Kindle Newbie needs "template" HTML & CSS

[Rich_H]

Hi folks,

I'm an old multimedia programmer who is crashing into digital printing and ePUB. Can anyone point me at a simple template of a valid Kindle file in HTML & CSS? (I.e., before it gets rolled into MOBI format.) Whenever I work in a new area, I find having a sample of related code to be a huge help. HTML and CSS aren't exactly new to me, but their application to Kindle is.

I have Kindle's HTML Formatting Guidelines and Custom HTML Tags documents at hand, but they leave a lot to the the imagination. For instance, Guidelines says "normal" text must use the default font family, but it does not say what that font family is. Or even if it needs to be defined. With a valid HTML- and CSS-for-Kindle file around, I could just glance at the code and say "Aha! That's what they mean," instead of thrashing around.

Don't need anything esoteric. I'm just trying to get an historical fiction into Kindle from InDesign CS5. There are a couple of illustrations in the front of the book. I'm doing the Sigil tutorials now with an eye to assembling the book there, but any suggestions on workflow gratefully accepted.

TIA

Richard Hurley
Grass Valley Multimedia

[Rich_H]

I'm new here – just found the working "Similar Threads" function at the bottom. Fantastic! I spent too much time on the Adobe CS forums to believe that was really possible. Found the Alice in Wonderland samples, but would still be grateful for any kibitzing on workflow or leads to other examples.

TIA

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by Rich_H

For instance, Guidelines says "normal" text must use the default font family, but it does not say what that font family is. Or even if it needs to be defined.

It means you should not specify any particular font, i.e. you should leave the font undefined. The actual "default" font used will be chosen by the reader.

For a MOBI you don't need any CSS. You can use it, but the converter will turn it into pseudo-HTML code before it gets packed into the MOBI, so the final MOBI will contain no CSS at all.

Here is an example of the source code for Kipling's Just So Stories (the conversion to MOBI was done with MobiPerl).

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by Rich_H

Found the Alice in Wonderland samples, but would still be grateful for any kibitzing on workflow or leads to other examples.

If you found the Alice in Wonderland samples on the old Mobipocket web site you may want to also check out the Kindle KF8 overview web site for information on the latest mobi version and download some samples from there.
(KF8 basically added support for most ePub2 elements and a handful of HTML5 elements to .mobi files.)

[geekmaster]

The problem with crossposting a new thread (this one) to two forums is that the replies are distributed between them. Here is the OTHER half of this thread:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=190424

EDIT: I see that the other thread had a reply that suggested using this forum instead. It would have been better to move the thread here (using the "Report Post" button to the left of the first post) instead of forking it. Now both threads have ongoing discussions.

At least the link above lets you follow both halves of this thread.