What determines if a book sent to amazon via email will be AZW3?

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by shalym

[...] The only format that was able to highlight only one of the words was the new kfx format.

... although it is interesting that KFX cannot highlight them both if it was an actual compound-word hyphen, as it is entirely proper to highlight both in that case.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Bit late, HarryT.

No, your follow-up post is what prompted the question. First you talked about hyphens, and then dashes, and I don't know which one you're actually referring to.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, your follow-up post is what prompted the question. First you talked about hyphens, and then dashes, and I don't know which one you're actually referring to.

I thought it was brutally obvious that my follow-up post was specifically pointing out that I had originally said "hyphens" when I should have said "dashes".

[HarryT]

It was unclear to me, hence my question, but thanks for clarifying it.

[odamizu]

Originally Posted by Zeebra

I'm just trying to educate myself here. When you open a book on your kindle, how can you tell if it's opened as AZW3 or it's opened as MOBI?

The formatting renders differently when it's MOBI vs AZW3 (at least it does on my Kindle, not sure why no one else notices this, maybe it's just me?)

1. With MOBI, the line-height adjustments are tiny: minuscule, tiny, small. With AZW3, it's more like: small, medium large. The difference is very noticeable to me and immediately tells me if I have MOBI or AZW3.

2. MOBI doesn't work with the font_ramp hack, so if the font sizes aren't what I expect, I know it's MOBI.

3. I set my paragraph indents at 1em, which MOBI ignores, so if I get big paragraph indents, I know it's MOBI.

4. When I use Send-to-Kindle or some other non-Calibre method of loading books, I know it's MOBI when I get a real cover. AZW3 will have a generic cover.

(If anyone can tell me how to get my MOBIs to render exactly like AZW3 in terms of line-height, font-sizing, and paragraph indents, I'd appreciate it. I'd much rather go with MOBI-old and get covers than have to deal with dual-MOBIs.)

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by odamizu

The formatting renders differently when it's MOBI vs AZW3 (at least it does on my Kindle, not sure why no one else notices this, maybe it's just me?)

1. With MOBI, the line-height adjustments are tiny: minuscule, tiny, small. With AZW3, it's more like: small, medium large. The difference is very noticeable to me and immediately tells me if I have MOBI or AZW3.

2. MOBI doesn't work with the font_ramp hack, so if the font sizes aren't what I expect, I know it's MOBI.

Excellent point... although not on my (old) Kindle, and not on any new Kindle either unless someone explicitly uses it.

3. I set my paragraph indents at 1em, which MOBI ignores, so if I get big paragraph indents, I know it's MOBI.

4. When I use Send-to-Kindle or some other non-Calibre method of loading books, I know it's MOBI when I get a real cover. AZW3 will have a generic cover.

Irrelevant in this case, which was specifically about sideloading. And a sideloaded book, whether MOBI or AZW3, will have a generic cover unless a cover is sideloaded, a forged ASIN is used, or the book is a PDOC.

(If anyone can tell me how to get my MOBIs to render exactly like AZW3 in terms of line-height, font-sizing, and paragraph indents, I'd appreciate it. I'd much rather go with MOBI-old and get covers than have to deal with dual-MOBIs.)

As for indenting and line-height, I don't think about that very much they seem fine to me and that's all I notice.

[odamizu]

Zeebra asked "how can you tell if it's opened as AZW3 or it's opened as MOBI?"

I was just explaining how I can tell immediately whether it's MOBI or AZW3 without all the little tricks you guys were suggesting.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It was unclear to me, hence my question, but thanks for clarifying it.

Thanks Harry. It was unclear to me as well. The words I was talking about used hyphens. In the three books I just checked, the only one I found that used an em-dash was in .kfx format, and it did allow me to select only one of the words.

As to eschwartz's other question about kfx and hyphenated words, even though I *could* select only one of the words and get a definition, if I selected both, I got the definition for the full hyphenated word. (In other words, for "single-system" I could select either "single" or "system" and get the definition for either of those words, or I could select "single-system" and the definition for that.)

Shari

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by shalym

As to eschwartz's other question about kfx and hyphenated words, even though I *could* select only one of the words and get a definition, if I selected both, I got the definition for the full hyphenated word. (In other words, for "single-system" I could select either "single" or "system" and get the definition for either of those words, or I could select "single-system" and the definition for that.)

Shari

Thanks, Shari. That's the same behaviour as for the older formats. The Kindle's dictionaries have always supported lookup of hyphenated words and, for that matter, entire phrases with words separated by spaces. The British English dictionary, at least, contains a lot of French phrases, which is useful if, like me, one's French is not great.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Thanks, Shari. That's the same behaviour as for the older formats. The Kindle's dictionaries have always supported lookup of hyphenated words and, for that matter, entire phrases with words separated by spaces. The British English dictionary, at least, contains a lot of French phrases, which is useful if, like me, one's French is not great.

I've never been able to look up a phrase in the dictionary, but perhaps that is because I only use The New Oxford American Dictionary. Maybe it doesn't have long phrases?
OTOH, hyphenated compound words have always been treated as one word, whether you want it to or not.


Of course, all I can speak for are the Kindle Touch firmwares.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

I've never been able to look up a phrase in the dictionary, but perhaps that is because I only use The New Oxford American Dictionary. Maybe it doesn't have long phrases?

Try searching for "flash memory". That's one random example that works in the UK dictionary.

[eschwartz]

Sorry, yes of course that works. I thought for some reason you were referring to longer phrases.

Of course, if it cannot find the phrase in the dictionary, it won't offer you the option More ==> Dictionary...

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Sorry, yes of course that works. I thought for some reason you were referring to longer phrases.

I was. The dictionary seems pretty good when it comes to French phrases. I was recently reading a book whose author was inordinately fond of throwing in French expressions for things like items of clothing, and the dictionary found most of them. I was quite impressed about that, because I wasn't expecting it to do so!

[oblox]

For those who have trouble converting to mobi and getting it to amazon as AZW3 id highly recommend Amazons own Kindlegen app for PC. Has so far converted all my erroneous books perfectly and saved as AZW3 on send to kindle.

[odamizu]

Thanks oblox! That's good to know!