capabilities of epub compared to mobi

[hapax legomenon]

I am no fan of the Kindle either. It works fine for all text books, but not for books with any kinds of images.

[rjnagle]

HarryT

1. You agree, don't you, that Kindle can't float images?
2. I found that images blow up unexpectedly, and that extra blank pages are created. What's more, there is no real documentation about when and why it does this. Also, I occasionally find discrepencies between how images are rendered in the Kindle Previewer and the Kindle itself.
3. Have you tried to make images on pages in a way that look suitable on both Kindle for ipad and an actual Kindle?

I can't recall offhand, but I seem to remember that there are problems with wrapping images inside div tags in Kindle. This breaks my workflow, which is Docbook to epub to Kindle (via Kindlegen). I imagine there are fewer problems when you are just starting with HTML.

[charleski]

Originally Posted by comet

Is is possible to do "more" using epub?

Yes, simple as that. The Adobe ePub renderer in my PRS505 is several years old, but can still render in ways that the latest Kindle couldn't even dream of, and we're talking about basic elements such as margin control. This is because Amazon has failed abysmally in their stewardship of the .mobi format - it's still basically the same thing you could get over a decade ago.

Originally Posted by HarryT

there's no specification of "how to write a dictionary" in the ePub standard.

I have to say that, being a fluent native speaker, I don't quite understand this obsession with ebooks and dictionaries. But I'll admit that it's the sort of thing to file under 'this might be a good thing'. There are a lot of things that need to be fixed before worrying about dictionaries though.

Originally Posted by HarryT

The current ePub standard can't replace PDF or Topaz for complex layouts, but the new ePub 3 standard should be able to do so.

ePub 3 is a SCANDAL. They had a chance to address the current failings and point the way forward and they failed completely. Where is the page model? Where is the specification for concurrent text flows? (Try typesetting Embassytown in ePub - there's no option other than to rely on embedded jpegs.) Where is the specification for overlapping windows? You can't do something as basic as vertically center text on a page in the current standard - guess what, you can't do it in ePub 3 either. FAIL. ePub 3 fails to approach the rich standards of print layout in any shape or form.

[virtual_ink]

Originally Posted by Jellby

Possible in ePUB, not in Mobi: Embedded fonts, CSS, right margins, SVG, PNG.

Possible in Mobi, not in ePUB: Dictionaries.

No CSS - argh! Jeepers.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by virtual_ink

No CSS - argh! Jeepers.

There's no CSS within a Mobi file, but Mobi creation tools such as Mobi Creator will convert CSS into the corresponding tag attributes, so it doesn't mean that you can't use CSS in your source files.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

There's no CSS within a Mobi file, but Mobi creation tools such as Mobi Creator will convert CSS into the corresponding tag attributes, so it doesn't mean that you can't use CSS in your source files.

It would be better to say, It converts some CSS to Mobi, since not all CSS is convertible and it some cases the results are not anything like what you want or expect. It depends on the available tags in the Mobi format.

Dale

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

It would be better to say, It converts some CSS to Mobi, since not all CSS is convertible and it some cases the results are not anything like what you want or expect. It depends on the available tags in the Mobi format.

Dale

Yes, that's very true. Thanks for the clarification.