How to remove hard hyphens? Is there any reasonably easy way to remove "hard" hyphens from an eBook?  For example, I am reading a book by Ted Dekker where there are many places where a word has a hy-phen in the middle.  (Not picking on Ted here -- lots of books seem to have the problem.)

Each one acts like a visual "speed-bump" to me.  It seems that someone at some point manually hyphenated line endings, forgetting that a different screen size, font choice/size, etc. would require different hyphenation.

Ideas?

If the book has not a DRM and you are free to edit/convert it, you can use Calibre to convert to the same format (i.e. you can use an .epub as a source file and still convert to an .epub output.

In the Heuristic processing tab make sure to enable both the processing and Remove unnecessary hyphenation; if you want you can also enable other options here if you need to.

This method use the source document as a dictionary to verify if the hyphenated word is also spelled as a single word. Of course, if a given hyphenated word has a single occurrence it won't be corrected. From Calibre user manual:

  calibre will analyze all hyphenated content in the document when this
  option is enabled. The document itself is used as a dictionary for
  analysis. This allows calibre to accurately remove hyphens for any
  words in the document in any language, along with made-up and obscure
  scientific words. The primary drawback is words appearing only a
  single time in the document will not be changed. Analysis happens in
  two passes, the first pass analyzes line endings. Lines are only
  unwrapped if the word exists with or without a hyphen in the document.
  The second pass analyzes all hyphenated words throughout the document,
  hyphens are removed if the word exists elsewhere in the document
  without a match.

If you happen to have the the source .pdf, where all hyphenated words are placed at the end of their respective lines, you can use the Search & Replace tab to add another tweak (I've personally tested and used it many times).

You must enter -
 in the Search box and leave completely blank the Replacement one, and be sure to click Add to, well, add the rule to the conversion. This only works, as I've stated, if the hyphens are correctly placed at the end of their lines, so, in most cases, you need to have access to the source file. You can also click on the Wizard button to open a preview of the file, where you can preview what your source regex code (in this case -
) will select and delete (because we left blank the replacement box).


Kindle Book published old version I am the book author and I have access to KDP and can preview my internal texts from there. I have checked and double checked the internal version did indeed update to fix typo and a program (for arduino) fixed where it had two LARGE errors. The program would crash and not work. So this is definitely a major edit in my point of view.

Now I am completely lost here. I tried to push the correct version live to my book. It looks like it passed the review progress. Not to mention preview from KDP website shows the correct version. I only have one copy of that book listed in KDP.

For some strange reasons two of my books on my dad's android kindle copy still shows the old outdated version. I tried to follow the link to "manage content and devices on amazon website" for my dad's account. It doesn't show anything about updating my old book? All it does is give me option to turn on/off automatic book updating. I tried deleting and re-download that didn't do anything.

The link article below didn't help with my issue.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201252670

What I would like to know is there an easy way to "force" all digital book to update to the newer revision edition without contacting support? I am asking mainly because it seem that the normal way of doing it doesn't even fix the outdated edition.

To answer your last question, no it should not be necessary to contact support to receive an updated version of an ebook. If a kindle account has chosen to enable automatic updates, these updates should just show up.

Whether the Kindle device does this reliably is a separate question of course. Let's try to troubleshoot the obvious things. Let me say that I use KDP a lot and have never had problems like you have suggested.

Has your dad's account turned off automatic updating?  Possibly the problem is one with your dad's device; can you verify that it has Internet and can download other titles? Most devices have a SYNC button which can force a sync.

You should also try to test this for other accounts/devices. You can do this by making an insignificant update on the title page. (maybe add an extra word or letter). Update that version and then you can download a sample of the ebook on another device and see what happens.

The key thing is to establish whether it is happening to all accounts and all devices, or only your dad's account or only to one device of your dad's. That would seem relatively easy to do.

You should also check to see if there are more than one versions of the same ebook on the same device. This has happened to me before. I will upload one version for testing, and then have alongside it a version available for sale. It may appear that the ebook has not been updated when all I have been doing is viewing an older version of a file which I uploaded earlier.

One other thing. This may not apply to you, but often while testing ebooks I upload ebooks to a specific device using the Manage Personal Documents feature. If you are uploading a no DRM ebook (as opposed to downloading an ebook you have paid for), the device will process the ebook somewhat differently. Also, it can be easy to accidentally specifically a wrong device if the account had multiple devices associated with it. So for uploading Personal Documents (in this case ebooks), you should doublecheck whether you have chosen to send the updated file to the right device.

(Hey, please let SE know what happens. I'm in the middle of updating 3 ebooks right now, and remain curious about where things messed up).


Unbrick Kindle Touch My KT stopped working all of a sudden and will no longer turn on. I have tried the holding down the power button trick numerous times and charged it for over 24 hours but there is still no response. I also tried using Kubrick but when I boot into it, the wizard doesn't start automatically and I can't figure out how to run it manually.

Sorry about the quality of screenshot but this is where kubrick stops.

Anybody have experience with this situation?

It may be that your battery has burst. That would be the most likely cause of an abrupt breakdown. If the device is no longer under warranty, I'd suggest opening it up (check for videos on YouTube) and having a look. Replacement batteries are easily obtainable and, if you can operate a screwdriver, putting one in is within any user's capability.


How do I create a simple e-book with MobiPocket Creator on Windows? I realize that a lot of e-book authors use conversion tools to produce .mobi files for e-book readers. But I would like to directly produce native .mobi files.

After some searching, it appears that MobiPocket Creator is one of the most popular tools for doing this. How would I go about creating a simple e-book with the tool?

Creating a simple e-book with MobiPocket Creator is relatively easy. The steps for doing this are as follows:

Grab the latest version from here: http://www.mobipocket.com/en/downloadsoft/DownloadCreator.asp
Complete the installation, paying particular attention to the page below where you are asked which edition you would like to use:

You will now have an icon on your desktop that you can use to launch MobiPocket Creator:

The start page looks something like this:

Under "Create New Publication", click "Blank publication". You will be presented with a wizard that asks you a few questions about your publication, including:

the name
location for storing the project files
character encoding (changing this to UTF-8 is highly recommended)

After completion, you can begin adding content to your book by dragging-and-dropping files into the window:

For example, you could create an HTML file like so:

<!DOCTYPE html>

The Beginning

This paragraph introduces the very beginning of your book.

...and then drag it into the window. It will be copied to your project folder.
Click the "Metadata" link on the left of the window to edit the title, author, etc.
When you are ready, click the Build button in the upper-right corner. Leave the settings at their defaults and click the Build button:

In my case, the tool produced a file with a .PRC extension. You can simply rename the file to .MOBI if you wish.

  Important Note

  MobiPocket Creator is licensed exclusively for non-commercial use only so you will need to get in touch with them if you want to actually publish content with it.


Direct copying of epub files on the Kobo internal file system I am running Linux (Mageia 5), and I own a Kobo Glo HD. There is no
Kobo Desktop for me (that I know of). I wish to load some free epub books on my reader.

I read in several places that one can copy epub book files directly on
the Kobo file system.  What I understood is that one can connect the
Kobo with a USB cable so that it appears to the PC as a USB drive, on
which files can be copied directly by the PC.

Indeed I can connect my Kobo to the Linux PC, and then by mounting /dev/sdc
(usually, but not /dev/sdc1) on some directory, (some of ?) the content of the Kobo reader
becomes accessible as a 3.2GB file system.

Following the suggestion of Sekhemty's answer to another question, I
did create a directory at the top-level of this file system, and
included some epub files in this directory and in a subdirectory,
using various formats for file names, just in case. None of it was
seen by my Kobo reader.

My guess is that the files have to be put in a specific place, but I
did not dare start disturbing too much the file system without knowing
what I was doing.

So my question is: what are the constraints to be respected when
adding new ebooks in the Kobo file system, i.e. in particular:

where in the file system should they be copied ?
are there constraints on the file (or directory) names to be used ?
Is the suffix .epub needed ?
are there other constraints I did not think of ?
should I do something on the Kobo reader after I disconnect, so that the new epub files are taken into account?

I am aware that the simpler solution is to do it with existing
software like Calibre, but I am a bit short on time and right now I
have a problem getting Calibre detecting that my Kobo reader is
connected. Actually I am not sure what connected means in the e-reader
jargon ... I am interpreting it as mounted, but I am not sure.

Added a day later:  I tried to copy epub files or directories containing epub files in various places on my kobo reader. They were ignored. In particular I tried the only directory already containg epub files which is
KOBOeReader/.kobo/kepub/  where KOBOeReader is the directory the Kobo file system is mounted on. No success at all.

In a nutshell

One way to make visible epub files copied directly on the Kobo file system is to use the Kobo browser once afterwards to download an epub file from the web.

Context

I did some more experimenting on my own, and finally succeeded, though
I did not explore the precise boundaries of what can work and what will
not work. I am giving details, so that you know my experimental
evidence. This is personnal experiment, not anything I read anywhere. So, get second confirmation if that info is critical for your purpose.

If you are only interested in the result, and the technique to transfer
ebooks to your Kobo without any specific software, simply jump to the
last section od this answer.

My question was motivated by the fact that I wanted to transfer ebooks
from my Linux computer to my Kobo eReader. I am running Calibre, which
I use to improve some of the ebooks, but for some reason that I have
not yet identified, it will not detect my Kobo when it is connected to the computer
by a USB cable.

So having read in various places that a Kobo can be seen as a USB
drive, on which ebooks can be copied, I tried as reported above without
success, but no indication of the reason(s) for failure. The files
were simply ignored, wherever I put them. Performing a sync did not
help.

The experiments

Then serendipity came to my help. I had been wondering for some time
how I could connect to book sources on the web. I did not know how to
browse the web with the Kobo. And then I discovered the hidden web browser,
which they consider experimental.
In Kobo's own words:

  Since the browser is still a beta feature, some websites may not
  display properly. Please note that the browser is not officially
  supported by Kobo.

Indeed, there is no indication in their user guide (which I had read)
of the very exixtence of that browser, and I had to search the web on
my computer to find it. Then I found the help page that explains how to activate this browser.

So I tried the Kobo browser to download a (DRM-)free book from the
web. It worked ... and (nearly) all the books I had copied by hand on
the Kobo file system became visible and readable. I am saying nearly
all, because it actually saw only the files with an .epub
suffix. Those files had been copied

directly in the root directory of the Kobo file system,
or in a directory codex I had created at the root of the Kobo file
system,
or in a subdirectory of that codex directory.

I did not check how deep the hierarchy can be.

Note that the book I downloaded from the web was also stored by the Kobo eReader browser in the
root directory. However, books with DRM are clearly stored somewhere else.

I did not (dare to) check what happens when a file has a .epub suffix,
but is not an epub file. But I did check that ebooks placed in other
locations are not seen (of course, I checked only some locations), unless it is a user
created directory hierarchy placed in the root directory.

I added some more books to check for other means to make then visible to the user. Since downloading a book seemed critical, I was wondering whether a sync induced download would do the job (it does not).
Then I added two Kobo (DRM-)free books to my account on Kobobooks.com, and
checked in my computer that they were indeed added to my account on
kobobooks.com.

Then I performed a sync on my Kobo, and it did download the two
books. But that did not make visible the books I had previously added
directly in the file system. It is  worth noting that, though they
were (DRM-)free, these ebooks were not downloaded at the root of the file
system, like the epub files downloaded by the browser.

But when I downloaded an ebook from project Gutenberg, the new books I had
copied directly in the file system became visible in the book collection of the Kobo eReader.

This is already longer than it should. So, I am skipping some details to give my conclusions, for what I understand.

Some basic know-how for adding (DRM-)free ebooks directly to the Kobo memory.

The key idea is that the Kobo eReader (or at least the Kobo Glo HD
that I use - but I suspect several of them work the same) has a web
browser, which can be used to download books in your Kobo.

The browser is somewhat hidden, as Kobo considers it an experimental
item, not officially supported.

The browser download the epub files right in the root directory. And
then calls some piece of software to integrate it into its
organization of the ebooks collection. The nice point is that it checks all the non-standard (i.e. non system) files and
directories that are present at the root level, so as to recreate the information needed
to integrate them. Aa a result, it takes into account the fact that
some files may have been removed, modified or moved into a different
subdirectory.

The only bad news is that (afaik) the only way to get that software
executed is to download an epub file from some site with the Kobo
browser.

Hence, copying ebooks from your computer onto the Kobo, assuming
the computer does not have a web server, can be achieved by connecting
the Kobo to the computer with a USB cable. The Kobo is then seen as a
memory device, with a file system which can be mounted as usual (for
example on directory /mnt with : mount /dev/sdc /mnt depending on where it shows up, here on /dev/sdc --
note that it is not /dev/sdc1). Then you can copy epub files or file
hierarchies at the root /mnt of this file system. Then you dismount the file system with umount /mnt, and make sure copying is terminated (Unix sync command) before removing the USB cable, if you will.
Finally, you use
the Kobo browser to download at least one extra ebook (possibly always
the same one :-).

This was described for a Linux system, but should be adaptable to any operating system.

An important point is that all the epub files must have the .epub suffix.

Another thing that I have not been able to determine is whether these
files can benefit from other services, such as cloud storage. But
I am very moderately interested in the cloud anyway.

Now, some other user may have better, simpler ways of achieving the
same result, or more, without using specific software such as Calibre. I find it a
bit frustating not to be able to used Calibre because it will not
detect the Kobo USB connection on my machine. I would not mind using a degraded
version where I would have to tell Calibre when the Kobo is connected and where.


Converting raw text to Epub I have some raw text documents, mainly novels and theater plays that I would like to convert to EPUB.

What is the best way to do that?
Should I use an intermediate format?
Can it be automated?

Epub Format
Epub is actually a collection of files in ZIP format. You can create an epub without any specialize tool, for example taking a book's content from https://github.com/Gluejar/open_access_ebooks_ebook and running
zip -Xr9D The_Velveteen_Rabbit.epub mimetype * -x .DS_Store

Pandoc
Pandoc is an easy to use command line tool to generate epubs, and a lot more markup formats such as LaTeX, Markdown, HTML5, Word docx and ODT are supported. Here is an example:
pandoc mybook.txt -o mybook.epub

Read more about epub creation examples.
I have used it to conveniently generate epub from a Git repositories' documentation to easier reading.
Sigil
A GUI alternative is Sigil, with the benefit of in-place editors as well as extensive styling tools.

Online Epub Generators
If you cannot/do not want to install applications, there are online tools that can generate epubs, such as http://ebook.online-convert.com/convert-to-epub


How can I select text in Freda? I installed Freda reader in my PC with Windows 10 and my phone with Android. I cannot select text in any of the two devices. When I try to select a text, Freda interprets that I want to change the page. How can I select text?

Click ... in the bottom right corner. Select CONTROLS, swipe action, press the button to the right, and choose select.


epubcheck error: mimetype entry missing or not the first in archive I have an ePub that returns "mimetype entry missing or not the first in archive" error in epubcheck, even though the mimetype file is correctly placed.

How to fix that?

This error can occur when the mimetype is compressed inside the epub zip file. What can be done is to create a zip file with only the mimetype file inside but with no compression.

You can do that with 7-Zip setting the Compression level to Store.

In Linux, you can also do that with the terminal command:

zip -0 file.epub mimetype

Then drag and drop the META-INF and OEBPS folders to the file.zip and change the extension to .epub, as usual. With the Linux terminal you can use this command line instead:

zip -9 -r file.epub META-INF OEBPS


Read Kindle books without Kindle or Kindle app? For various reasons, I've become a fan of Amazon as a place to shop for physical book, so buying Kindle books would be a natural choice.

However, based on my experience with the Kindle app on an Android phone, and other factors, I don't want to use a Kindle or Kindle app as my primary means for reading ebooks.  I give Amazon enough information about myself when I shop.  Using a product that they own and that has the potential to know everything that I read is just too much.

Can I read Kindle books without Amazon software (for example, on an Android tablet or iPad)?  Can I do it legally?

(These may be naive questions.  I admit that I am still pretty naive about ebooks.)

Yes, you can in theory read Kindle books on almost any other ebook reader or tablet.

However, this requires you to convert your mobi or azw file to other formats, such as epub. There is software for this, but, as you can imagine, you will be breaking the DRM. It is therefore not legal, at least in the United States and presumably other countries where the Kindle is sold. Not a great option!

If you dislike Amazon devices and software, a better option is to buy books in the epub format. These are not sold by Amazon, but you can find them in online stores such as Barnes & Noble. The epub format give you legal access to a far greater range of devices.


how does kindle ownership work? Imagine I buy a book in kindle.

question 1) is it possible to share it with someone else so that he doesn't pay at all for that book?

Question 2) if it's possible, then how is it a good idea that one buys a book and others just copy from that buyer so that they don't spend anything.

Question 3) how are books uploaded ? like a pdf format or what?

Question 4) how does kindle manager that the user who bought the book can't share or download and give it to

First, try to ask one question at a time.  Sometimes it takes a while just to ask one question :)

Kindle has an option for lending the ebook to another user. You can lend the ebook exactly once for a two week period. (I don't know if you can borrow the same ebook 2 times).

Ebooks are uploaded as a proprietary file format called .mobi . There are ways to convert from MS Word to .mobi (or epub to .mobi) but PDF to .mobi doesn't work that well.

Publishers and authors can choose to upload their ebook in encrypted or unencrypted form. If it's in unencrypted format, it is possible for you to connect your device to a laptop via usb and to copy the .mobi file to another device.

My guess is about 70% of ebooks sold on Amazon are in encrypted form (so you cannot copy it). But there are tools to break through the Kindle encryption -- not legal, and might not work well, but they do exist.

The more basic question is whether it is convenient to copy an unauthorized copy. If the ebook already costs less than $5, most people would rather pay. Ultimately it is impossible to protect any ebook from copyright, but keeping the price cheap gives an incentive for the consumer to obey the law and support the author.


What design patterns exist for responsive web design of ebooks? What design patterns, best practice etc. exist for responsive web design of ebooks? I am creating an ebook with HTML5/CSS3/JavaScript that should be readable well at different devices (browser, tabled, smartphone...) with different sizes and capabilities. As far as I understand responsive webdesign, one can show, hide, resize, and relocate content in different forms depending on the device that an HTML page is viewed on. This question asked about how to simulate different device sizes for preview.

So far I have found people talking about the possibility of responsive design for ebooks but no good examples or guidelines. I think that table of contents, headers, images, captions, and footnotes are good candidates for responsive design, but how to show them at which devices for best readability and usability?

The problem with trying any really interesting design elements (like responsiveness) in ebooks is that the main reading systems out there are amazingly primitive by web standards. JavaScript support is more or less confined to iBooks at present, and the only system that uses media queries that I know of is Kindle, and they only support the amzn-mobi and amzn-kf8 selectors. A few reading systems will support some CSS 3 elements like border-radius, but mostly you're stuck with the older stuff. On top of that, many reading systems (like the nook) will by default ignore the publisher's CSS file completely and use their own stylesheet instead.

If what you're looking for from responsive design is the text conforming to the screen size, though, you can certainly achieve that through good markup and simple CSS. Make your markup as semantic as possible, and use semantic elements rather than styles, since many systems will ignore, for example, a style that bolds some text, but will happily bold anything in a <b> tag. If you're going for a wide array of devices, keep things as simple as possible. In general, think of the web circa 2000.

If you're targeting a specific device, you can do some more interesting stuff. The first lesson here is: know what specific devices and reading systems you're targeting.

If you have specific questions about any of the areas that you mentioned in your post, feel free to ask more questions!


Destructive scanning: Sanding down spine better than band saw? (I hope it's on-topic - I saw a couple of other questions about scanning books to make ebooks)

I want to destructively scan my least favorite books. To do this the pages need to be separated. The best tool for this is a paper guillotine (heavy knife cutting horizontally through a large stack of pages, whole pages at a time). They are expensive and large.

I read that saws tend to mess up the borders of the pages so they stick together, make problems with the automatic document feed while scanning or make the borders harder to remove in post processing.

Has anyone tried to sand down the spine with a powered sanding machine?

I'm imagining the following process:

Cut off cover
Clamp pages between two pieces of wood with exactly the amount to sand away accessible. Note: This doesn't mean I intend to sand into the wood, it's a visual and tactile guide. It's not that hard to stop the machine in time before a significant amount of wood was lost.
Clamp the clamp down so the spine looks up.
Set up dust removal vacuum.
Take the sanding machine to the spine until the pages are separated.

Why not use a cutter rather than a saw or a sander.

In more details, it the title is not enough.

I think a sander is likely to remove wood as easily as it does
paper, possibly more easily. Thus it is not clear that you will get a
clean job.

You might get a better result by clamping the pages between two pieces
of some hard metal, like iron. Aluminum or other soft metals might not
work as well.

Then, the pages may still stick a bit together, as they would with
sawing. But it should be enough if all you want is scanning.

However, extending your question to other solutions:

Another suggestion may be to use a cutting press, as was done by
bookbinders for trimming pages when mechanical paper guillotine, such
as hydraulic book trimmers were not available. Professional
bookbinders used to do excellent and precise work centuries ago, which
was particularly necessary when they wanted to apply a gold finish on
page edges.  This is still practised by amateur bookbinders.

Basically it simply replaces the saw by a knife. You need just a very simple press to hold the pages and
compress them. One edge of the press must be flat and wide enough so
that you can hold a cutting tool against it in order to keep the the
blade perpendicular to the stack of pages. The cutting edge itself
makes an angle, as is often the case when cutting with a blade.  You
cut the page stack progressively in many passes, a few pages at a
time.

The basic procedure is described in this video,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9EZhXQ1p1c , but I am sure you can
find many others on bookbinding sites, or in books about bookbinding,
if you look for "page trimming".

This video gives you the essential. But the blade may have a different
shape. Actually, when I learned to do that a very long time ago, I
think I used my leather paring knife.  It is a simple blade composed
of a flat piece of steel about an inch or two wide, sharpened on one
end by grinding it only on one side (the other side must be perfectly
flat, as i rests on the edge of the press to guide the cutting). The
grinding is done so that the cutting edge makes an angle of about 45
degrees with the the non cutting edge (I was taught to make my own
blades).

Now, it you are just removing the binding, and not looking for a
perfect job, my guess is that a cutter could do the job just as well. Just don't try
to cut too many pages with each pass of the blade.


How easy is it to add a table of contents to an epub book? Some text editors (e.g. MS Word, or Atlassian Confluence Wiki editor) make it trivial to add a table of contents to a text that was properly formatted (e.g. has headings/chapter titles), by merely doing a single "insert table of contents" operation, as opposed to manually creating all the links - and the TOC can be easily refreshed as the text structure changes.

Is there such a capability for EPUB books?

Is there a TOC concept in the format specification itself?
If so, does at least one popular EPUB editing software support that concept, including refreshing TOC to reflect text structure changes?

Both Sigil and Calibre can edit or create a TOC for .epub books.

In Sigil, once you have opened your ebook, press Ctrl+T
, and you will open a window where you can generate the TOC from the various h1, h2, h3 (and so on) tags, you can manually select how deep to go in the header hierarchy.

Inside Calibre, select the ebook, press K, and you will get another window that will let you do something similar, but you have some more options if compared to Sigil, in example you can generate entries not only from html headings but also from single files inside the .epub, rearranging the list and the hierarchy, and so on. It's simplier to do it than to explain it.


How can I get access to my personal documents on Amazon for my Kindle? I used to sync my personal documents to my Kindle via Amazon website "Manage my Kindle". Unfortunately there has been an update to Amazon’s website and there, under Manage my Kindle, I simply cannot find any link to my Personal documents.

I can only see the purchases I made, but not the files I sent via the Kindle mail.
Any hint where to go?

So I finally found it buried under out-dated UX unfriendly and super stealthy drop-down menu! Special thanks goes to Ed who inspired me to look for a drop-down.

Highlighted in blue circle is the hidden menu (almost like an easter-egg). From there simply navigate to:

And they lived happily ever after...until Amazon updated their website AGAIN! :-)


How can I convert an HTML site into an ebook? I'd like to create a .mobi file from a website like the Python Tutorial, to read on my Kindle.

Is it possible to do it on Ubuntu?

Of course you can. The easiest method is

save the whole site into a folder (e.g. mirror it with some command line tool like wget - it is available on Windows too - or Httrack)
zip the folder
send the zip to your device via Amazon e-mail solution.

Here's the official Amazon page documenting this feature.

If it's not what you want, you can use Calibre to convert HTML to various ebook formats, here is the official documentation.

And even more, you can download the official Kindlegen Linux CLI tool from Amazon and hand tailor the downloaded HTML with your favourite editor then convert it.

(And you can download the official Python docs in EPUB format which Amazon happily convert for you (the mailing method), and every other conversion option I had mentioned above will work with the EPUB too.)


How to make a fixed layout epub file from an MS Word document? We tried Adobe InDesign. We imported the docx file into InDesign (via Place), but InDesign hangs (freezes; not responding) on exporting to EPub Fixed Layout.

No error message is shown, what could be wrong? Is there an alternative way?

Two solutions:

We used the old doc format. Converting it to the new docx worked.
If cannot convert to `docx, create a new InDesign document, then move the previously imported pages to the new document via the Pages panel.


Z library and copyrights I came across a site called "Z Library", in particular, b-ok.org which is "part of Z-libary project".  This site has a free download of a book I really, really, really want.  It has the "look and feel" of a completely legitimate and professional site.  But I take a look at some of the books they have available and I can't believe they are legally free.  Anyone know of copyright issues with "Z Library" sites?  Is this legit?

you will get the book, and probably won't get caught, but yes, it is illegal.


Collections Mangement of Kindle Paperwhite 3 I got my Kindle Paperwhite 3 yesterday and it's my first kindle.

I found the collections is very usefull(which is similary to tags I guess?). Since kindle is slow, I want to group my hundreds of books in PC.

In Calibre I install the "Kindle Collection" plugin, but it can't detect the collection information in my Kindle. Nevertheless, I choose "Edit kindle collections manually", and add some books to a collection called "test". Then I disconnect and restart my kindle, nothing happend, the old collections are still there and the collection "test" is nowhere.

I also tried KDeasy, it even failed to detect my KP3.

And Kindle Collection Manager does the same behavior as in Calibre.

Is this because that KP3 is too latest and besides the upgrade of hardware, the software is also upgraded? Then how can I manage Kindle collections easily for KP3 now?

An alternative, which at least gets round "kindle is slow" is to use the Kindle app, on e.g. Android phone or tablet, if you have one, to manage your collections.

The Android app does support the new-style "cloud collections", as used by the PW, Voyage, etc.

The advantage here is that it is much more responsive, both in screen display and touchscreen behaviour and, with a tablet, larger with easier to see covers. It supports a multi-select mode, where you can select many titles at once, to add to a Collection.

That's what I do, anyway: use the Kindle device to read, and the Android app to manage.


Is it possible to create a sidebar in a reflowable EPUB3? Is there a way to create a responsive sidebar in EPUB3, for example there would be a sidebar in tablet view but if the EPUB was viewed on a mobile it would become one column?

Most epub reading systems do not respond to media queries, so it's going to be hit or miss. You could try putting the sidebar styles first in your CSS, so that in the cascade on systems that don't understand media queries, the sidebar styles will get overwritten by the more general column styles, but no guarantees it will work.

Even on tablets, sidebars may be problematic at high font sizes: just like with tables, if the end of the sidebar does not fit on the current page, it will not continue onto the next page--it will just run off the bottom of the screen.


How can I translate my ebook? I downloaded an important PDF e-book but it is not in English. Is there a software or another way I can translate the entire e-book into English or another language?

You can upload your PDF to Google Drive, convert it to Google Docs (open with Docs), and apply tool Translate to... English. It will make a copy of the PDF in editable format and also keep the original.

Visit drive.google.com, sign into it with your username and password
Click on NEW > File Upload, select the file from your computer..
After uploading the file, click on ‘Recent’ on left and and select the uploaded file, right click on it and select Open with >’Google Docs’
When the document will open in another tab, click on Tools > Select ‘Translate document’

Enter the document title, choose a language to translate into and click on ‘Translate’ button

Translated document will open in another tab, which you can edit, print or download to your computer.

Source


Best PDF app reader for iPad that emulates the paper book experience Good day.

I've used before PDF Expert by Readdle. But I really dislike seeing the gray spaces where the PDF ends and doesn't fit the entire screen. Now, I know that this is not "possible" per se, since PDF files are not meant to adapt to screen size, but I was wondering, is there any app for iPad with an option to "blur" that PDF ending and makes it seem like it fits the entire screen (even if it doesn't rearrange the content)?

I've looked everywhere on the AppStore, but haven't found anything similar to what I'm looking for. Any pointers would be appreciated, thanks.

EDIT: I'm aware that PDF Expert has a CROP option, that removes the PDF empty spaces to better fit the content on the screen, but in my experience it looks terrible because it zooms on the content.

take a look at ibouquiniste it seems to fit to the edges by default has a nice flip page animation

iBouquiniste Features Include:

Supports notes
Send books by email
Unique Author Library (each author on their own bookshelf)
View most recently opened books in the order you opened them
Real page numbers
Adjustable fonts, spacing, margins, book paper and more
Download books via iTunes or any app supporting file transfer (i.e. Mail or Safari)
OPDS catalogs support
iBouquiniste Cloud Storage for synchronisation (books, reading positions, citations and bookmarks)


How to erase data before selling a Kindle? I plan to sell my old Kindle Keyboard and I want to erase all the Kindle's data ( my books, my personal info, wi-fi passwords...) before. Is it enough to deregister the Kindle and execute a factory reset? Would it completely erase everything?

Every Kindle has a menu option "Reset to Factory Defaults", which does exactly what you want: It removes all user specific data from the device.

Step by step instructions for factory resets on various Kindle devices

For the paranoid: Most devices will not actually erase your data, but just mark it as "erased". For the user both are the same thing - if you sell your device, the new owner will not see your stuff. For anybody with sufficient knowledge and interest in that piece of information - such as crime scene investigators etc. - it usually is possible to restore data. I have not checked if a Kindle will actually overwrite your data or leave traces behind.


Is epub 3 meant to replace epub 2? Will EPUB 2 remain an active standard now that EPUB 3 is out?

More specifically:

Should all new EPUB development use EPUB 3 regardless of the target platform (meaning e-ink along with tablet)?
Are current e-ink devices such as the Sony PRS-*, Simple Nook, etc able to display EPUB 3 or should books for these devices continue to be EPUB 2?

EPUB 2 will probably not remain an active standard, in the sense that it would evolve over time. The EPUB 2 standard is of course there and stays there and there will be files and devices that follow that standard.

Looking at the differences between EPUB 3 and EPUB 2 it seems entirely feasible to make an EPUB 3 device (with or without multimedia) that also properly supports EPUB 2 files. This is little extra work and much more interesting for device manufacturers than asking for and implementing EPUB 2 extensions.

There is probably also going to be a subset of devices that don't support the EPUB 3 multimedia extensions, but are based on a rendering engine that supports EPUB 3. Whether you depict such a device as EPUB 2 with some EPUB 3 support or EPUB 3 with backwards compatibility is probably a marketing decision.

From a file generation point of view, you can include EPUB 2 compatible info in an EPUB 3 file. I expect publishers to do that. And if they don't it is feasible to add that information later on to such EPUB 3 file. I expect e.g. Calibre to do get such a feature, if it not already can do so. Of course that will not give you multimedia, but for normal books (with the same info as EPUB 2 files have now) that will work.


how to turn off hyphenation for titles (h1, etc) on Android readers (google play, gitden) There doesn't seem to be any formatting guide for Google Play. I've been trying to determine how to turn off hyphenation for Google Play (and possibly in another Android reader like Gitden).

I have been using proprietary extensions to do it on Apple and Adobe.

  -webkit-hyphens: none;
   hyphens: none;
   adobe-hyphenate: none;

Does Google Play books use webkit or something like that. (It does not appear to turn it off when I set the style to that).

I guess this question boils down to: how do I determine what things are supported on ereaders on android? Thanks.

This may or may not be an answer to the question I posed.

http://www.idpf.org/epub/301/spec/epub-contentdocs.html#sec-css-text
http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-text/#hyphens-property

"EPUB 3 CSS Profile includes epub prefixed versions of the following properties from the CSS":

-epub-hyphens

The -epub-hyphens property does not include support for the value all.

So as I interpret it, in an epub file, you use

h1 {
-epub-hyphens: none;
 }

to accomplish that in an epub file. I'll confirm this in Google Play.

This makes apparent how simply looking at the spec doesn't provide you with sufficient information. Who would have ever thought that -hyphens wouldn't be supported but -epub-hyphens: none might be.

More background:

  The EPUB 3 revision also introduced CSS properties for controlling hyphenation, line breaks, and word breaks. These properties were borrowed from CSS Text module, but again, because the module was not a final recommendation at the time, you must use the -epub- prefix with them. The -epub-hyphens property controls hyphenation. The value none disables hyphenation.

Reference: http://epubzone.org/news/epub-3-and-global-language-support


How are Kindle standard pages calculated? How does Amazon Kindle count a standard page?

Or, if I may ask more specifically:

What is a believable range of character lengths for a standard page as calculated for Amazon Kindle?

This can be really hard to estimate without narrowing your question down a bit.

But I just measured a text-heavy book to determine:

Mobile Phone App
852 characters 26 lines

On a small e-ink device:

1217 characters ...  25 lines (3rd font size from left)
802 characters  21 lines  (next larger size font, 2nd from left)

Large Tablet:

2003 characters 41 lines somewhat small font size
1666 characters       37 lines somewhat large font size

Users can adjust text margins and text size, so that plays a role. Also, my sample didn't have many paragraphs or line breaks. I was using a custom font on my large tablet, it seems that Bookerly is slightly smaller, so maybe add an extra 100.


Scrivener as a tool for creating ebooks What issues can one expect when writing a document in Scrivener and creating an ebook? That is, what technical, formatting, or other hurdles should I expect if I do this? I am assuming that it would be necessary to go through an intermediate step, like conversion to .docx files; please set me straight if not.

Assume the book has a cover page, table of contents, images, and possibly links and footnotes.

EDIT: I see that Scrivener can actually compile files directly to .epub and .mobi file formats, as described in this blog post. My question is really: how well does (or doesn't) that process work, and what are the "gotchas?"

Ed, the answer more depends on your purpose. The literal answer is Scrivener does indeed create valid e-books and is well maintained. I've used Scrivener for Mac for years. I've occasionally compiled the document to kindle format to carry around. That process works just fine.

If your real purpose is to Write the Great Novel or some other large and complex effort, I can definitely recommend Scrivener as a great authoring tool. Their user forum over at Literature and Latte is helpful, knowledgeable, active. At the point of Becoming Published, you may need to switch to a different tool for the process of publishing. That would depend on your publishing route. Scrivener is very good at generating whatever format you need at that point, be it input to Microsoft Word, Calibre, various markup languages, whatever.

If you have already created that content, so that now your focus is on the publishing stage, not the writing stage, Scrivener is adequate to the task but probably not your best choice. You're probably better off with a universal conversion tool such as Calibre.

The key question is Where and How you intend to publish. If you're thinking of going through a traditional publisher, they have their own requirements, and that might dictate your choice of tool.

If you're intending to self-publish, e-books only, you again want to consider the big picture. Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Kobo, Smash Words, etc., all have their own requirements. To meet those varying requirements, we use a combination of Microsoft Word (yuck) and Calibre. Note that this is when focused on the publishing of something already written.

Self publishing is a moving target. What I'm suggesting here is that you consider the task of writing stuff separate from the task of getting it published. Scrivener is well designed as a writing tool. It's very good at producing output which becomes input to the publishing step.

To directly answer your question, Can scrivener reliably create e-books? Absolutely. If you intend to personally distribute your e-books and PDF files to your friends or colleagues, Scrivener makes that task extremely easy.

However, if you are thinking about self publishing via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc., or via a traditional publisher (who might in turn publish to Amazon, etc.), use Scrivener for writing, and whatever the process demands for the publishing part.

EDIT:

As I re-read your question, I realized I missed a point. You ask about technical, formatting, and other hurdles. If you are self publishing via various outlets (Barnes & Noble, Amazon, etc.), each has different formatting requirements. "Doing the rounds" is a matter of continuously reformatting the completed work, fixing rejections and resubmitting, and so on. I can assure you that you will have countless technical, formatting, and other hurdles as you travel that route, but that fact has nothing to do with Scrivener.

In other words, Scrivener for Mac is straightforward and easy to use. It's designed for authors creating their works, and that's where it shines.

Here's a concrete example. One destination will require a table of contents linked a certain way, whereas another might allow it to be at the back of the document. Scrivener is not your best tool for this constant reformatting of content to meet publisher requirements. Scrivener is an excellent tool for creating the content in the first place.


Quran ebook for kindle I have been trying to find Quran ebook for my Kindle, but haven't found anything notable yet. Are there any good ebooks out there ? My preference is for Arabic text with tashkil, i.e. diacritics. Here is an example of the Arabic text with diacritics :

With for example a mobi file, you can change spacing, font style, and font size. I appreciate any recommendations.

Edit

Here is an example of two screenshots superimposed from two ebooks I have found so far (apparently I need 10+ rep to post more than two links)

The problem for the upper image is that the margin to the left is completely unnecessary, while on the right hand side and bottom, the margin is too great. At the bottom it should end right where the Arabic numeral appears. The only margin setting which allows to keep at maximum is simply not good enough for this file.

The best ebook format I have come upon is the one depicted at the bottom. Here, there is less text per page which makes the text more readable. And finally the margins are to the bare minimum (except at the bottom). I have linked to the website in the comments where I found these ebooks (as I need 10 reputation to be able to post three or more links).

Due to the nature of the content, flowable text is out of the question and thus all formats which depend on HTML and CSS in some form or another shouldn't be used.

The best choice for this use-case would be to use PDF, this would ensure the content is 'fixed'. The other limitation is that the content is not presentable using a single font, thus images have to be used; this is why fixed-layout ebook formats are not usable in this case as well.

I don't know of other ways of obtaining such a PDF file besides what you have already mentioned, so I decided to have a go at it myself with LaTeX.

Here's what I did:

1) Generate high-resolution PNG files of each page. You can use Quran.com's image generator found here. If you're on a Windows machine, you can use my fork found here.

2) Prepare a LaTeX document with settings specific to the geometry of your Kindle device.

3) Place each page image on a single PDF page and add page numbers and related footers/headers as you see fit.

I've tried creating a sample PDF with the first four pages, you can check the output in the comments (I don't have 10 reputation points yet).


My Nook Simple Touch screen is no longer responding to touch reliably. How can I fix it? Over the course of several months, my Nook Simple Touch became less and less responsive to touch. It also became more and more sensitive to temperature conditions of my fingers and the environment.

I took it to a Barnes and Noble store and they suggested I tried to warm up my hands before using it. That helped a little but it's still erratic.

How can I fix it?

Over time, grease and grime from fingers transfers to the display and can cause touch sensitivity to become erratic. Simply clean the Nook display with a water-dampened cloth and touch sensitivity will return to normal.


How to render asciidoc with latexmath macros? I am trying to compile asciidoc files that contain equations in the following format:

latexmath:[\(\mathbb{F}_p\)]

[latexmath]
++++
\begin{equation}
{K = k * G}
\end{equation}
++++

First I tried to use conventional tools like asciidoc chrome extension, but they do not recognize this syntax.
After a bit of googling I found out that I need to compile the file first to docbook xml format and then process it with dblatex to create Pdf or some other readable format.

But unfortunately this doesn't seem to work on my Ubuntu 14.04, I see a lot of errors when dblatex processes docbook files:

Error: no ID for constraint linkend: signature.
XRef to nonexistent id: signature
Error: no ID for constraint linkend: ch03_bitcoin_client.
XRef to nonexistent id: ch03_bitcoin_client

...

ch04.docbook.tex:188: Bad math environment delimiter.
ch04.docbook.tex:188: leading text: $\begin{equation}
ch04.docbook.tex:188: Undefined control sequence \+.
ch04.docbook.tex:188: leading text: $\begin{equation} {y^2 = (x^3 \+

...

What am I doing wrong?
In particular I'm interested in this file: https://github.com/aantonop/bitcoinbook/blob/develop/ch04.asciidoc

Kind of an old question, but I just figured this out myself, so just in case you don't have the answer, here goes...

For the inline equation, I was able to compile using

latexmath:[$\(\mathbb{F}_p\)$]

The second one, you don't need to use \begin{equation}.  AsciiDoc takes care of that for you.  Instead just do

[latexmath]
+++++++++++++
\{K = k * G\}
+++++++++++++

That's if you actually want the curly braces.  See here for more details.

Also, if you want to use the equation environment to have your equation numbered, you can use [latex] instead of [latexmath].

[latex]
----------------------------------
\begin{equation}
.
.
.
\end{equation}
----------------------------------


Can Kobo's drm be removed from their ebooks? Kobo books are hidden in file explorer lists and don't appear in the Calibre library when the device is connected to a PC. Is there any way of (1) making them visible and (2) removing Kobo's DRM so that the books can be read on other readers?

Yes, it can be done. But it's not exactly simple.  You start by installing the Adobe Digital Editions for PC program on your computer and downloading the "Adobe DRM Epub" to your computer, which should open it in ADE for PC.  Then comes the tricky part: install the Inept Epub DeDRM plugin for Calibre.


How to set the font sizes of two text sections to be relative to each other? I am editing an ebook, trying to mimic the original format of its text. In the book, footnotes are written in a smaller font with respect to normal text, and so are quotations; this means that a quotation inside a footnote is even smaller.

I used an inline style

text

which works well for footnote and quotations. (Actually, the directive is incorporated in their style) It work also for quotations inside footnotes, but in this case the size of the text is really small. I wouldn't want to dictate a font size; but I would like to have something like "use a font 1 pt smaller than the inherited one". Is it possible?

I eventually found out that I can use

style="font-size:90%;"

which is not exactly what I wanted but is sufficients for my needs.


Is there a way within the UI of the Kindle (Fire) to search only for books that can be borrowed? Users of Amazon Prime can borrow up to one book per month via the service.  Unfortunately, finding these titles seems to be challenging unless you happen upon one on Amazon's website.

Is there a way to specify in the settings of the device that I'd like to search for books that are available via the borrowing route?

Yes, there is a way. Note, of course, that this feature is only available from an actual Kindle device, not from a reading app on a computer, phone or tablet not sold by Amazon.

(Fwiw: I have a Kindle2, so your screen may differ from mine.)

Take the action to "Shop in Kindle Store" on your device. (On the K2, that is located in the menu that appears when you press the "menu" button.)

Under "Browse / Books" choose, "see all categories ..."

The last option on the list is "Kindle Owners' Lending Library"

Currently 494,389 titles are offered for lending (only one per month); a number of filters are available to reduce this deluge, which you can choose by selecting "View Subcategories within Owners' Lending Library".

If you search or otherwise leave the confines of the Lending Library listings, any book lacking a "Prime" designation in the listings shown on your Kindle is not available for lending.

Btw, once you've borrowed a book, you can read it in any Kindle reading app, not just the device you used when you borrowed it.


How to download & transfer from Kindle or Amazon.com to PC How can I download & transfer an eBook from Kindle or www.amazon.com to PC? I have the Kindle for PC and Kindle for Android apps. I can't find an option to do it in the apps.

For the web browser on www.amazon.com, under Account > (Manage) Your Content and Devices, clicking the Download & transfer via USB action for the eBook brings up the below prompt. The options in the drop down menu are the aforementioned apps, neither of which are selectable. Must I possess Kindle or Fire hardware to enable the download option?

The documented way is to use the Kindle PC app and download the book inside that. The file will end up on your PC and only readable in the Kindle. The current versions download the book as a .kfx file that allows Kindle apps to do more with the data. Older versions downloaded the file as a .azw file.

The USB option does need Kindle hardware. The hardware will show in the web drop down box and the file is downloaded as a .azw file to the PC.

Non DRM files can be loaded inmto apps like calibre and converted to other ebook formats.


How to add a clickable table of contents in a book bought from Amazon Kindle? The book that I bought from Amazon Kindle has thousand of pages and the table of contents is very rough; it has only links to the main chapter number (chapter 1, 2, and so on). I would like to add the pointers to chapter 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, and so on.

Question:
Is there any way to add a clickable table of contents in a book that is bought from Amazon Kindle?

If your book isn't DRM-protected or you manage to DeDRM it, you could convert it to an epub book with Calibre, regenerate the TOC from all headings and convert it back to an azw3 or kfx book. (If the original book is an azw3 book you could also directly edit it with Calibre Editor.)
Obviously, this method will only work if all headings were marked with h1..h6 tags.


Can custom fonts be embedded in mobi or epub books targeting eink readers? Assuming that I am targeting non-tablet eBook readers such as Kindle and nook, is it possible to layout a book with some text in the default font of the device and some paragraphs in a special font embedded in the book? I know some HTML5 and CSS features are supported, but is font embeding going to be widely usable or will this currently get me into a miserable mess?

I specifically do not want to override the default font family preferences of the device, only that of some text blocks so any solutions that effect the entire work would not work for me.

You can definitely embed fonts, yes. There are a few issues to watch out for when doing so, however:

You may not have a license to use the font in ebooks. The font needs to be licensed in such a way as to not just allow use, but also distribution. There are a number of open source fonts available that do permit redistribution--make sure you read the license, though, before using any of them. Many of them will also require that the license be included; it's easy enough to just throw that into the font's directory, but be sure to actually do it if the license requires it.
Many reading systems (I'm looking at you, Nook) will by default override publisher CSS and use their own instead. If you use fonts as the sole differentiator for different types of information, you'll lose that info when publisher CSS is turned off. If you're using a different font in place of bold for emphasis, consider markup up the text as <b class="exclamation"> ... </b> instead of <span class="exclamation"> ... </span>. Then you can define b.exclamation { Font-weight: normal; font-family: awesome_font; } in your CSS. That will make the text bold if publisher CSS is off, but put it in your awesome font if publisher CSS is working.


Can an EPUB 3.0 book contain two TOCs? I have a book to convert to EPUB 3.0 and want to give the reader two ways to navigate through the book (two different table of contents). Is there any way to do that?

First, we need to define our terms more precisely.

EPUB 2 uses the toc.ncx file to produce a machine-processed table of contents. It is not human readable but automatically appears in most ebook reading platforms.

EPUB 3 allows the use of toc.ncx (for back compatibility reasons) but also allows a (human readable) "navigation document", which is an  HTML5 file including  this  tag:

    <nav epub:type="toc" id="toc">

(See this example: http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/EPub_3#Navigation )

According to the latest Kindle Formatting guide and iBooksAssetGuide, Apple and Kindle both support the NAV tag in an HTML navigation document rather than using a toc.ncx

Finally, you can create a TOC MANUALLY  using simple human-readable HTML. (In the Kindle Formatting Guide, this is referred to as a "logical TOC"). This does not replace the HTML5 navigation document or the (EPUB 2 friendly) tox.ncx file.  In fact, Kindle requires a logical TOC  in addition to a navigation document. You can create as many logical TOCs as you want, but Kindle strongly requires one or more.

Using EPUB3 navigation documents (instead of toc.ncx), Kindle only supports three different guide items: cover, TOC and start reading location. iBooks is practically the same. If you do the NAV tag (i.e., the epub3 way), you do it by adding something called a LANDMARK http://www.idpf.org/epub/301/spec/epub-contentdocs.html#sec-xhtml-nav-def-types-landmarks but right now the only one it recognizes is a landmark to denote where the ebook begins. So that does not help you now. LANDMARKS are very dependent on the reading system.

However, there is another option. You could create an alternate "logical TOC" and keep this file "hidden" from the navigation document. There are two ways you can do this:

If you are using toc.ncx (the epub2 way), you would add the attribute linear="no".

<spine toc="ncx">
<itemref idref="cover" linear="no"/>
<itemref idref="htmltoc" linear="yes"/>
<itemref idref="alternate-toc" linear="no"/>
 ...

alternate-toc would not appear in the reading system's table of contents. BTW, you see that for the first itemred, linear is also NO because Amazon doesn't want it to be in the table of contents.

If you are using an HTML5 navigation document, you can do this with the "hidden" attribute

http://www.idpf.org/epub/301/spec/epub-contentdocs.html#sec-xhtml-nav-def-hidden

To summarize: you can include as many "manual TOCs" as you want (and use some methods to hide them from the ebook system's builtin TOC navigation system).

Finally I would recommend Matt Garish's book EPUB 3 Best Practices. It came out in 2013, but is still very current. It has a great section on epub3 navigation. (I just re-read it). Also, it explained how to make LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS and LIST OF TABLES which is sort of what you are looking for.


Annotating/highlighting passages spanning page boundaries I frequently highlight or otherwise annotate selections in ebooks, and I've yet to run across a reader that supports highlighting a selection that runs into the next page--usually I must create two separate annotations, which has undesirable side effects on organization of notes. I've noticed this is a limitation of every application/device I've used for years. Has any vendor implemented a feature to support this requirement? The closest thing to a solution I've found is switching from page display to "scrolling" in iBooks, which is similar to a continuous PDF mode, but I'd prefer to have this feature working in a view of pages.

My Kobo Glo, updated to the 3.12.1 firmware version, can highlight and take notes on a multiple pages basis.

Anyway, I noticed that it only does it when using Kepub files and not with standard Epub books (Kobo ereaders have two different viewing engines for standard epub and their own slightly modified kepub).

If this is acceptable to you, you can use Calibre to transfer files to the ereader, there is a plugin that can optimise them to be used with the kepub viewer.

(Also take a look at an answer that I gave to another question https://ebooks.stackexchange.com/a/4676/136 )


Is a refund for an eBook bought at Google Play possible if it has been downloaded as an ePub? When you buy an eBook at the Book Section of Google Play, you can read it in the Google Books app. The Google Play site also has the option to download a copy in ePub format. If you have downloaded a copy as a separate ePub file, can you still get a refund for the book (get the money back and have your access revoked) if you find that you don't want the book anymore? Or does Google not allow a refund if there is a change you have a file copy somewhere?

Yes, this is possible. Just now I went through exactly the process you describe in your question.


Should a shorter Kindle file have faster word look up? Word look up takes a lot of my time (because I use Kindle to learn to read foreign languages).  Various things seem to affect the speed of word look up though it is hard to be sure since so many factors are involved.

For one thing, I tried cutting one file into five equal parts and I think the separate parts have faster word look up.  But this could be wishful thinking on my part.

Does anyone know if file size should be expected to affect look up speed?

In case it matters I am using a Kindle Paperwhite.

Usually word look-up is done through what is called a index. I don't know exactly what kind of index is used in Kindles, but I know for sure that they do use one (indexing file can be found in the system folders in your Kindle).

In general, indexes are made in such a way to minimize the time required for a look-up even when dealing with a great amount of data (search engines online are an example of that). This means that the dimension of the file, in general, should NOT affect much the time required for a word look-up.

Now, considering that the elaboration power of a Kindle is not as the one of a PC, there might be a number of contingent factors that might influence the time required for a word look-up. Perhaps the two most significant ones are:

background processing (syncing with cloud, WiFi detection, etc.) that might absorb at least part of the computational power,
the way the data is stored on the local memory (Kindle main partition uses a FAT filesystem, which means that significant fragmentation is a possibility) that might influence the time required to access the index file. EDIT: this is not the case for flash drives, so this is not actually influencing performances

In order to optimize word look-up in general you might try to go off-line (in order to reduce background processing) and to defragment the memory of your Kindle. This done, the speed of word look-up should be very similar for all e-books (with a difference of maybe some milliseconds).


Can't download ebook from Amazon to my PC Just making this question in case someone encounter the same problem, I will answer it.
So I just bought an ebook for my Kindle in amazon, because some circumstances I have not WIFI available in my house as many other times, therefore I want to dowload it to my PC and transfer it to my Kindle via USB cable, as many other times.
I go to the page where you handle all your ebooks (sorry but I'm not a native english speaker, so I don't know the exact names in english version of amazon web... if you know them, you are officially invited to edit the question :), locate my new ebook, hit the "..." button, select the option to download the ebook and transfer ir via USB and select my kindle in the dropdown menu.
And nothing happens.
Seconds later, suddenly a message appear and dissappear in screen, saying something like "Download your book from My multimedia library" (again, not english native speaker), but the book doesn't get downloaded and I can't for my life find the above mentioned library.
So, I don't have the book, and it seems that the library doesn't exist.

After several hours of frustration and searching in internet (seriously, after like 3 hours), suddenly I remember the console. Hit F12 to open Chrome console and what a surprise: an error:
Mixed Content: The site at 'https://www.amazon.es/' was loaded over a secure connection, but the file
at '**HERE COMES THE DOWNLOAD URL**' was redirected through an insecure connection.
This file should be served over HTTPS. This download has been blocked. See
https://blog.chromium.org/2020/02/protecting-users-from-insecure.html for more details.

I tried to change chrome settings to no avail, so I just copied the download URL and pasted it in a new tab. It downloaded the book without a problem.
I don't really understand the problem, but yes, just copy/paste the URL and download your ebook.


How do I switch "time left" between chapter and book in the iOS Kindle App? When I read books in the iOS Kindle App, there is an indicator on the bottom that says how much time is left in the book based upon my reading speed.

How can I change this indicator to show the time left in the chapter instead?

Tap on the indicator to cycle through the options. For me (using Kindle for iPad version 4.4) it cycles through

Loc X of Y
X mins left in book
X minutes left in chapter
blank


Are book trailers necessary? I am about to start finalizing my first book, and I was wondering if I should make a book trailer to help promote it.

I'm not really into the whole production, but I just saw this video and realized, "... this is something I can do."

I have literally a ton of memory cards filled with home video related to my book subject.

My questions are: Is it a good idea, in the sense: will this typically help sales? or is this enough to establish branding for my book? If so, what is the best platform to showcase such a video?

By itself I don't think book trailers accomplish very much; they have to be coordinated with other publicity/marketing methods.

On the other hand, Amazon and Smashwords allow book trailers (with Amazon, you have to create an account on Author Central). So it gives potential readers a different kind of medium which can justify the purchase decision.

I have created one book trailer and am working on another. I have also studied other book trailers and have reached the conclusion that lowtech works best. Many of the book trailers seem way too polished and marketing-ish to convince me of anything. On the other hand, I have seen some book trailers in sci fi genre which definitely made the book more appealing to me. But sci fi is a special category, and the graphics/presentation for these book trailers were top-notch -- and expensive if you had to pay someone to do it.

In my opinion, book trailers are fairly good at building an author brand. You could just have a 2-3 minute video of the author speaking about why he/she wrote the book. If the book is nonfiction, the author could talk about what led him or her to write the book (that is always interesting). Keep in mind that viewers tend to judge authors by appearances or  manner of talk or dress.  Some degree of mystery can be good for an author.

Update: I just checked the youtube page for my 1st book trailer, and I see that in 2 years the video received 164 views. That's not a lot of payoff; on the other hand, a lot of self-help, business gurus do youtube videos to accompany their book and get a good number of hits -- especially if they are peddling practical knowledge.


Can I donate an ebook to my library's Overdrive collection? My local library uses overdrive, for ebook loans.  Can I donate an ebook I already own to them, or can I purchase an ebook specifically for my library?

No.  If your library uses overdrive you can not give them ebooks to be loaned via Overdrive.  According to the Overdrive FAQ only titles purchased from overdrive are available for library loans.

Can I add the titles I purchased from another vendor to my OverDrive collection?
Only titles purchased from OverDrive are licensed to be included in your OverDrive collection. You may upload proprietary content (e.g., lesson plans, podcasts, audio or video recordings, etc.) to your collection.

Overdrive is a subscription based service.  Each library creates it's own  custom digital collection, which is managed by the library staff.  Overdrive does not offer any services directly to library patrons so purchasing on behalf of the library is not an option.
You would need to contact your local library, you may be able to make a direct monetary donation in combination with a request to include a title in your library's collection.

Does my digital library allow patrons to access OverDrive’s entire catalog of titles?
OverDrive allows your library to create its own custom digital collection. Your team will be able to browse OverDrive’s extensive catalog of eBooks, audiobooks, music, and video and select titles based on your library’s collection development goals. Patrons will also have the opportunity to “recommend to library” the titles they would like to read that the library has not yet purchased. Ability to recommend titles varies by geographical location.


Reader interactivity in epub3/other ebook formats I was wondering if there is any feature present in EPUB3 or other e-reading formats, either via scripting or some other route, that enables the reader/user to upload audio/video/images (or link to external sources of these) on their own to an e-book (depending upon e-reader support) thus creating a unique e-book of their own ? If not, is this capability something we'll see in future versions ebooks ? From my current understanding, it looks like that it is possible to add multimedia using media overlays in epub3, but I am not sure if this is something that a reader can do as well. Using javascript it seems like it could potentially be done, that is allowing the reader to add multimedia that then becomes part of the ebook, would really like to hear people's thoughts on it. Thanks.

The epub 3.0 spec forbids scripts from changing the DOM of the document, so this will not be possible. Here's the relevant bit:

  It must not allow a container-constrained script to modify the DOM of
  the parent Content Document or other contents in the EPUB Publication,
  and must not allow it to manipulate the size of its containing
  rectangle. (Note: Even if a script is not container-constrained, the
  Reading System may impose restrictions on modifications (see also the
  dom-manipulation feature).)

This is required for security purposes. It sounds like in order to do what you're talking about, you'll need an app rather than an ebook.


Body Text Formatting and Text Indentation for Kindle eBooks I am currently creating an ePUB3 file for converting it to Kindle format, and for it be compatible to other ereading devices that support epub.

I was confused about whether Kindle allows the font style of the body text to be changed via css or not.

While reading Amazon Publishing Guidelines, Text Guideline 3.1.1 says:

  The body text in a reflowable Kindle book (fiction and non-fiction)
  must be all defaults. Amazon encourages content creators to use
  creative styles for headings, special paragraphs, footnotes, tables of
  contents, etc., but not for body text. The reason for this is that any
  styling on body text in the HTML will override the user’s preferred
  default reading settings. Users report such behavior as a poor reading
  experience.

While at the same time in Guideline 3.1.9 , it says:

  The primary or main font in a book should be set at the  level.

This seems to be a bit contradictory, the first one seem to say that we can't change the font style (I take it to include specifying font family as well), and the second one says we can, can we or can we not specify a body font ? Am I misunderstanding this in some way ?

Also, another confusion that I have is with regards to inserting indentation in paragraphs in the Kindle ebooks. The guideline concerning this goes like this in Amazon Publishing Guidelines:

  KindleGen automatically indents the first line of every paragraph by
  default. To change this behavior, use the text-indent style on the
  <p> tag.

However, when I try to change the text-indent property to my <p> tags , just to check how it works, it has no effect whatsoever on the indent on the paragraphs, what could be happening ? And even with no text-indent added, it doesn't seem like Amazon is inserting any default indentation, I mean I can't see it while previewing in Kindle Previewer.

You can certainly specify custom fonts for Kindle books; that's what section 3.1.9 is all about. Section 3.1.1 is only talking about the things that it mentions:

Forced alignment (because Amazon would rather force the ancient print relic of justified text throughout)
Body text size
Bold and italics on body text
White or black color for body text
White or black background color for body text
Oh, and customers say they like being able to change fonts, so maybe think about that before deciding to include your own fonts

The last point is the only thing that talks about choice of typeface, and it's purely advisory. Note also that  "body text" refers to the main text styling of the document, not any text that appears in the <body> of the document (which would obviously be everything).

As far as p.body {text-indent: 1.2em;} not working (that's my preferred value, anyway): I've not had that problem. If you can provide some of the relevant xhtml and css, I'd be happy to see if there are any errors I can spot. Using a CSS validator is also a great option.


I have the Kindle app on two of my Mac computers. I have the Kindle app on two computers and both computers show the same purchased  books.  I want to delete the app and its content on my oldest computer. Will the books still appear on the new computer?

Yes, the books will still appear within the Kindle app on the new computer, provided that you are signed in to your account.

I believe you can be signed in to the kindle app on up to 6 devices, removing one device will not affect the books you have purchased (you may just need to re-download them on to the new device).


Can I use Kindle to read research papers? I want to be able to read research papers and if you have ever seen one they have two columns of text per page, does the Kindle format this is a user friendly way?

Can it display any article from the web in proper formatting if you want to read it later on your Kindle rather than on your PC?

Hello and welcome to forum.

I am also mainly using kindle to read research papers. PDF files with two columns are running smoothly and fast on kindle (from the performance point of view). The problem is that, in 100% zoom level, the text is very small and somehow impossible to read. (If you want to simulate the real size of text on 100% zoom level in kindle, try to zoom out the PDF in your PC screen until it is approximately 6 inches.)

Possible solutions:

Don't forget you can make pinch and zoom to make text bigger. Zoom levels are predefined and you need to use your finder to navigate manually.
View the pdf in vertical(landscape) mode. Now the text is almost twice big and easy to read and navigate.
If you can view the full article in your browser, then you can use amazon extension, namely send to Chrome. Now you can read the text and have any deliberate zoom level. The only downside is Latex math formulas are not appearing sometimes.
Almost all academic papers are written in Latex format. You can convert the PDF to Latex then modify it to have better zoom level or even change the number of columns for kindle and then convert it back to PDF and finally send it to Kindle. For similar solutions and approaches, take a look here.
You can use wide range of other devices available with additional functionalities. I suggest to take a look at this great review.
If you can jailbreak the kindle, then you can use any sort of viewer.

Finally, if you want, send me an example and I can test it in my kindle.


how to enable landscape mode on a Kindle? Running Firmware 5.8.9.0.1 on a seventh generation Kindle.  I had landscape enabled before but can't find it now.  The paperwhite directions don't work as there's no such option.

Try the following:

Open a book.
Tap Aa.
Select Page > Orientation


Part of the screen on my reader is stuck I have a Sony PRS-T1 where a part of the screen (about 3x6 cm) in the upper left corner seems to be stuck with something previously shown and I cannot clear it:

I have tried Sony's instructions for solving similar problems including the hard reset, but it has not solved the issue. Am I completely out of luck here?

This looks like broken eInk display and I'm afraid that only display replacement can help here.
eInk displays are rather fragile and not only dropping, but something that looks not so dangerous, like putting reader without inflexible cover with paper books in same bag, can mechanically damage display (even if glass is not broken). And display is rather expensive part of reader so if ereader with eInk display is not covered by warranty (good one) replacement may be not cost effective.


Can I get an ebook from the library in the United States? I know Amazon has a program where, if you pay extra, you can borrow ebooks.  Just about everyone in the USA pays taxes to support their local Library.  Are there any programs that allow library books to be checked out, as ebooks?

I can answer in regards to the Los Angeles City public libraries, and I suspect that many libraries in the United States use the same system. They have a dedicated page explaining the e-media options available to their members.

From this page it seems that there are quite a few companies/subcontracters that they use to handle the transfer of ebooks from the library to a subscriber's account/ereader  - Axis360, Overdrive and Hoopla, for example.

There are more options listed on their e-media page, as well as links to other free, public resources like Project Gutenberg, Bartleby, and the Alex catalog of public texts that don't require LAPL membership.


Is there a Linux distro geared to ebook users? Is there a Linux distro that includes specialized tools for ebook authors and readers?

Greenie is an Lubuntu spin that works with standard Ubuntu repositories.

It comes with a set of pre-installed apps for ebook readers and authors, including:

GWrite: Simple GTK+ HTML5 Rich Text Editor
PDF Mod: Remove, extract, rotate pages
Sigil: ePub file editor
E-book Viewer
FBReader
Calibre

The default language is Slovak, but experienced linux users will have no trouble installing Greenie and switching the installation and system language to English (or any other language).

After installation, you will still need to use Keyboard Input Methods to switch the keyboard to your preferred language. I also had to add the Mozilla English add-on for browser spell-checking.

Windows users can try a linux distro in a live session without changing their hard drive.

If you have never installed a linux distro before, you can find lots of answers at AskUbuntu that apply to any Ubuntu-based distro about how to burn an iso to disk or usb and how to do an installation.

(But please note that Ubuntu-based installations such as Greenie are off-topic as such at AskUbuntu.)

When you boot Greenie, the first option translates to Try Greenie without Installing, the second to Install Greenie.

The easiest way to switch the language for experimenting with the live distro is to:

Choose the 2nd option to install
Choose your language in the next screen
Cancel the installation

This will drop you into the Try without Installing option, but with your preferred language as the system language.

You can then change the keyboard from Menu >> Preferences >> Keyboard Input Methods.

(I have no connection to the Greenie project.)


How do I reverse an epub that turns right to left? I have an epub book that turns its pages right to left. The text is still left to right, but I press ← in iBooks to turn to the second page from the first, etc. My other epubs function normally. How can I reverse the order of the pages?

This might not apply in your case, but my response was getting too long for comments.

If you have an epub3 and you have access to the files, you can set the page progression direction.

If you look here at the section titled Global Direction you'll see that you can set the direction globally in content.opf:

<spine toc="..." page-progression-direction="rtl">

In your case, you would want to use the opposite, "ltr". The next section Content Direction shows how to set the direction for individual html files:

<html dir="rtl"
   ...
</html>

I can't really say why iBooks is rendering this particular epub with rtl page direction, but there is this note in the Global Directions paragraph:

  There is no default value when this attribute is omitted; the reading system will render the content in whatever is its default manner.


Kindle app takes up entire screen on windows 10 and I don't know how to get out of it I just downloaded the Kindle app for my Windows 10 PC. When I open a book, the app takes up the entire screen. I can't see any of my other apps, and I can't figure out how to close Kindle or switch to another app. If I hit ESC, it does nothing. The only way I can get out of the book is to hit the Windows key on my keyboard, but this doesn't seem like a useful solution.

If you're in full screen on Windows 10 and on a touchscreen device (2-in-1 devices) and detachable keyboard, you just touch the bottom middle of the page and a menu appears. Touch the X and you're out of full screen.


Scaling all pages in a PDF or DJVU file to the same size I have a couple of PDFs and DJVU documents that I want to read on an ereader (namely, Kobo Touch). However, the size of the pages differ, between cover and actual content, and even between two different content pages, and what my ereader does is use the size of the first page as the "template" for the viewport size for all my documents. It means that if the first page is smaller, it will display only a small part of the next (bigger) pages, corresponding to the size of the first page. If the first pages is larger, then the other smaller pages will be tiny on a corner of the screen.

In other words, how can I scale all pages in a PDF/DJVU document to the same size (preferably the largest size among the pages in the document)?

PS: The files are mainly scanned scientific papers, in DJVU format, though I have to convert them to PDF in order to read them in my ereader.

There is a program called jPdftweak which will let you scale pdf pages to whatever size you would want. You can set the parameters for the conversion to the larger page size and jPdftweak will scale all the pages in the file in accordance with the settings you have made. jPdftweak is a cross-platform, free Java program.


What is the best tool for Amazon Kindle book publishing? What is the best tool for Amazon Kindle book publishing?

I'm going to give the easiest answer -- though learning it can be hard.

Adobe Indesign lets you produce both pdfs and epub files (to convert into kindles).

If you want to do everything in one tool, then Indesign is your solution. (They charge a monthly fee for renting the software which is quite reasonable). Then you can convert the epub file to kindle .mobi file by using the Kindle Previewer.

Another solution is to pay a formatter or a publishing company to produce the book. Surprisingly, it is not particularly expensive (you can probably pay about $250-$500 for the job -- possibly less; I should know because that's the work I do). If you're not comfortable with technical stuff, paying for that might be easier.

Some more ebook options are discussed in the "Amazon Kindle Publishing Guidelines" (Version 2015.4) (For some reason, the URL is always changing; you may have to hunt a while on amazon.com to find it).

Finally there are several tools that I have not mentioned. For example, you can use MS Word to print a pretty awesome printed book. I have done this before using the MS templates specifically for books. (After googling  "book MS Word template" I found a great template from one book designer for less than $50-- it looked great).

For producing epubs, you can use calibre or sigil or something similar.

The key thing is downloading the Kindle Previewer program from the Amazon site to convert from epub to .mobi

I'm making the production process sound a lot easier than it really is. For example, testing and quality control is quite complicated and time-consuming. But this is the basic information you need.


sharing books on kindle is not allowed The loaning of books option is not allowed on all amazon sites. It seems like it is allowed only on the US site. I could not fin this restriction on their loan books documentation. Why is their such a restriction based on countries?

According to this site This is due to geographical restrictions the Editor can impose into a book. BTW, this option is enabled in the Mexico site so it's not only on the US.


How to create plain text flashcards for the Kindle? Amazon for the Mac can create flashcards:

Amazon Device Support › Kindle for Mac › Read Books›

Read with Flashcards

Flashcards are note cards created for select content on Kindle for Mac, which include a word and definition. You can use them to test your memory of key terms and concepts.

• Access Flashcards: ◦ While reading, click on the Flashcards  icon, located on the left side of the screen.

• Create Flashcards Decks: ◦ While reading click on the X-Ray  or Notebook  icon, and select the Export to Flashcards  icon. Add a name for the Flashcards Deck and click OK to create a new entry.
◦ While reading click on the Flashcards  icon and click on the plus icon at the top to create a new deck.

• Edit Flashcards: ◦ Click on Edit Deck at the lower right corner of the screen, select a section and make your changes, and then select Done. Click on Flip Sides to reverse the order of the information on your Flashcard.
◦ To delete a Flashcard, click on Edit Deck and then click on Delete Card and select OK.

• Use Flashcards ◦ While reading, click on the Flashcard  icon and then select the set you want to use. Click on a card to read the other side.
◦ To shuffle your set, click on the Shuffle icon.
◦ To restart your set, click on the Refresh icon.

But how can I do something like that from Windows or Linux?  Perhaps even typing in manually on the Kindle itself...

Yes,Windows now has this feature.

For a nicely detailed look, see:
 https://www.digitalcitizen.life/how-use-kindle-app-windows-read-ebooks?page=1


Clean up converted ebook I have some ebooks which are converted from other formats to ePub. Some are ill-formatted: there are hard line breaks in words and orphaned page numbers between paragraphs.

Example:

How can I repair these ebooks? Do I have to open and edit the source files, or is there a better way?

I use Calibre on Windows to organize the ebooks, if that matters, but I am not bound to that program, and I can use Linux too.

Somehow I missed that … thanks to Donald.McLean’s answer, I found it.

In the ePub editor, I hit Ctrl+F, and a search & replace tool showed up at the bottom:

I have used the regex mode and the following patterns:

-
\n
]*> replaced with nothing to remove paragraph breaks within words. I hit Replace all here.
\s
\n
]*> replaced with a single space to remove paragraph breaks within sentences. This had to be done manually, unfortunately, because there were some spaces at the end of lines which should stay separated.
\n
]*>\d+
 replaced with nothing to remove orphaned page numbers. Replace all again.

I have also installed, but not yet tested, the plugin Modify ePub by Grant Drake. It offers some automated tasks:


How do I get permission to use pictures in my ebook? My first ebook contains a few historic pictures that are not marked for commercial re-use.

a) What should I do to get permission to use the pictures?

b) What price is appropriate?

c) Sometimes I can not find out who the owner of the rights on the pictures is.

To get permission, you need to contact the rights-holder. Unless it is unequivocally licensed for reuse by the original rights holder or in the public domain, you can't just use it. Note that just using Google image search to find images marked for reuse is not sufficient—anyone can post images to the web, and frequently people post images they don't have rights to. If you cannot find the rights-holder, then you cannot use the image.

Price will be subject to negotiation—ultimately, it's the rights-holder's call what they think they can get.


how to convert markdown with sub-markdowns to ebook main.md contain sub-mds:

main.md

1. [1 - ](1.md)
1. [2 - ](2.md)
1. [3 - ](3.md)
1. [4 - ](4.md)
1. [5 - ](5.md)
1. [6 - ](6.md)

I use calibre command:

ebook-convert main.md main.epub

But only the content of main.md is wrote to epub.

I found two things.

For me the link has to be written '( ./6.md )' with a space before and after the file specification.

Then I found the ebook-convert app wants html files for inputs.
It complains that the inputs are "binary"


What does the blue circle with the underlined check mark mean in GPB? What does the blue circle on the right of my book list indicate in Google Play Books? You see the first book in the image below expresses this icon which described verbally is a blue circle with an underlined check mark in white font. The other books appear greyed out too, what does that indicate as well? I've also noticed other books not greyed out that do not have the blue circle.

The checkmark in the blue circle means that this book has been downloaded to your device (if you'll notice, it's the same icon as the download notification in the top left).

The books without the checkmark are ones that you have purchased (or uploaded) and are available for download. The reason that they're currently grayed out is that you're not currently online, so you can't access those books until you get an internet connection.


Does conversion between filetypes always break formatting in ebooks? Do different file types of ebooks have different formatting parameters? It looks like many of my ebooks layout came from the Soviet Union or from a typewriter that has no options. It would be really nice to have a more aesthetic look.

Different authors spend different amount of time getting the formatting right. Also, support for various formatting changes over time. I formatted some things in 2011 which were the best available technology at the time, but wouldn't look good on today's kindles. (I'm redoing one such book at the moment).

One of the problems is that ebook conversions are usually seen as afterthoughts after the print version comes out.

My rules of thumb:

PDFs to anything generally sucks
EPUB to Kindle does not suck anymore (via Kindle Previewer (kindlegen)) -- especially if the CSS were done right.
MS Word to epub (via Calibre) does not suck as long as headers are consistently styled and you are not using a lot of invisible formatting (i.e., hard carriage returns, manual centering etc).
Ebooks with images are hard to convert well.
MS Word to PDF generally does not suck (unless you think of PDF as inherently a sucky/inflexible format).
Encoding errors are a frequent problem when converting from one format to another. They are also easy to miss during proofing.

One other thought. Some lesser known reading systems  don't support much publisher formatting but impose their own default css on the ebook -- and give users the option to override publisher settings. You need to make sure you're viewing it in ibooks or google play books, adobe Digital Editions or possibly kindle app.


I have a printed version of a book does it allow me to possess an electronic copy? I have a printed version (i.e. a hardback or paperback) of a book and I wonder whether this allows me to possess an electronic version of it (e.g. .pdf file).

Edit: Isn't it allowed by the clause 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use., which says

  Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use
  of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or
  phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for
  purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching
  (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or
  research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether
  the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the
  factors to be considered shall include—

  (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use
  is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

  (2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

  (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to
  the copyrighted work as a whole; and

  (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of
  the copyrighted work.

  The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of
  fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above
  factors.

?

Just like buying a hardcover version doesn't let you also take a paperback from the store, no, having a print version does not entitle you to a complimentary ebook version, though some publishers will offer that when you buy from their websites.


Is it possible to sell PDF as Kindle books on Amazon? I have a book that has a fixed layout, so it's not really easy to transfer it to ePub format (no one can manage to do that).  I'm thinking of selling it as a PDF.

Is it possible to sell it as a Kindle book if it's just a PDF file?

No, Amazon does not sell PDFs on their site. If you submit a PDF to them via KDP, it will be auto-converted to mobi format for sale to Kindles. (As an aside, the fact that no major retailers sell PDFs in their stores is my primary argument for not calling PDFs "ebooks").


google ebooks from linux to ereader I am considering a ereader (nook) where I can read my ebooks downloaded from google-play books.

Only problem is when I download .epub from Google Play Store, I actually get an .acsm file, not .epub, and Google Help says I need Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) to convert.

I can probably do that with wine + ADE, but I don't think I can transfer it to nook as wine do not support USB (as far as my last experience and I haven't use wine for years).

Given this scenario, is there any other way to get Google e-books on my nook?

NB: I haven't bought my ereader yet, just exploring; but one of the criteria is to be able to read Google books in my ereader and do it within linux.

Any suggestion please?

For Linux you need to run ADE in Vine. On this page there is a pdf and a video that I made for my library on using ebooks via ADE for Linux users. FWIW, I had trouble getting ADE to detect ereaders on Linux ( ubuntu). Your mileage may vary. Good hunting!


What kind of k2pdfopt optimizations should I be using for these sample pages of a PDF? I have a bunch of PDF files that follow this kind of layout:

When I use k2pdfopt with options -dev kp3 -fc -j -1 -jf -1 0.75 -n- -wrap -hy -ws -0.2, I get this:

As you can see the text gets mangled when I go for 'fit to single column'. Am doing this so I can easily read the matter on Kindle. Looking at the original PDF screenshots, what options should I be using for optimal kindle reading pdf to be generated?

I have access to a jailbroken Kindle Paperwhite (PW3) and Mac OS X. No Windows.

Since this source has notes in the margins, use the -nl and -nr options.  For this example, like so:

k2pdfopt -nl2e- -nr3o- source.pdf -o converted.pdf


No progress report display The progress report display has disappeared from my Kindle Paperwhite screen. I have tried tapping on the bottom left corner of the screen, as suggested in other posts, but it just turns the page. Is there any other way of re-starting the progress report display?

Open the top bar, as if to go back to the home page from within your book.

Tap Page Display menu, then select Font & Page Settings. You can control the progress from the reading tab of the dialog that will come up.