MobileRead Forums
Register Guidelines E-Books Today's Posts Search

Go Back   MobileRead Forums > E-Book Readers > Amazon Kindle
Reload this Page Amazon to allow downloads of DRM free books

Notices

Reply
Page 12 of 15 « First 891011 12 131415
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Old 01-22-2026, 01:14 PM   #166
j.p.s
Grand Sorcerer
j.p.s ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.j.p.s ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.j.p.s ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.j.p.s ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.j.p.s ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.j.p.s ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.j.p.s ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.j.p.s ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.j.p.s ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.j.p.s ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.j.p.s ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 5,911
Karma: 106187745
Join Date: Apr 2011
Device: pb360
Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf View Post
Does anyone know if the eBook has graphics in witht he main text and are hi-res, does the ePub keep the graphics at the correct resolution and in color if the graphics are originally in color?
When this thread started, my biggest hope was that it would be a way to get the same quality images in books bought from amazon as in epubs bought elsewhere. Based on recent reports that hope has been dashed, as is the hope that the rest of the epub being the same or mostly preserved.

Does anyone know whether any page number info in the book as supplied by the publisher is preserved in or stripped from these amazon corrupted epubs?

(Also, does anyeon have an opinion whether the metadata fiasco is due to haste, laziness, incompetence, or spite?)
j.p.s is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-22-2026, 01:45 PM   #167
el_vandragon
Member
el_vandragon began at the beginning.
 
Posts: 18
Karma: 10
Join Date: Mar 2024
Location: United States
Device: Kindle PW3, PW5 SE
The images are in color, I have no way of knowing if they are full quality or not, so far the only images I have seen are book covers, and then at the end of the book where they mention something like "Also check out these books" and have more color covers.
Last edited by el_vandragon; 01-22-2026 at 02:29 PM.
el_vandragon is offline   Reply With Quote
Advert
Old 01-22-2026, 02:51 PM   #168
jhowell
Grand Sorcerer
jhowell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.jhowell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.jhowell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.jhowell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.jhowell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.jhowell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.jhowell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.jhowell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.jhowell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.jhowell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.jhowell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
jhowell's Avatar
 
Posts: 7,233
Karma: 95000001
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Charlottesville, VA
Device: Kindles
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sirtel View Post
Anybody noticed any embedded fonts in those downloaded epubs? I suspect they get deleted, but I have too few downloadable ebooks at the moment to be certain.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf View Post
Does anyone know if the eBook has graphics in witht he main text and are hi-res, does the ePub keep the graphics at the correct resolution and in color if the graphics are originally in color?
Quote:
Originally Posted by j.p.s View Post
Does anyone know whether any page number info in the book as supplied by the publisher is preserved in or stripped from these amazon corrupted epubs?
To gather some more information I took a look at one of my previously purchased books, Some of the Best from Tor.com: 2020 Edition. That book contains page numbers, fonts, and high quality images.

The book contains several large images. The first in the DRM-free EPUB is 1626x2442 pixels and 2.9 MB in size. I looked at the same image as delivered to Kindle apps in KFX and AZW3/AZW6 formats and none were as good. The closest was AZW6 which was 1626x2442 pixels and 2.0 MB. Next was KFX delivered to an app at 1278x1920 pixels and 1.7 MB. Worst was plain AZW3 at 917x1377 pixels and 120 KB. I suspect that the EPUB contains the original image as provided by the publisher.

The KFX version of the book contains two fonts, Charis SIL and Charis SIL Bold. Neither of those files appear in the DRM-free EPUB or in the AZW3 file. (The AZW3 does have @font-face CSS entries for those fonts pointing to a non-existent filename of XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.) So it does appear that fonts are left out in the generation of EPUBs by Amazon.

Both the KFX and AZW3 versions of the book contain page numbers. The EPUB does not.
Last edited by jhowell; 01-22-2026 at 03:02 PM.
jhowell is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-22-2026, 04:03 PM   #169
JSWolf
Resident Curmudgeon
JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
JSWolf's Avatar
 
Posts: 81,793
Karma: 150265991
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts
Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3
Quote:
Originally Posted by jhowell View Post
To gather some more information I took a look at one of my previously purchased books, Some of the Best from Tor.com: 2020 Edition. That book contains page numbers, fonts, and high quality images.

The book contains several large images. The first in the DRM-free EPUB is 1626x2442 pixels and 2.9 MB in size. I looked at the same image as delivered to Kindle apps in KFX and AZW3/AZW6 formats and none were as good. The closest was AZW6 which was 1626x2442 pixels and 2.0 MB. Next was KFX delivered to an app at 1278x1920 pixels and 1.7 MB. Worst was plain AZW3 at 917x1377 pixels and 120 KB. I suspect that the EPUB contains the original image as provided by the publisher.

The KFX version of the book contains two fonts, Charis SIL and Charis SIL Bold. Neither of those files appear in the DRM-free EPUB or in the AZW3 file. (The AZW3 does have @font-face CSS entries for those fonts pointing to a non-existent filename of XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.) So it does appear that fonts are left out in the generation of EPUBs by Amazon.

Both the KFX and AZW3 versions of the book contain page numbers. The EPUB does not.
Thank you. So it does seem that the graphics are not messed up.
JSWolf is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-22-2026, 05:05 PM   #170
graycyn
Wizard
graycyn ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.graycyn ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.graycyn ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.graycyn ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.graycyn ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.graycyn ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.graycyn ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.graycyn ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.graycyn ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.graycyn ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.graycyn ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 1,638
Karma: 11728332
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: NE Oregon
Device: Kobo Sage, Pocketbook Era, Kindle Oasis 2, Nook Glowlight 4+
Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf View Post
Does anyone know if the eBook has graphics in witht he main text and are hi-res, does the ePub keep the graphics at the correct resolution and in color if the graphics are originally in color?
As it happens, I can answer one part, as the epub I downloaded happened to have a little color graphic as a chapter ornament.

It's in color, as is the cover. So, this is a way to retrieve color content if one is normally accessing books from a BW older Kindle.

As for whether the graphics are the same resolution, I don't know. EDIT: Oops, didn't read far enough. Sounds like the graphics are the originals, which is good.

But fonts left out and page-maps, not so good. And I certainly hope that no one who needs a screen-reader buys an Amazon DRM-free book hoping the epub is accessible...
Last edited by graycyn; 01-22-2026 at 05:09 PM. Reason: Added an "oops"
graycyn is offline   Reply With Quote
Advert
Old 01-22-2026, 05:11 PM   #171
JSWolf
Resident Curmudgeon
JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
JSWolf's Avatar
 
Posts: 81,793
Karma: 150265991
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts
Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3
Quote:
Originally Posted by graycyn View Post
As it happens, I can answer one part, as the epub I downloaded happened to have a little color graphic as a chapter ornament.

It's in color, as is the cover. So, this is a way to retrieve color content if one is normally accessing books from a BW older Kindle.

As for whether the graphics are the same resolution, I don't know.
The cover's I have in the two books I downloaded are both hi-res where I know one of them was not hi-res when I was downloaded as KF8.
JSWolf is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-22-2026, 06:36 PM   #172
graycyn
Wizard
graycyn ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.graycyn ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.graycyn ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.graycyn ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.graycyn ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.graycyn ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.graycyn ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.graycyn ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.graycyn ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.graycyn ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.graycyn ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 1,638
Karma: 11728332
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: NE Oregon
Device: Kobo Sage, Pocketbook Era, Kindle Oasis 2, Nook Glowlight 4+
Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf View Post
The cover's I have in the two books I downloaded are both hi-res where I know one of them was not hi-res when I was downloaded as KF8.
Sounds like the new downloadable Amazon epubs are a case of Amazon giveth (full resolution, color images) and Amazon taketh away (fonts, HTML5 accessible code, page-maps, author metadata).

My buying will, undoubtedly, mostly stay outside of Amazon, though I may make occasional exception.
graycyn is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-22-2026, 07:09 PM   #173
j.p.s
Grand Sorcerer
j.p.s ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.j.p.s ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.j.p.s ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.j.p.s ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.j.p.s ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.j.p.s ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.j.p.s ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.j.p.s ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.j.p.s ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.j.p.s ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.j.p.s ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 5,911
Karma: 106187745
Join Date: Apr 2011
Device: pb360
Quote:
Originally Posted by graycyn View Post
But fonts left out and page-maps, not so good.
For jhowell's (free) example, page information is in ncx.ncx as navPoints and opf.opf as item href and itemref idref. I don't know whether that is on amazon or on Tor. (Or is that an official EPUB3 to do pages?)
j.p.s is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-22-2026, 07:34 PM   #174
j.p.s
Grand Sorcerer
j.p.s ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.j.p.s ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.j.p.s ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.j.p.s ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.j.p.s ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.j.p.s ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.j.p.s ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.j.p.s ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.j.p.s ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.j.p.s ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.j.p.s ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 5,911
Karma: 106187745
Join Date: Apr 2011
Device: pb360
Quote:
Originally Posted by jhowell View Post
To gather some more information I took a look at one of my previously purchased books, Some of the Best from Tor.com: 2020 Edition. That book contains page numbers, fonts, and high quality images.

The book contains several large images. The first in the DRM-free EPUB is 1626x2442 pixels and 2.9 MB in size. I looked at the same image as delivered to Kindle apps in KFX and AZW3/AZW6 formats and none were as good. The closest was AZW6 which was 1626x2442 pixels and 2.0 MB. Next was KFX delivered to an app at 1278x1920 pixels and 1.7 MB. Worst was plain AZW3 at 917x1377 pixels and 120 KB. I suspect that the EPUB contains the original image as provided by the publisher.

Both the KFX and AZW3 versions of the book contain page numbers. The EPUB does not.
Thank you for your extensive and detailed investigation into this.

That epub has page number information in some non-standard format.

An azw3/azw6 fetched by a pw3 running early firmware also pulled apnx and XRAY. I suspect tha kindleunpack would build an EPUB with a page map or list, but I have no idea wheter that could be usefully folded into the amazon zupplied EPUB.

See below regarding images.

Quote:
Originally Posted by graycyn View Post
Sounds like the new downloadable Amazon epubs are a case of Amazon giveth (full resolution, color images) and Amazon taketh away (fonts, HTML5 accessible code, page-maps, author metadata).
I think the jury is still out on images. The example book from jhowell is a bunch of short stories each (most?) of which has a (large) color cover, (large enough) title page (image with sparse text on a white background ), small color author photo, and glyph like scene separators. No actual illustrations at all.

This is the only ebook I've received from amazon with a size larger that the filesize listed by amazon (99 MB vs I think 93 MB). The cover style were such that the jpgs are are actually susceptable to some significant lossless zip compression. The images alone in the unzipped epub take up 140 MB.

I'll leave it to someone else to let us know how large various forms of the book are with the images stripped.
j.p.s is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-23-2026, 08:09 AM   #175
lkmiller
Laura
lkmiller ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.lkmiller ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.lkmiller ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.lkmiller ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.lkmiller ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.lkmiller ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.lkmiller ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.lkmiller ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.lkmiller ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.lkmiller ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.lkmiller ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
lkmiller's Avatar
 
Posts: 1,601
Karma: 23597272
Join Date: Nov 2009
Device: Kobo Sage, Kobo Elipsa, Nook Glowlight 4 Plus, Kindle Oasis 2
Just curious: For books that have a pdf instead of epub download, are those a mess?
lkmiller is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-23-2026, 08:32 AM   #176
rantanplan
Weirdo
rantanplan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.rantanplan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.rantanplan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.rantanplan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.rantanplan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.rantanplan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.rantanplan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.rantanplan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.rantanplan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.rantanplan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.rantanplan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 1,020
Karma: 12502580
Join Date: Nov 2019
Location: Wuppertal, Germany
Device: Kobo Sage, Kobo Libra 2, reMarkable PaperPro
Quote:
Originally Posted by lkmiller View Post
Just curious: For books that have a pdf instead of epub download, are those a mess?
Ken Liu's Passing of the Dragon downloads as a PDF. And it just looks like a book would look like. Not sure though, why they chose to provide a fixed layout format for download, since I was able to simply extract an epub from the azw file just fine.
rantanplan is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-23-2026, 09:05 AM   #177
jhowell
Grand Sorcerer
jhowell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.jhowell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.jhowell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.jhowell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.jhowell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.jhowell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.jhowell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.jhowell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.jhowell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.jhowell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.jhowell ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
jhowell's Avatar
 
Posts: 7,233
Karma: 95000001
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Charlottesville, VA
Device: Kindles
Quote:
Originally Posted by lkmiller View Post
Just curious: For books that have a pdf instead of epub download, are those a mess?
As far as I can tell a PDF is generated from a reflowable book in cases where Amazon's export to EPUB fails for some reason. I have not yet seen any PDFs produced from fixed-layout books, such as comics.

The content is generated from the Kindle edition, not a scan of a paper edition. Text can be searched and highlighted. Images are high resolution. External links work, however internal ones appear to be broken.

The PDF is sized like a typical hard cover book using 5.5x8.5 inch pages. For me it would be difficult to read on a typical e-reader screen. (See attached.)
Attached Thumbnails
Click image for larger version Name: ebook-content.KID_0006013347330_cea65632_CR!A137NH3DSN7TFAAWWXBP1EWCRZ05_Page_018.jpg Views: 24 Size: 357.7 KB ID: 220461  
jhowell is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-23-2026, 09:13 AM   #178
rashkae
Wizard
rashkae ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.rashkae ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.rashkae ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.rashkae ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.rashkae ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.rashkae ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.rashkae ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.rashkae ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.rashkae ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.rashkae ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.rashkae ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
rashkae's Avatar
 
Posts: 1,285
Karma: 5935030
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: Ontario, Canada
Device: Kobo Aura HD
One of my previously purchased books just became available to dowload today. It was published in January of 2024. The quality of the images was *extremely* high and a massive upgrade to any of my previous downloads. (up to 3000px wide. no visible jpg artifacts.)

The Book Css internals looked just fine after going through calibre conversion. The only odd thing was downloading with the .zip extension instead of a .epub.

I still haven't been able to find any indication on the books detail page that it would be downloadable.

The previous books in the same series by the same author are not made available. I wonder if Amazon is walking backwards to convert backlist titles, (or if, for some on reasn, the Author only enabled this one book.)
rashkae is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-23-2026, 09:22 AM   #179
JSWolf
Resident Curmudgeon
JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
JSWolf's Avatar
 
Posts: 81,793
Karma: 150265991
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts
Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3
Quote:
Originally Posted by rashkae View Post
One of my previously purchased books just became available to dowload today. It was published in January of 2024. The quality of the images was *extremely* high and a massive upgrade to any of my previous downloads. (up to 3000px wide. no visible jpg artifacts.)

The Book Css internals looked just fine after going through calibre conversion. The only odd thing was downloading with the .zip extension instead of a .epub.

I still haven't been able to find any indication on the books detail page that it would be downloadable.

The previous books in the same series by the same author are not made available. I wonder if Amazon is walking backwards to convert backlist titles, (or if, for some on reasn, the Author only enabled this one book.)
Are you using a Mac? If so, that's why it's a zip extension instead of an epub extension.
JSWolf is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-23-2026, 09:28 AM   #180
Sirtel
Grand Sorcerer
Sirtel ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Sirtel ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Sirtel ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Sirtel ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Sirtel ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Sirtel ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Sirtel ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Sirtel ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Sirtel ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Sirtel ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Sirtel ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Sirtel's Avatar
 
Posts: 14,522
Karma: 245020905
Join Date: Jan 2014
Location: Estonia
Device: Kobo Sage & Libra 2
Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf View Post
Are you using a Mac? If so, that's why it's a zip extension instead of an epub extension.
Chromium-based browsers on Windows also give a zip file.
Sirtel is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply
Page 12 of 15 « First 891011 12 131415

« Previous Thread | Next Thread »

Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
No more DRM-free downloads as Amazon's ComiXology app set to disappear inside Kindle Paperbackstash News 23 03-01-2022 09:51 AM
Google Books Offers ePub Downloads Of Free Books AprilHare News 19 05-17-2011 11:02 PM
Amazon to provide DRM free books formats mmiesi Amazon Kindle 14 04-17-2011 12:43 AM
DRM-Free PDF Downloads davidbrucehughes Deals and Resources (No Self-Promotion or Affiliate Links) 6 12-09-2009 09:03 AM
Amazon DRM limits downloads Angst News 1 06-24-2009 12:17 PM


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 01:45 AM.

Contact Us - FAQ - Guidelines - Privacy - Top

MobileRead.com is a privately owned, operated and funded community.