Kindle Touch now supports KF8

[pdurrant]

New Kindle Touch update 5.1.0.

This update introduces the promised support for KF8. Hopefully it will soon be followed by the promised update for the Kindle 4. And also an update for the Kindle 3 which may or may not have been promised.

[tubemonkey]

I only read novels and short stories on my Kindle. I don't use dictionaries, don't takes notes, don't highlight, don't underline, don't search, don't save, don't need pics, don't need charts or lists or tables, don't do PDF, don't catalog, etc.

With that in mind, does KF8 offer anything to me?

[frahse]

I would like it for a K3-3G, but reading the "features" I am not sure how it would work.

Maybe this is Amazon's way of getting us to pass our K3s on to our relatives. Not a chance! 3G is too a big plus for me!

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

I only read novels and short stories on my Kindle. I don't use dictionaries, don't takes notes, don't highlight, don't underline, don't search, don't save, don't need pics, don't need charts or lists or tables, don't do PDF, don't catalog, etc.

With that in mind, does KF8 offer anything to me?

Just slightly nicer formatting if the publisher has taken the trouble: chapter headings, drop capitals, smallcaps, properly indented blockquotes, in-line and wrap-around illustrations/figures with captions.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

I only read novels and short stories on my Kindle. I don't use dictionaries, don't takes notes, don't highlight, don't underline, don't search, don't save, don't need pics, don't need charts or lists or tables, don't do PDF, don't catalog, etc.

With that in mind, does KF8 offer anything to me?

Drop caps and bananas... lots and lots of bananas.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

...and bananas... lots and lots of bananas.

Now I'm interested

[JonathanH]

Just updated my KT. Immediate difference is that the home screen has changed:

• Book titles are shown across the entire line (yay!)
• Author name is shown in a smaller font on the next line
• The fonts for the top menu bar have gotten smaller
• Uses a serif font to list book titles, and a non-serif bold font to list collections

Landscape mode is very nice indeed. I convert old books with some serious tables, so this is a much-needed addition for me.

[tomsem]

Note that 'KF8 support' does not extend to fixed-layout content (children's books and comics). We could use some clarification as to whether that's a permanent state of affairs, or whether it will be addressed in a future update.

Granted it will not look very impressive without color, but manga are often B&W and would be just fine, all else being equal.

[LovesMacs]

Hello all, new member here but fairly long time guest reader.

I have found that the Harry Potter books look different with the KT 5.1.0 update.

Prior to the update, the chapter illustrations were left-justified with no drop caps. Post-update, after archiving and redownloading the first book, the chapter illustrations and titles are now center-justified, with drop caps but otherwise the standard Kindle Touch typeface. So the Amazon Harry Potter books must be available in both mobi and KF8 formats, but without embedded fonts.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by LovesMacs

Hello all, new member here but fairly long time guest reader.

I have found that the Harry Potter books look different with the KT 5.1.0 update.

Prior to the update, the chapter illustrations were left-justified with no drop caps. Post-update, after archiving and redownloading the first book, the chapter illustrations and titles are now center-justified, with drop caps but otherwise the standard Kindle Touch typeface. So the Amazon Harry Potter books must be available in both mobi and KF8 formats, but without embedded fonts.

Just curious: which book are you looking at?

I have the first book and the mobi version is a little 'damaged': the images are not supposed to be left-justified, but centered (as they are in later chapters of the same book). The first paragraph style should also be the same as the later chapters, but is not.

In the KF8 version the drop caps are not aligned properly, it drops too far (top of drop cap should align with top of first line of text).

All they are doing is running their ePub file through kindlegen, which produces both Kindle formats. But unfortunately the quality control did not catch the above (easily corrected) problems, and I'm reluctant to purchase any more of the books until I have reason to think they won't have these problems.

I reported the problem to Pottermore, and have had a bit of email exchange with them but no word yet on when I might be able to get a fixed ebook.

[LovesMacs]

Originally Posted by tomsem

Just curious: which book are you looking at?

I have the first book and the mobi version is a little 'damaged': the images are not supposed to be left-justified, but centered (as they are in later chapters of the same book). The first paragraph style should also be the same as the later chapters, but is not.

In the KF8 version the drop caps are not aligned properly, it drops too far (top of drop cap should align with top of first line of text).

I bought all of the novels but the only one I tried to reload in KF8 was the first book. The drop caps as implemented there make it harder to read, in my opinion. I didn't want to reload other books in KF8 and risk the same result.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by LovesMacs

I bought all of the novels but the only one I tried to reload in KF8 was the first book. The drop caps as implemented there make it harder to read, in my opinion. I didn't want to reload other books in KF8 and risk the same result.

Well it is only the first letter of the chapter. As odd as it looks, I'd rather have that then the formatting problems with mobi which IMO are worse. Do the other books have the same problem with chapter start formatting (in mobi format)?

In ePub the drop cap looks fine BTW. For experimental purposes I converted the ePub with kindlegen (after editing the source a bit) and got both mobi and KF8 looking perfect. But the point is, they should have had some quality control. There are just a few of us Kindle users out there. Even if all they did was use Kindle Previewer they would have seen the problems right away.

The real problem in this case is that each book is 'personalized' with your Pottermore account info. So assuming Pottermore fixes the formatting, I don't know how they can push it out to people who have already bought the book and sent it to Amazon.

[LovesMacs]

Originally Posted by tomsem

Well it is only the first letter of the chapter. As odd as it looks, I'd rather have that then the formatting problems with mobi which IMO are worse. Do the other books have the same problem with chapter start formatting (in mobi format)?

The other books in mobi format lack drop caps at the beginning of each chapter, instead having a boldfaced capital letter. The chapter titles and illustrations are center justified.

Originally Posted by tomsem

The real problem in this case is that each book is 'personalized' with your Pottermore account info. So assuming Pottermore fixes the formatting, I don't know how they can push it out to people who have already bought the book and sent it to Amazon.

Hypohetically, even if Pottermore fixed the formatting, they would have to notify everybody who purchased a copy, and maybe the buyers would have to use up one of their limited downloads to receive the new version/forward it to Amazon.

I don't have the knowledge or experience to modify the files myself, nor do I find it worth my time.