little to impress me with KFX.

Originally Posted by jackm8

For the use in native amazon reader, I've all my sideloaded books in KFX format and they all work better than if they're in AZW3 format. Drop caps are a niche feature, but hyphens, ligatures and kerning, are absolutely vital, simply because AZW3 doesn't support them at all. Covers work, thumbnails work, text is always the same or better compared to AZW3 on the same files. I really don't see a reason to use AZW3 at all.

And again, we still have the wide margins, the inability to set line heights below 1.2, etc. As for covers and thumbnails? Can you name another ereader brand where covers and thumbnails are a worry?

Sadly, hyphens, ligatures and kerning have been supported by other ebook readers for decades. This makes it hard to take Amazon's Enhanced Typesetting claims very seriously—we are offering features that other ereaders have supported for decades and claiming it as enhanced is more than a trifle risible. Then Amazon claims the ability to start reading before a download is finished is "Enhanced Typesetting".

The issues with hyphenation, non-breaking spaces, etc. are still there. Given the time and effort Amazon is spending on their ever changing DRM, couldn't they have at least one developer attempting to fix the bugs in the KFX renderer?

[Quoth]

KFX for reflowable ebooks is about DRM and partial delivery (only relevant on very slow connections). The content comes mostly from epub, and azw3 is closer to that. There are few worthwhile features and they could have been added to the azw3 renderer. The different Kindle generations / models with AZW3/KF8 don't even render the same anyway.

It's a pointless format.

[jackm8]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Oddly, I have compared mobi to KF8 to KFX on Amazon devices and apps. I have also compared ePub to KF8 to KFX. That the latter comparison shows that many of the "enhanced" features for KFX have been available elsewhere for decades does not make me feel very impressed with KFX. As for KF8? An ePub wannabe.

You're constantly changing the topic. At first you were talking how KFX forces styles on you, now you're defending Kobo comparisons that have nothing to do with the topic discussed.

On Kindle, we've the choice between AZW3 and KFX, and KFX in most cases works the best, even compared to EPUB, if it's running in KoReader. That's a plain fact, as far as I'm concerned. I see nothing that would disprove it. Maybe KFX is worse than other formats on other readers, I'm not judging that. But if you think that it is, I'd really like to see some proofs of that, not just pointless talk.


I think the topic if fit for a separate thread, so I'll start it when I find some time to do it. In the meantime, I've done a few quick comparisons.

All images are 1:1 screenshots from Kindle. Same book, same fonts, same font setting regarding KFX and AZW3. Major differences are in red.

Notes:

Spoiler:

Source book is an early Project Gutenberg ebook, with images of low resolution, and in high JPEG compression.
Koreader displays images at their native size.
Kindles native renderer upscales images automatically for display on pages in both formats.
KFX renderer is far superior when it comes to enlarging images to full page.
KFX Converted in Calibre (as personal document, created approximate page numbers)
AZW Converted in Calibre (disabled 'Compression of the file Contents')
EB Garamond font used in all comparissons.
No cherrypicking regarding samples and settings. Chapter 1 page on AZW3 happened to look like that. And I didn't use font fix that fixes line heights on KFX renderer.
I forgot to turn off indentation on first line in KoReader.

Book: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/308 (epub3)
Cover source: https://archive.org/details/isbn_9798732072860/mode/2up (for personal test)

All books as attachments. KFX is zipped.

[Sirtel]

IMO KFX looks the worst of all three, because line spacing is too large. I definitely prefer AZW3.