[Conversion Output] KFX Output

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by Oronare

Anyone else have this problem? Whenever I convert to KFX from any other format (EPUB, AZW3) all of the titles get left aligned.

I assume you are referring to chapter headings. I have not noticed anything like that.

The Frankenstein book that a recommend for testing has centered headings and they remain centered after KFX conversion for me. I suggest you try converting that book and see how the headings come out for you.

If you have a specific book that demonstrates the issue you can post it here as long as it is not under copyright. (Books under copyright can be scrambled using the ScrambleEbook plugin for posting.)

[Oronare]

Originally Posted by jhowell

I assume you are referring to chapter headings. I have not noticed anything like that.

The Frankenstein book that a recommend for testing has centered headings and they remain centered after KFX conversion for me. I suggest you try converting that book and see how the headings come out for you.

If you have a specific book that demonstrates the issue you can post it here as long as it is not under copyright. (Books under copyright can be scrambled using the ScrambleEbook plugin for posting.)

Well that seemed to work fine. The odd thing is this happened with every single book I tried (4 so far) except that one you posted.

I think I'll just stick to AZW3, KFX doesn't seem to be worth the hassle just for kerning.

[Ruskie_it]

Originally Posted by Oronare

Well that seemed to work fine. The odd thing is this happened with every single book I tried (4 so far) except that one you posted.

I think I'll just stick to AZW3, KFX doesn't seem to be worth the hassle just for kerning.

Your call. In my opinion, much more important in KFX is the automatic hypenation and the much much more nice, comfortable, easy for the eye left and right text justification that results from that.

Expecially because the hassle is really non-existant. Install the Kindle previewer, install the KFX output plugin and you're good to go.
I don't know what the root cause in your books might be, but in general it is no hassle to use the plugin. Maybe you have an error somewhere, but once you figure it out you should be set "forever", so...

[Ico]

Originally Posted by Ruskie_it

Your call. In my opinion, much more important in KFX is the automatic hypenation and the much much more nice, comfortable, easy for the eye left and right text justification that results from that.

Expecially because the hassle is really non-existant. Install the Kindle previewer, install the KFX output plugin and you're good to go.
I don't know what the root cause in your books might be, but in general it is no hassle to use the plugin. Maybe you have an error somewhere, but once you figure it out you should be set "forever", so...

If anyone is is able to install Koreader on their device I whole heartedly recommend the program. I wasn't really satisfied with any hyphenation of any software I encountered, and believe me i tried. I went through github, various webguides, apps, settings in calibre until i tried that. Thing is i like to tinker, when You get the book it is as is, so You kind of have to make peace with it, but when You get an ereader, a whole breadth of possibilities opens.

I wasn't satisfied with Koreader at first, big surprise there, until i stumbled onto algorithmic hyphenation coupled with kerning set to best or good, word expansion to medium and Fiction book layout. Now even I have trouble finding irregularities and wasted space and the feeling that the letter does not fit right. If You have the chance, please try it out, there are a lot of supported devices, including android, and if You like it like I do, you may plan a new purchase whether it is Koreader compatible.
Kindle people are kind of cut short since it is difficult to install it past 5.12. firmware, but the guys are always hard at work, and there is the possibility of that happening as well. I hope this helps some OCD readers out there, although from my experience of past two years the problem is never solved, and most likely never will be, we have to make peace with 'I guess it's okay'.
No plug here, just the recommendation of the only thing that helped me in that aspect.

[Oronare]

Originally Posted by Ruskie_it

Your call. In my opinion, much more important in KFX is the automatic hypenation and the much much more nice, comfortable, easy for the eye left and right text justification that results from that.

Expecially because the hassle is really non-existant. Install the Kindle previewer, install the KFX output plugin and you're good to go.
I don't know what the root cause in your books might be, but in general it is no hassle to use the plugin. Maybe you have an error somewhere, but once you figure it out you should be set "forever", so...

It just seems to destroy the formatting on the epubs I have, no clue why as they're just regular epubs from google play books.

As for the benefits of KFX, I installed the hyphenate-this plugin and it seems to do a good job on the books I've tried thus far, and looking at screenshots side by side of a KFX page and an AZW3 page with hyphenate-this used looks almost exactly the same so I just don't think it is worth the hassle for me. Especially as you cannot even open the KFX file inside Calibre and need to mess around with it further to get it to open in Kindle Previewer.

I read mostly history books, so I like to be able to open them as a reference on the PC, so keeping any file which cannot even be opened inside Calibre is sort of pointless.

[Oronare]

Well I worked out what was causing the left alignment problem. Negative margins!

When I converted to a fresh EPUB and ticked the 'remove margin CSS' (my -30 left/right margins to makr it take up more of the kindle screen) it keeps the headings centred.

Now I just have to see if there is a way to have both KFX format *and* negative margins I suppose?

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by Oronare

Well I worked out what was causing the left alignment problem. Negative margins!

It appears that setting a negative left margin causes the KFX renderer to ignore text-align:center. I don't see any work around for that.

Originally Posted by Oronare

Now I just have to see if there is a way to have both KFX format *and* negative margins I suppose?

You could be selective in your use of negative margins so that they are not applied to headings.

[Oronare]

Originally Posted by jhowell

It appears that setting a negative left margin causes the KFX renderer to ignore text-align:center. I don't see any work around for that.



You could be selective in your use of negative margins so that they are not applied to headings.

Seems odd and kind of insane that I'm the first person to ever run into this issue, what with a lot of people utilising negative margins. Surely people noticed everything which was meant to be centred was now being left aligned?

I think if I have to choose I'll just stick with azw3 and my wider margins, kerning just isn't worth it if I have to add in html to every single book, especially since most have multiple CSS associated with paragraph styles and I'd have to end up putting custom margin code into like 20 places on each book.

[Jack426]

Here's a fix that should work when converting to KFX with negative margins causes some center-aligned text/images to left-align instead. Use the CSS below, preferably added directly to the top of the main stylesheet in the "Edit Book" interface.

html{
margin-left: -30px;
margin-right: -30px;
break-inside: avoid !important;
}

I've only tested this with a couple of books, but the CSS above fixed the issue in each one. Adjust the margin values to your preference.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Jack426

Here's a fix that should work when converting to KFX with negative margins causes some center-aligned text/images to left-align instead. Use the CSS below, preferably added directly to the top of the main stylesheet in the "Edit Book" interface.

html{
margin-left: -30px;
margin-right: -30px;
break-inside: avoid !important;
}

I've only tested this with a couple of books, but the CSS above fixed the issue in each one. Adjust the margin values to your preference.

I agree that adding the break-inside works for fix the centering.

[Jack426]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What is it that the page break does to fix centering?

Honestly? I have no idea.

I was contacted by Oronare on reddit after they saw a previous comment where I was helping another user with CSS issues. Unlike the other issue though, I was struggling to figure out what was going on here. I noticed that some content was staying centered and each of those elements had the "break-inside: avoid" property applied. I was like, "what the heck let's apply this to all elements", and it seemed to work.

I'm still not sure how it affects the centering of objects though. I feel like I'm in one of those CSS memes where they change a value by 1px and the world explodes.

[phossler]

I have a calibredb VBS script to copy my database epubs to a single folder in KFX format. Everything works fine unless there's a series. Then there's an extra space that comes from somewhere and messes up the titles in the Kindle index/home page.

A 'normal' conversion done within the GUI works fine, but the series and the series index aren't part of the file name. I did a conversion debug folder and everything was as expected.

The file name is OK:

Adam Hall-Quiller[01]-Quiller Memorandum, The.kfx

but the title (which is apparently what the Kindle uses to display is

Quiller[01 ]Quiller Memorandum, The.kfx

space before the series ] and no hyphen

I really just need (want) the Kindle title to be like the filename; makes it easier to sort and find things

My script template:

sCommandLine = "export --progress --all --dont-save-cover --dont-write-opf --format kfx"
sCommandLine = sCommandLine & " --single-dir --template ""{authors}-{series}{series_index:0>2s|[|]-}{title}"" --to-dir "
sCommandLine = sCommandLine & """" & sDestination & """"

Call RunProgram ("calibredb", sCommandLine, 1)

Double quotes required to get a single quote, and the Destination folder might have spaces in it so it is bracketed by quotes also

There's no spaces that I can see in the epub data, and since the template is making the file name correctly, I'm thinking that it's the PI that is inserting the space

I didn't know any way to view KFX metadata, so this was the best I could do

Maybe my template is wrong, or I'm misunderstanding how the PI is supposed to generate a title

[carlone2]

Hello,
is it safe to install the latest version of Kindle Previewer 3.46 on a new pc?
Will KFX Output plugin continue to work?

[phossler]

I've got 3.45 on my PC and haven't had any issues with it or the PI

I don't think 3.46 is out yet; at least I haven't gotten a 'New Release Is Available" popup

[JSWolf]

If I use Kindle Previewer to preview ePub or KF8 and they are converted to KFX, where is the KFX stored?