Dictionary formats suitable for Voyage

[j.p.s]

Context: I am reading a book written in English, but with frequent Spanish words or short phrases. The ones common enough to be in the English dictionary included with the Voyage I already know. I found a PRC format Spanish to English dictionary on the net, that was made available some years ago, when Kindles were simpler.

Will a prc dictionary work well on a Voyage, including the ability to set it as default from a menu and have all the pop up stuff work?

The dictionary I have went through several iterations by different people and many of the earlier download links are not working. But the blog pages all say to convert to mobi. Even though the prc is only 6MB, Calibre's ebook-convert took around half an hour and peak
RAM usage was 2.6GB!

I've found a number of confusing to me kindle related dictionary threads on mobileread that are at least several years old, but nothing clear on dictionary file format requirements, particularly nothing about the Voyage. They mainly discussed book and dictionary metadata regarding language matching, but the book is mixed language, and I would like to be able to also look up words in English from it (switching default dictionary myself as needed).

If mobi is needed, can I just rename the prc to mobi?

Does ebook-convert from calibre 0.8.51 preserve dictionaryness?

Do I actually need azw format? If so, will calibre 0.8.51 properly convert a prc dictionary to an azw dictionary that will work on a Voyage?

Is it really so outlandish to want to be able (relatively) seamlessly look up non-English words sprinkled in an English language book?

[HarryT]

You're mixing up file formats with mere extensions. A Mobi book (or dictionary) can have an extension of ".prc", ".mobi", or ".azw", and all will work equally well provided what's in the file is correct; the Kindle won't care.

If you have a dictionary, why not just try it and see?

Dictionary lookup is controlled by the language code of the book; you can't do multi-lingual dictionary lookups in a single book.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You're mixing up file formats with mere extensions.

I don't think that I am. But many applications refuse to even open a file without a "proper" extension regardless of the content, so sometimes all that is needed to go from not working to working is to rename the file. For example, unzip works just fine on files with the extension epub, but many applications do not. Absent your answer below, I would not know which camp the Voyage software is in, which is not necessarily the same as previous Kindles.

Originally Posted by HarryT

A Mobi book (or dictionary) can have an extension of ".prc", ".mobi", or ".azw", and all will work equally well provided what's in the file is correct; the Kindle won't care.

Thanks!

But just to clear, a Voyage will use a prc dictionary with extension prc with all Voyage dictionary features?

I am under the impression that the mobi standard is a proper superset of prc and azw a proper superset of mobi, but do not know what dictionary enhancements have been added as the file formats have evolved.

Originally Posted by HarryT

If you have a dictionary, why not just try it and see?

Because there are too many separate things that can go wrong and I would not be able to tell which one. For example, your next statement.

Originally Posted by HarryT

Dictionary lookup is controlled by the language code of the book; you can't do multi-lingual dictionary lookups in a single book.

So I need to change the language code of the dictionary to English?

Can you point me to instructions or a tutorial?

[susan_cassidy]

If you want the dictionary to be used in a book encoded for English, yes, it has to be encoded as English.

Just use a tool like Calibre to change the language encoding as needed. No tutorial needed, unless you need one for Calibre.

Yes, a dictionary with a prc file extension should work, but you don't ordinarily see them. Usually you see mobi or azw.

Windows relies heavily on file extensions, Linux does not. Kindle apparently does care, though, even though it is Linux. Does your application work if the file extension is associated with that application? You probably wouldn't want to leave the pc that way, though, as you would normally want ePub to be associated with a reading app.

I have not heard of any changes to dictionary formatting since the Kindle 1.

[eschwartz]

Firstly -- Kindles recognize the .azw .mobi and .prc file extensions as equivalent. So for the purposes of this discussion, you can forget about the file extension.

Assuming the dictionary is indeed formatted using dictionary markup, which AFAIK hasn't changed since the PRC days anyway, it will work fine. As a security blanket, you can rename it to .mobi -- it can't hurt, you will feel better, and the Kindle will not notice a difference.

If sideloading the dictionary gives you a book instead of a dictionary, then it is useless. You will have to find something else or build your own with mobigen/kindlegen. There are guides to doing that here, starting from a tab-delimited text file. Inflections will have to be added by hand.


calibre cannot help you!! It has no code to handle dictionaries, and will simply convert a dictionary into paged text, which may be readable but certainly won't enable lookups.
Aside: Upgrade calibre, if you have 0.8.51 then you are three major versions and several years out of date.

[eschwartz]

Also regarding language settings -- what HarryT means is the mixed-language book must have the non-English words properly marked with the HTML lang attribute, most likely via an override span.

This will tell ereaders to treat those specific words as Spanish even when the book as a whole is English, thus enabling the Spanish dictionary lookup.

[susan_cassidy]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Also regarding language settings -- what HarryT means is the mixed-language book must have the non-English words properly marked with the HTML lang attribute, most likely via an override span.

This will tell ereaders to treat those specific words as Spanish even when the book as a whole is English, thus enabling the Spanish dictionary lookup.

Have you actually seen this work? Just curious - never heard of that trick before.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by susan_cassidy

If you want the dictionary to be used in a book encoded for English, yes, it has to be encoded as English.

Thanks. Luckily for me, both dictionaries I found were encoded in as English. I think they must have been created specifically for looking up non-English words in an English book.

Originally Posted by susan_cassidy

Yes, a dictionary with a prc file extension should work, but you don't ordinarily see them. Usually you see mobi or azw.

One is prc, the other mobi. I tried both, and both worked. Both are useful, since one has many more words, but only single word translations. The other has definitions, but far fewer words.

I also don't know why the top quote tag on this message isn't working, since it is the one I copy and pasted to the rest.

Originally Posted by susan_cassidy

Does your application work if the file extension is associated with that application? You probably wouldn't want to leave the pc that way, though, as you would normally want ePub to be associated with a reading app.

I don't use file extension associations, but launch applications from a terminal window.

Originally Posted by susan_cassidy

I have not heard of any changes to dictionary formatting since the Kindle 1.

I seem to have a penchant for finding misinformation on the internet. Multiple claims over the years that older dictionaries wouldn't work on whayever the new kindle was at that time.

[eschwartz]

Interesting claims Amazon likes backwards compatibility, notice how MOBI7 is still a viable format. They still support the Kindle Original (the store feeds it books, no software updates of course ).

P.S. Fixed your quote. You forgot a closing [/QUOTE] tag.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Firstly -- Kindles recognize the .azw .mobi and .prc file extensions as equivalent. So for the purposes of this discussion, you can forget about the file extension.

Assuming the dictionary is indeed formatted using dictionary markup, which AFAIK hasn't changed since the PRC days anyway, it will work fine. As a security blanket, you can rename it to .mobi -- it can't hurt, you will feel better, and the Kindle will not notice a difference.

If sideloading the dictionary gives you a book instead of a dictionary, then it is useless. You will have to find something else or build your own with mobigen/kindlegen. There are guides to doing that here, starting from a tab-delimited text file. Inflections will have to be added by hand.


calibre cannot help you!! It has no code to handle dictionaries, and will simply convert a dictionary into paged text, which may be readable but certainly won't enable lookups.
Aside: Upgrade calibre, if you have 0.8.51 then you are three major versions and several years out of date.

Thanks.

I don't see any reason to change it if I don't need to. It definitely would not make me feel better.

I'm using the calibre from Debian Wheezy. Now that Jessie is out, I may dist-upgrade to that, but I just read that uses systemd, and I'm not sure about using that.

I also have an ubuntu box with 14.04 on it. Presumably, that has a newer calibre.

I only use calibre when I really need to because I have several irreconcilable philosophical differences with it. It's standalone utilities are cool, but I've never had time to dig through all the options.

I really really wish its GUI had an option to spit out the CLI equivalent to an operation.

[eschwartz]

Ah, well, anyway I suggest you use the binary calibre distributed from the main website. Even if you don't use it much, there are still a heck of a lot of bugfixes, surely many to do with conversion, in the past few years.

Also the 2.x update can run fully headless on the CLI, which reduces memory usage when running the CLI tools.

P.S. What is the specific problem with systemd? I haven't really had any problems with it, I know a lot of people deeply dislike Poettering, apparently for good reason... but since systemd isn't breaking horribly on me, I don't give a darn about the lead developer's attitude.
I guess I am not delving nearly deep enough into the OS internals to run into all the rumored craziness hype about it.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Context: I am reading a book written in English, but with frequent Spanish words or short phrases. The ones common enough to be in the English dictionary included with the Voyage I already know. I found a PRC format Spanish to English dictionary on the net, that was made available some years ago, when Kindles were simpler.

If you've registered your Kindle Voyage, you can download the Oxford Spanish-English dictionary for free, which is much better than any free dictionary that you can find on the Internet.

AFAIK, it's not installed by default. I.e., you'll have to trigger the dictionary download via:

Digital Contents > Manage Your Contents and Devices > Books > Dictionaries & User Guides > Oxford Spanish - English Dictionary > Deliver

(The dictionary will be automatically downloaded to your Voyage the next time you connect to your Amazon account with your Voyage via Wifi.)

BTW, if you don't intend to look up English words in this book, you could change the language metadata of the book to Spanish with Calibre or JMME.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

If you've registered your Kindle Voyage, you can download the Oxford Spanish-English dictionary for free, which is much better than any free dictionary that you can find on the Internet.

AFAIK, it's not installed by default. I.e., you'll have to trigger the dictionary download via:

Digital Contents > Manage Your Contents and Devices > Books > Dictionaries & User Guides > Oxford Spanish - English Dictionary > Deliver

(The dictionary will be automatically downloaded to your Voyage the next time you connect to your Amazon account with your Voyage via Wifi.)

BTW, if you don't intend to look up English words in this book, you could change the language metadata of the book to Spanish with Calibre or JMME.

Thank you very much!

I had earlier added the Oxford English Spanish dictionary directly from some Voyage menu, but that goes the wrong direction for me. I was not able to find a Spanish English dictionary the same way or by searching the Amazon store from the device. I also had no luck with the Amazon web site from a computer.

When I followed your Digital Contents > Manage Your Contents and Devices > Books > Dictionaries & User Guides suggestion, it was sorted newest to oldest, and I again only saw the English to Spanish dictionary. When I changed to sort to descending alphabetical, the Spanish English dictionary finally appeared.

I also discovered that clicking the [...] button to the right of the selection checkbox brought up a pop-up with a thumbnail of the cover and links for download and deliver, so I went the download route.

One thing that puzzles me is that for both download and deliver, my only available choice was the Voyage. The entries for all my other Kindles and other devices were grayed out.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

One thing that puzzles me is that for both download and deliver, my only available choice was the Voyage. The entries for all my other Kindles and other devices were grayed out.

The bilingual dictionaries for non-Asian languages are only available for 5.6.x firmware capable devices (PW2, Voyage, 7th gen Kindle).

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

The bilingual dictionaries for non-Asian languages are only available for 5.6.x firmware capable devices (PW2, Voyage, 7th gen Kindle).

Does that include Russian-English?