I have been touting format once, use everywhere as a standard for formatting, and for the most part it still is true but only for the most basic of e-book layouts. Once I started working with more complicated features, such as Drop Caps or Fixed Layouts, my elation with KF8 soon diminished.
I was so excited when the KF8 rolled out last week. Finally, I would be able to easily convert my epub e-books to Amazon’s Kindle Fire without having to re-code anything. I was wrong.
First, let’s take a look at the insides of a mobi file.
Read Liz Castro’s Post KF8 is Nothing More than Epub with mobi
It appears Amazon has chosen to ignore a lot of the EPUB3 coding standards and substituting old HTML code in their place. To take a quote from Liz Castro, “What I didn’t realize is that Amazon has been generated non-standard hideous code for their ebooks for years.”
Another shocking realization is that when you convert an epub to a mobi using Kindle Previewer (as Amazon suggests), the original epub file is included in the mobi file. What is the purpose of that?
So I need to ask: why on earth would Amazon be implementing HTML standards from almost 20 years ago and why are they increasing your mobi book file size by including the original epub?
How Kindle Previewer 2 and Kindle Previewer 3 convert a validated epub file
Liz details the code from her original epub file and how it looked in the Kindle device using KP2 and KP3.
Here’s the original code:
<p>The Articles panel starts out empty. You have to add articles to it manually either by dragging frames to it or by clicking the plus sign.</p>And here’s how KP 2 converted it to old mobi:
<p height="0em" width="0" align="center"><font size="-1" face="sans-serif" color="#000000"><i>The Articles panel starts out empty. You have to add articles to it manually either by dragging frames to it or by clicking the plus sign.</i></font></p>And here’s how KP3 converts it to old mobi:
<p height="0em" width="0" align="center"><blockquote width="0"><font size="-1" face="sans-serif" color="#000000"><i>The Articles panel starts out empty. You have to add articles to it manually either by dragging frames to it or by clicking the plus sign.</i></font></blockquote></p>
One word. Yuck! The proper HTML5 elements were placed in the CSS, but ignored in the mobi conversion for older Kindle models. Additionally, many were replaced by HTML inline elements from 1997! I mean, what century is this?
How Kindle Previewer 3 views the Kindle Fire and KF8
Now for the good news. It appears there are only a few differences between KF8 and an epub. And when all devices and apps eventually utilize KF8, it will make coding a lot easier.
Now for the bad news (and there always is). When converting a fixed layout, the difference is monumental. I tested several of my fixed layout epubs and the results were horrendous. I recommend you read Liz Castro’s Post “Fixed Layout in KF8 for Amazon Kindle is Disappointing.”
The KF8 update has many of us testing, comparing and uncertain of the promise KF8 was to deliver. The goal, I assumed, was to close the gap between epub and mobi, and make coding formats a lot easier.
So while KF8 is a tremendous improvement, the jury is still out as to how much time will be saved when coding e-books for mobi and epub.
