Calibre and Kindle Format 8

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by ElMiko

When I try to sync an AZW3 to my kindle, I get a message from calibre saying that there aren't any recognized formats for my device and that i should convert the file. I'm getting more and more confused.

Go to Preferences - Plugins - Device interface plugin - appropriate Kindle interface and make sure azw3 is selected as a format.

[ElMiko]

Thanks—again—for the user tip. I knew there had to be something like that, but it never even occurred to me to check the plugins.

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by ElMiko

I just want to be perfectly clear here: Calibre's KF8 conversions aren't functional on e-ink devices, only in the calibre viewer? And conversions that contain both MOBI and KF8 will only render MOBI on those devices? But AZW3 has all the same HTML capabilities as KF8?

Not true... I've just updated my K3. Converted an epub to AZW3 and copied to the K3. Works just fine.

But.. Calibre needs to be configured correctly. There may be an easier way, but how I did it --

Connect K3.
When connected and "Device" icon appears, click on down-arrow.
"Configure this device".
Check azw3.
Restart calibre.

Edit: Thanks dwanthny. Knew there was an easier way

[jolfe]

Last night I updated my K3 to firmware 3.4. Today I configured Calibre as for the instructions in this thread and converted a couple of my books to AZW3. It's all working fine except that the books don't show page numbers any more, only locations. If I use my original mobi's I can see the page numbers again.
Is it just me or is someone else having the same problem?
Thanks in advance.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by jolfe

It's all working fine except that the books don't show page numbers any more, only locations. If I use my original mobi's I can see the page numbers again.
Is it just me or is someone else having the same problem?

It sounds more like a feature than a problem. Are there any azw3 books you can download from Amazon for free to see if you have the same results. What do the folks on the Kindle forum say?

[jolfe]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

It sounds more like a feature than a problem. Are there any azw3 books you can download from Amazon for free to see if you have the same results. What do the folks on the Kindle forum say?

Thanks for your answer. I simply used Calibre to convert a couple of regular DRM free epubs files into AZW3. Now I can see that it's not as simple as I though. I'll get some AZW3 books and see what happens. Again, except for the page numbers, some of the converted books looked a lot better in the reader than they did in mobi format, so I'm gonna keep them like that.

[NiLuJe]

@jolfe: Make sure you have a recent enough Calibre version, it didn't always use to build apnx (page count) files for .azw3 files . [I haven't checked on my K3 yet, but it does work properly on a Touch, FWIW].

[jolfe]

NiLuJe, I'm using the latest Calibre version. Please let us know how it works in your updated K3. I may be doing something wrong. Thanks.

[NiLuJe]

@jolfe: Huh. Yep, the .apnx files are there, but the K3 doesn't give a crap. Works fine with the exact same files on my Touch.

I'll check with KF8 stuff straight from my archive, try to see if I can spot the difference...

EDIT: Header looks a bit different, will tinker a bit with a patch, and report...

[jolfe]

I just downloaded the KF8 sample offered by Amazon here:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1000729511

Loaded it to the K3 with Calibre and it does exactly the same thing: Looks very nice but page numbers are not there any more.

Hmmm!

Just opened a thread in the Kindle subforum to see if others are having the same problem.

[NiLuJe]

Okay, yup, slightly different header expected, and it seems to work.

Dirty patch attached. I have yet to check that I didn't break anything for: Non KF8 files, other devices/FW. So, take with a grain of salt.

Also, in the APNX I checked (from Neil Gaiman's Stories), there was a second pageMap tuple & possibly a second Page List data blob. No idea what it's here for.

EDIT: Well, I even have some files with 3, 4 of 5 tuples. Yaaaay!

Found files with the extended header both on my Touch & K3 @ 3.4, both for KF8 files and mobi6, so, hopefully, the patch doesn't break anything, at least on up to date devices...

EDIT²: Updated the comments in the patch accordingly.

@kovid: I have a small bunch of minor KF8/Amazon related patches (laying around in my Portage overlay), how would you prefer me to submit them: in a thread here in the dev subforum, or over on launchpad?

EDIT^3: Killed deprecated attachments. Fix merged upstream.

[jolfe]

I thank you again, NiLuJe.

Although I have no idea about what to do with your file I'm confident that your solution will make it soon to Calibre and the problem will be solved.

[kovidgoyal]

@niluje: A merge request on launchpad is the best option, however I have no problems with a forum post or bug report that lists the patches along with a couple of lines describing what they're for.

[NiLuJe]

@kovidgoyal: Cool, I'll do that tomorrow (or, err, later today. Ouch. ).

[NiLuJe]

@kovidgoyal: Three merge requests sent . I tried not to mash everything in a single blob, to ease cherry-picking (I'm not familiar with launchpad/bzr, hopefully that's okay?).

It's also heavy on the print debug/comment side, because I basically suck at Python .

Of the patches in my overlay, I left out:

calibre-0.8.46-news-no-inline-toc-on-kindle.patch

It's actually a revert of an oooold commit, because I don't care about K4PC. Not even sure it's really relevant anymore anyway.

calibre-0.8.68-no-autosend-news-to-smartapp-dev.patch

Because it's a hack for my personal setup: I don't want periodicals in my tablet .