SVG images - why?

[odamizu]

Originally Posted by graycyn

... If you use title tags within your SVG, the text within *will* show up on Kindle for iOS.

I know this because I like to do my title page text/images as SVG, but I make a habit of always using title tags to list title and author, as apps that don't support SVG usually will render the text, thus avoiding the blank page look.

Less useful though in instances where you NEED the image content to be seen.

Interesting, and good to know, thanks! Useful for titlepage, but I had a map disappear, which was disappointing

I wonder WHY Kindle for iOS doesn't support SVG though, seems crazy when Kindle for Android has no issues. Does Apple not allow Amazon to support SVG or has Amazon just been lazy with the iOS app?

Good question. Hyphen app will render SVG images in epubs, so it's definitely not an iOS limitation. Why Amazon hasn't added SVG support to its Kindle app is

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by graycyn

I wonder WHY Kindle for iOS doesn't support SVG though, seems crazy when Kindle for Android has no issues. Does Apple not allow Amazon to support SVG or has Amazon just been lazy with the iOS app?

I am going to take a shot in the dark here... Apple forces all the browsers to use their version of Webkit in the backend.

For Kindles, I bet Amazon has their own custom renderer, but the rules Apple set for iOS forces them to use Webkit just like the other browsers (Firefox, etc. etc.). This is probably why Kindle iOS is the bastard step-child.

[fbrzvnrnd]

SVG is really interesting for vector, links and animation too. Every single element in SVG tags can have a link, for example, or animations. BUT not in Kindle. And the animations are handled only by javascript (sigh), so EPUB3.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

For Kindles, I bet Amazon has their own custom renderer, but the rules Apple set for iOS forces them to use Webkit just like the other browsers (Firefox, etc. etc.). This is probably why Kindle iOS is the bastard step-child.

I also believe that this is the most likely reason. The KF8 renderer appears to be a customized version of WebKit. It is likely that Apple would not allow it to be used in the iOS app.

Instead of KF8, Kindle for iOS uses the same content as used by Kindle Cloud Reader, which is Amazon's web app. The K4iOS app includes the KCR JavaScript and it runs that using the iOS native browser engine.

The newer KFX format avoids this issue because it is not based on HTML.

[RbnJrg]

Originally Posted by odamizu

I ran a few quick tests and see, indeed, how images in EPUBs benefit from an SVG wrapper.
...

That's only a part of the story You not only can benefit by SVG wrappers but also by SVG images!! And those svg images you can insert them as any other images. If you are going to include an image as part of the chapter title or as a fleuron, then svg images are practically a must do. And also with svg text you can do a lot of things. For example, watch how it looks in ADE the following picture of your avatar (is not a gif image but a svg one ):



And below you can check the respective .epub. Try to change the font-size and watch how the quality of image and text remain.

Regards
Rubén

[graycyn]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

Do you have any example EPUBs of this?

Yes, but the stuff I'm doing is copyrighted, can't be shared publicly at present.

I can't say that using title tags results in 'pretty' title page text when an app won't support the SVG, but it's a lot better than a totally blank page.

For my purposes, good enough. Working on a mid-1920s to mid-1930s series of books my father had as a child for my family as a surprise. If I'm lucky, perhaps I'll live long enough to see the entire series become public domain.

Doing the text isn't a big deal, but my eyes get tired quickly doing image editing, so that's my main holdup. Cleaning up those old battered dust jackets in Photoshop is a royal pain! Then there's the interior illustrations to do also.... Oh well, step by step and maybe the MR library will benefit in a few years.













Sent from my Pixel C using Tapatalk

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by graycyn

True, but there's a workaround so the page won't be blank. If you use title tags within your SVG, the text within *will* show up on Kindle for iOS.

I know this because I like to do my title page text/images as SVG, but I make a habit of always using title tags to list title and author, as apps that don't support SVG usually will render the text, thus avoiding the blank page look.

Less useful though in instances where you NEED the image content to be seen.

I wonder WHY Kindle for iOS doesn't support SVG though, seems crazy when Kindle for Android has no issues. Does Apple not allow Amazon to support SVG or has Amazon just been lazy with the iOS app?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

The format for iOS was the early experimental KFX format and is not based on ePub formats. Unfortunately they haven't updated it to full KFX yet.

Dale

[graycyn]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

I am going to take a shot in the dark here... Apple forces all the browsers to use their version of Webkit in the backend.

For Kindles, I bet Amazon has their own custom renderer, but the rules Apple set for iOS forces them to use Webkit just like the other browsers (Firefox, etc. etc.). This is probably why Kindle iOS is the bastard step-child.

That makes sense. Makes me glad I am not making ebooks commercially!

Sent from my Pixel C using Tapatalk

[odamizu]

Originally Posted by RbnJrg

That's only a part of the story You not only can benefit by SVG wrappers but also by SVG images!! And those svg images you can insert them as any other images. If you are going to include an image as part of the chapter title or as a fleuron, then svg images are practically a must do. And also with svg text you can do a lot of things. For example, watch how it looks in ADE the following picture of your avatar (is not a gif image but a svg one ):

Attachment 162561

And below you can check the respective .epub. Try to change the font-size and watch how the quality of image and text remain.

Regards
Rubén

Thank you for taking the time to do this!

[RbnJrg]

Originally Posted by odamizu

Thank you for taking the time to do this!

You're welcome but it didn't take much time. Your SVG avatar it took to me about two minutes to trace it with Inkscape (you can convert practically any .png, .gif, .bmp image to svg); the vertical text about another two minutes more (also with Inkscape) and to insert those images in one epub and to style them another five minutes more. You don't need to be an expert with SVG images to work with them If you have any spare time, then try to learn a bit about Inkscape and what you can do with it; you will discover a world of new things to work with epubs.