[Old Thread] HTML to MOBI for Kindle

[kovidgoyal]

I've committed the code to add 8K at the end of record0. If you're running calibre from source, you can test it.

[eggheadbooks1]

Having now caught up with the thread, it is my understanding that, while Calibre does a wonderful job of converting HTML to .mobi, retaining the formatting as was my goal, it is not currently suitable for creating mobi files for upload to Kindle due to the lack of header space for Kindle to add its metadata “including a token, asin, guid, kindle drm server, text to speech and etc metadata values” (thank you KevinH). This makes perfect sense to me now that it has been properly explained.

This is unfortunate and I hope, Kovid, that you will consider this for the next version as you mentioned because it would take the use of your software to the next level, IMHO. (And as I recommend to my readers that they donate to programmers who solve their problems, it might even make you some money. And if you do change the program to include this new feature, could you please email me at mad(at)mademers(dot)com with the news as I am writing a manual on self-publishing, using my experience as a case study, and if one could use Calibre to get around this Kindle formatting nightmare that would be brill.)

@Hitch: You wrote that “The entire discussion came about because the OP does not wish to use CSS to eliminate Kindle's default first-line indent on paragraphs, and announced to the KDP that using Calibre ‘fixed’ the issue.” It wasn't quite so simple, as my screen shots here and on the Kindle forum show: it’s more than just first line indenting that Kindle screws up. So if someone wanted to publish something like a legal book that involves multiple levels of indenting, using HTML-to-Kindle or HTML-to-Mobipocket Creator-to-Kindle would produce unsatisfactory results. And Calibre did fix the formatting problems but, as you say, it isn’t suitable because of the header issue.

Unfortunately, your explanation of the header issue was that “Calibre ... lacks the proper amount of spacing in the headers to allow all the ‘Kindle For X’ apps to run (as PC, Mac, and iPad apps all require a 2nd layer of encryption).” But as I noted on the forum, I had a mobi file converted to azw using Kindle's @free.Kindle service and the file worked on all devices. Your information thus appeared incorrect. Had you explained, as KevinH did, that the Calibre mobi lacks room for Kindle’s additional metadata (which is added upon upload to one’s account), that would have been the end of it. But you didn’t. Instead you proceeded to blow your horn about how your CSS House Styles were personally requested by a Kindle Technical Account Manager and worked fine. Great for you; not so great for someone unfamiliar or unwilling to learn code, which is what I’m trying to help others achieve. We are authors, after all, not programmers, and unfortunately we are led by Kindle’s advertising to believe the whole business is sooooo easy when it’s fraught with technical difficulties.

As for your agenda, I believe it not to be about promoting one software over another, but of protecting your own ego and your business formatting books. Your information has proven outdated on other occasions, but instead of saying thank you to those who supplement your knowledge with new info, you get all snarky and then blame it on your work schedule. If you’re so busy that it makes you condescending and mean, then stop wasting time on the forums and get back to work.

M. A. Demers,
[non-forum signature & self-promotion links removed - moderation]

[itimpi]

If the extra header space is all that is required, this is already in the latest Calibre build (0.7.56).

[eggheadbooks1]

Originally Posted by itimpi

If the extra header space is all that is required, this is already in the latest Calibre build (0.7.56).

Brilliant! Thank you to everyone who took the time to address this issue and contribute a solution. I will be posting about the new version and testing it out myself in the next while.

Again, many thanks.

Cheers,
M. A. Demers,
[non-forum signature & self-promotion links removed - moderation]

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by eggheadbooks1

<snip>This is unfortunate and I hope, Kovid, that you will consider this for the next version as you mentioned because it would take the use of your software to the next level, IMHO. (And as I recommend to my readers that they donate to programmers who solve their problems, it might even make you some money. And if you do change the program to include this new feature, could you please email me at mad(at)mademers(dot)com with the news as I am writing a manual on self-publishing, using my experience as a case study, and if one could use Calibre to get around this Kindle formatting nightmare that would be brill.)

@Hitch: You wrote that “The entire discussion came about because the OP does not wish to use CSS to eliminate Kindle's default first-line indent on paragraphs, and announced to the KDP that using Calibre ‘fixed’ the issue.” It wasn't quite so simple, as my screen shots here and on the Kindle forum show: it’s more than just first line indenting that Kindle screws up. So if someone wanted to publish something like a legal book that involves multiple levels of indenting, using HTML-to-Kindle or HTML-to-Mobipocket Creator-to-Kindle would produce unsatisfactory results. And Calibre did fix the formatting problems but, as you say, it isn’t suitable because of the header issue.

Unfortunately, your explanation of the header issue was that “Calibre ... lacks the proper amount of spacing in the headers to allow all the ‘Kindle For X’ apps to run (as PC, Mac, and iPad apps all require a 2nd layer of encryption).” But as I noted on the forum, I had a mobi file converted to azw using Kindle's @free.Kindle service and the file worked on all devices. Your information thus appeared incorrect. Had you explained, as KevinH did, that the Calibre mobi lacks room for Kindle’s additional metadata (which is added upon upload to one’s account), that would have been the end of it. But you didn’t. Instead you proceeded to blow your horn about how your CSS House Styles were personally requested by a Kindle Technical Account Manager and worked fine. Great for you; not so great for someone unfamiliar or unwilling to learn code, which is what I’m trying to help others achieve. We are authors, after all, not programmers, and unfortunately we are led by Kindle’s advertising to believe the whole business is sooooo easy when it’s fraught with technical difficulties.

As for your agenda, I believe it not to be about promoting one software over another, but of protecting your own ego and your business formatting books. Your information has proven outdated on other occasions, but instead of saying thank you to those who supplement your knowledge with new info, you get all snarky and then blame it on your work schedule. If you’re so busy that it makes you condescending and mean, then stop wasting time on the forums and get back to work.

M. A. Demers,
[non-forum signature & self-promotion links removed - moderation]

Well, it's bloody unfortunate that the signal-to-noise ratio that is pandemic at the KDP forums is contagious here.

I don't actively promote (other than a sig block) my business at the KDP forums, and I seriously doubt I've had 5 books from that location in the past 2 years, primarily because it's full of "DIY'ers." Which is why I actually do tell noobs HOW to do x, y or z--and I help a lot of people, at no charge, off-forum, as well, which, if you'd been there more than 5 minutes, you'd know. Most of the idiots over there that DO endlessly harangue newbies to use their paid services are frankly fly-by-nighters and hacks. Nor do I think you can ever find me bloviating about how I wrote some wonderful blog post on self-publishing or how I was writing any book on self-publishing, speaking of self-promotion.

This is the very reason that so many people, like Donna, etc., have just given up on that forum. Every 5 minutes, there's some new "expert" that just has to find somebody to try to lift their leg on. Well, knock yourself out. I'm sure you're the next Josh Tallent.

Done with this discussion, and certainly done with that forum; entirely too many oxygen thieves there.

Hitch

[eggheadbooks1]

Well, it's bloody unfortunate that the signal-to-noise ratio that is pandemic at the KDP forums is contagious here.

I don't actively promote (other than a sig block) my business at the KDP forums,

Really? In most of your posts you mention how busy things are at Booknook, and it just so happens Booknook is on Amazon's list of professional book formatting companies. So you do have an agenda to promote Amazon products such as Mobipocket Creator over rival software such as Calibre. And I've noticed you answering other posts and offering to supply a quote to format, which is not invalid; just why pretend you don't?

No one is dismissing the help you provide, only that you can't seem to do so without denigrating others. Perhaps that's the reason Kovid put your recommendations at the bottom of his to-do list.

Michelle

[Hitch]

Yes, and we're on *other* companies' lists, as well. Not singularly Amazon's. Moreover, I'm not PROMOTING MobiPocketCreator; the fact that you seem to have it envisioned as some type of "Amazon product" competing with Calibre shows just how much you do not understand. It's not "competing;" it hasn't been updated in YEARS, literally (what, 3? 4 years now?)...Amazon isn't updating it. Amazon is not "competing with" Cailbre. I mean, honestly, are you hanging around with dd on that list, to come up with this stuff?

Moreover, I don't consider Calibre to be a MBPCreator competitor, in any sense of the word. They don't do the same things; each does their own thing quite well. Nor did I recommend to Kovid that he "fix" Calibre; I reported the problem to him, which seemed courteous, since when I asked him about it, he was unaware of it. The idea that I'm running around trying to squelch Calibre as some nefarious Amazonian plot is freaking hilarious.

I mean: feed your Holmesian deductive powers a question: since I produce books professionally, as a commercial venture, exactly WHY would I give a rat's ass about WHICH DIY product somebody uses to produce their own ebooks? If my motives were so nefarious, why wouldn't I just sit there and let some poor schmuck produce his book with the then-Calibre, so that when it went wrong, he'd have to come to ME or another professional converter? Why warn him in advance that it wouldn't work properly? Yes, you're right. I'm an evil genius, obviously, telling them to use MBPCreator so it would work out okay.

And do you know WHY I mention that we're busy? Because, ironically, I feel badly when someone posts a question to me and I don't notice it for 4 or 5 days, because I don't check "watch this" or whatever, because we ARE busy. Because there is so much bad advice there. But, take heart--people like YOU have convinced me that answering posts there IS an incredibly crappy, thankless idea, so as I said: knock yourself out. I'm now genuinely sorry I've wasted my time over there at all.


Hitch

[eggheadbooks1]

Yawn.