Contemplating Kindle Paperwhite purchase, and I have a few conversion questions

VirgoGirl · 01-01-2014, 02:19 PM

Hello!!

I'm planning on a Paperwhite, but I'm curious if I can convert my current epubs to AZW3s instead of mobis to put on the Paperwhite - I think I read that they are smaller in filesize than mobis so I can fit more on the reader.

I didn't know if AZW3s can be read on the Kindle if they are not DRM'd AZW3s, I know I'd have to input my Kindle # into one of the Calibre tools for some odd reason (not sure what). My plan is to go Mobi>Epub (do any edits needed>AZW3 onto Kindle.

Any help/advice is greatly appreciated!

BetterRed · 01-01-2014, 04:48 PM

@VirgoGirl - Might be simpler. and maybe better, to go Mobi->AZW3

The new calibre editor can edit AZW3 directly, and other tools like Polish Book and Generate TOC also process AZW3's.

BR

VirgoGirl · 01-01-2014, 05:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BetterRed

@VirgoGirl - Might be simpler. and maybe better, to go Mobi->AZW3

The new calibre editor can edit AZW3 directly, and other tools like Polish Book and Generate TOC also process AZW3's.

BR

The only problem with that is I generally edit my epubs, particularly the ones I buy from Amazon (converted from Mobi), to add things like TOCs and edit formatting.

Thanks for the reply!

Katsunami · 01-01-2014, 07:30 PM

Don't go through Mobi. You'll lose all epub formatting as Mobi can't handle it.

Just edit your epubs as you normally do, and convert directly to AZW3. I do that all the time. Don't forget to configure the Kindle driver to use AZW3 as default.

eschwartz · 01-02-2014, 01:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by VirgoGirl

Hello!!

I'm planning on a Paperwhite, but I'm curious if I can convert my current epubs to AZW3s instead of mobis to put on the Paperwhite - I think I read that they are smaller in filesize than mobis so I can fit more on the reader.

I didn't know if AZW3s can be read on the Kindle if they are not DRM'd AZW3s, I know I'd have to input my Kindle # into one of the Calibre tools for some odd reason (not sure what). My plan is to go Mobi>Epub (do any edits needed>AZW3 onto Kindle.

Any help/advice is greatly appreciated!

<opinionated>The Kindle # is only used by a plugin that repairs your DRM'ed books, turning them into real books.</opinionated>

azw3 can be directly converted, so you might as well convert mobi to azw3 to edit, but if you have books that started with ePub get make sure to edit the ePub directly.

azw3 just supports more formatting, but I have seen azw3 be slightly bigger actually.

cybmole · 01-02-2014, 01:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by VirgoGirl

Hello!!

I think I read that they are smaller in filesize than mobis so I can fit more on the reader.

how many 1000's of books are you wanting to put on. any modern e-reader can hold many more books than you could read in a year !

Notjohn · 01-03-2014, 05:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cybmole

how many 1000's of books are you wanting to put on. any modern e-reader can hold many more books than you could read in a year !

Amen. I am a compulsive reader, but it would take me MANY years to read a thousand books, never mind two thousand which is what Amazon claims for its e-ink readers.

BetterRed · 01-03-2014, 05:35 AM

@cybmole, Notjohn You seem to be assuming that your reading habits are universally applicable.

Not all books are read from cover to cover, eg a dictionary or a Haskell language guide, or a Ducati 750 SuperSport motorcycle maintenance manual.

And not all 'books' are books as such. They can be things like journal articles, academic dissertations, official publications from government agencies and quango's, reports from think-tanks etc. Probably more such things are published in a year than all the fiction published in a decade. And a lot of it is published in the public domain.

I have 30,000 'books' in one of my libraries - less than 100 of which are commercial publications. And I have not read, nor am I ever likely to read all them from cover to cover. But over the passage of time I may well refer to all of them.

BR

AnotherCat · 01-03-2014, 02:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Notjohn

Amen. I am a compulsive reader, but it would take me MANY years to read a thousand books, never mind two thousand which is what Amazon claims for its e-ink readers.

In my case (epubs, because I don't have a Kindle) the 8 largest epubs in my library total over 1.5GB. If they were mobi or azw3 those 8 alone would overflow the user available internal memory of a Kindle Paperwhite, for example. (And the largest pdf is a smidgin under 1GB)

So, believe it or not, while it may not apply to oneself, others may have needs for large libraries of many books and for large amounts of storage. It is dangerous to make assumptions about what others need without actually knowing their particular circumstances.

VirgoGirl · 01-03-2014, 04:11 PM

I shouldn't be here as we are eating internet like candy.

On my Kobo - before it went berserk and needed a reformat - I had 1359 ebooks. I hadn't read all of them, probably wouldn't read all of them, they are only about a 10th of what I have in eformat, but I was rarely with out something to read. Some I would read repeatedly, some I swore I would get to but never did, some I would start and not finish. The wonderful about the theory of using a micro sd card on a reader is the idea of almost limitless space - I say "theory" as after about 1200 ebook it started to have problems coping and it would lag and not respond. The idea went that I could have as many ebooks as the card would hold, so I wouldn't have to delete stuff or constantly be near my computer to add things. A series has 21 books? No problem as I could put all 21 on the card and read them as I wanted to.

*I* have a "hoarder" mentality when it comes to my books. I love the idea of being able to carry around 1350 ebooks wherever I go, always having SOMETHING to read. I like romance novels (I'm a girl, damn it), so I had 600 or so romance novels on the card because I never knew what I wanted to read. Or I'd go from one to the next without stopping.

I have to get out of that habit, but it's hard. That's why the internal stroage is an issue, in fact both my husband and a friend of mine questioned whether or not I could live with it.

Katsunami · 01-03-2014, 04:52 PM

Where do you live?

Some German shops import the Japanese Kindle, which has 4GB. As it's cheaper in Japan than the 2GB Kindle is here, they often sell it for the normal 2GB Kindle price of 129 euro.

cybmole · 01-04-2014, 01:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

In my case (epubs, because I don't have a Kindle) the 8 largest epubs in my library total over 1.5GB.

sorry but I don't believe you. list the titles please.

I have one of the largest epubs ever published -the complete Game of Thrones 5 volume saga, 4700 pages.

Is is ~10mb in epub 12mb in azw3. 8 of those would be 80mb, not 1,500 mb

but if you do have individual epubs sized at 200+Mb, then I wish you luck converting those to kindle format - you will need it! ( and they could only possibly bloat to that size with embedded hi-def colour images, which will be compressed to monochrome on an e-reader anyway)

I trust you are aware that the the available internal RAM on a typical reader is very limited and could only handle a 200MB book if choppped into hundreds of segments. even then, time to open the epub could be ridiculous.

as to the " I own x hundred thousand books and must load them all" brigade , I will say what I always say.
1 that is what PCs & calibre & cloud storage are for.
2. the kindle ill be unusable for about a week while you load them, index them & recharge the abttery several times in order to complete the indexing.
3. this does not apply to OP as she has the books in epub & will be converting. but if you use kindle & buy the books from amazon you can wi-fi them to kindle, delete them, re-wi-fi them as often as you like, amazon servers track bookmarks, notes etc & handle syncing, so there's no need to have all your books on the reader unless you are travelling to some weird location that has battery re-charge points but no wi-fi.

DoctorOhh · 01-04-2014, 01:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cybmole

Quote:

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

In my case (epubs, because I don't have a Kindle) the 8 largest epubs in my library total over 1.5GB.

sorry but I don't believe you. list the titles please.

What's not to believe? The size of a book has nothing to do with the their title or the number of pages. A book such as Gray's Anatomy comprised of mostly detailed images could easily be gigantic. Heck any book comprised of images converted to epub could be gigantic.

cybmole · 01-04-2014, 02:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DoctorOhh

What's not to believe? The size of a book has nothing to do with the their title or the number of pages. A book such as Gray's Anatomy comprised of mostly detailed images could easily be gigantic. Heck any book comprised of images converted to epub could be gigantic.

with hi-def colour images yes, but we are talking about a black & white 6 inch display. If the epub images were optimised for the device there's no way that 8 books would be 1.5GB. For that type of book, a colour tablet or net book would be far better than an e-ink e-reader

I'd still like someone to quote titles & prove me wrong.

Also the kindle PW 2 has only 256 MB of RAM. total.
make the book bigger than that & it will likely choke on it. it could not even index such a book without using a page/swap file mechanism

DoctorOhh · 01-04-2014, 03:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cybmole

with hi-def colour images yes, but we are talking about a black & white 6 inch display. If the epub images were optimised for the device there's no way that 8 books would be 1.5GB. For that type of book, a colour tablet or net book would be far better than an e-ink e-reader

The poster was talking about his or her experience with books in his or her library, not some hypothetically optimized book in grey scale. I agree a color tablet or netbook would be better for viewing books that size.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cybmole

I'd still like someone to quote titles & prove me wrong.

This is a pointless request. Quoting anything only proves that the books exist in the library talked about in the size talked about. It will neither prove you right or wrong.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cybmole

Also the kindle PW 2 has only 256 MB of RAM. total. make the book bigger than that & it will likely choke on it. it could not even index such a book without using a page/swap file mechanism

Good advice.

01-01-2014, 02:19 PM	#1
VirgoGirl "Why is it doing that?" Posts: 322 Karma: 725344 Join Date: Sep 2011 Device: Black Kobo Touch & Glo, responsible for 2 PaperWhites	Contemplating Kindle Paperwhite purchase, and I have a few conversion questions Hello!! I'm planning on a Paperwhite, but I'm curious if I can convert my current epubs to AZW3s instead of mobis to put on the Paperwhite - I think I read that they are smaller in filesize than mobis so I can fit more on the reader. I didn't know if AZW3s can be read on the Kindle if they are not DRM'd AZW3s, I know I'd have to input my Kindle # into one of the Calibre tools for some odd reason (not sure what). My plan is to go Mobi>Epub (do any edits needed>AZW3 onto Kindle. Any help/advice is greatly appreciated!

01-01-2014, 04:48 PM	#2
BetterRed null operator (he/him) Posts: 20,665 Karma: 26966376 Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Sydney Australia Device: none	@VirgoGirl - Might be simpler. and maybe better, to go Mobi->AZW3 The new calibre editor can edit AZW3 directly, and other tools like Polish Book and Generate TOC also process AZW3's. BR Last edited by BetterRed; 01-01-2014 at 05:57 PM.

01-03-2014, 05:35 AM	#8
BetterRed null operator (he/him) Posts: 20,665 Karma: 26966376 Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Sydney Australia Device: none	@cybmole, Notjohn You seem to be assuming that your reading habits are universally applicable. Not all books are read from cover to cover, eg a dictionary or a Haskell language guide, or a Ducati 750 SuperSport motorcycle maintenance manual. And not all 'books' are books as such. They can be things like journal articles, academic dissertations, official publications from government agencies and quango's, reports from think-tanks etc. Probably more such things are published in a year than all the fiction published in a decade. And a lot of it is published in the public domain. I have 30,000 'books' in one of my libraries - less than 100 of which are commercial publications. And I have not read, nor am I ever likely to read all them from cover to cover. But over the passage of time I may well *refer* to all of them. BR Last edited by BetterRed; 01-03-2014 at 05:47 AM. Reason: grammar

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01-01-2014, 07:30 PM	#4
Katsunami Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,111 Karma: 34000001 Join Date: Mar 2008 Device: KPW1, KA1	Don't go through Mobi. You'll lose all epub formatting as Mobi can't handle it. Just edit your epubs as you normally do, and convert directly to AZW3. I do that all the time. Don't forget to configure the Kindle driver to use AZW3 as default.

01-03-2014, 04:11 PM	#10
VirgoGirl "Why is it doing that?" Posts: 322 Karma: 725344 Join Date: Sep 2011 Device: Black Kobo Touch & Glo, responsible for 2 PaperWhites	I shouldn't be here as we are eating internet like candy. On my Kobo - before it went berserk and needed a reformat - I had 1359 ebooks. I hadn't read all of them, probably wouldn't read all of them, they are only about a 10th of what I have in eformat, but I was rarely with out something to read. Some I would read repeatedly, some I swore I would get to but never did, some I would start and not finish. The wonderful about the theory of using a micro sd card on a reader is the idea of almost limitless space - I say "theory" as after about 1200 ebook it started to have problems coping and it would lag and not respond. The idea went that I could have as many ebooks as the card would hold, so I wouldn't have to delete stuff or constantly be near my computer to add things. A series has 21 books? No problem as I could put all 21 on the card and read them as I wanted to. I have a "hoarder" mentality when it comes to my books. I love the idea of being able to carry around 1350 ebooks wherever I go, always having SOMETHING to read. I like romance novels (I'm a girl, damn it), so I had 600 or so romance novels on the card because I never knew what I wanted to read. Or I'd go from one to the next without stopping. I have to get out of that habit, but it's hard. That's why the internal stroage is an issue, in fact both my husband and a friend of mine questioned whether or not I could live with it.

01-03-2014, 04:52 PM	#11
Katsunami Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,111 Karma: 34000001 Join Date: Mar 2008 Device: KPW1, KA1	Where do you live? Some German shops import the Japanese Kindle, which has 4GB. As it's cheaper in Japan than the 2GB Kindle is here, they often sell it for the normal 2GB Kindle price of 129 euro.

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