Calibre Settings for Paperwhite

[RedReadbot]

I am new to the Kindle world. I've been using Calibre to manage and convert ebooks. Are there any settings I should adjust, or are the defaults fine? I've noticed Calibre converts to .mobi for the Paperwhite. Should I use .azw instead?

[Kolenka]

I use KF8/AZW3 myself. But more because I come from devices that are ePub. Mobi has better support in the Personal Document Service that Amazon offers.

The Kindle will read both, and you can use what you like.

[rashkae]

I've made the following changes, which I think work very well.;

Preferences -> Plugins -> Device Interface Plugins -> Kindle 2/3/4/Touch/Paperwhite Device Interface

Click customize Plugin button

Make sure azw3 is checked, and move it to the top of the list with the up arrow, so it becomes the prefered format. (azw3 is amazon KF8 format, wheras .mobi can be either or.)

Optional: I've actually unchecked mobi for my kindle, since I want Calibre to convert any mobi to KF8. Amazon has made many improvements to the KF8 reading software over the old mobi/prc. and a KF8 file will work better. In particular, page turns are much faster (especially turn page backwards which is painfully slow on movie files) and images can be opened/zoomed in image viewer.

[NullNix]

Originally Posted by rashkae

Amazon has made many improvements to the KF8 reading software over the old mobi/prc.

Really? What are they? The line spacing is smaller, the font sizes are all gratuitously different (making for a disruptive reading experience if you have both KF8 and MOBI books on your device), it *still* can't hyphenate, it somehow manages to be laggier than the Java-based mobi reader (fairly frequently missing page-turns or mixing multiple together, even on a K4 with its hardware page-turn buttons), and publishers can foolishly choose to jam in their chosen (pig-ugly) font and prevent you from changing it to the one you prefer for all your other books. Oh, and the file sizes are larger. None of these things seem at all positive to me.

I mean, if they were rewriting the reading app in a different language they could at least have added hyphenation too. It's not like hyphenation in C hasn't been a solved problem for thirty-odd years at this point.

I hope they at least left the ability to run JavaScript out: I was astonished when ePub added that, has nobody learned anything about the dangers of adding interpreters that can run arbitrary code in totally unexpected places?

[rashkae]

Originally Posted by NullNix

Really? What are they? The line spacing is smaller,

Line spacing minimum is 1.2, (try to make line spacing smaller, the Kindle just ignores it.) strangely enough 1.2 line spacing looks the same as the mobi books to me.

he font sizes are all gratuitously different

Font size of 1 em looks the same as the standard Mobie font. Of course, some publishers like to use a different font size. If you don't want to fiddle with font size, and happen to be converting with Calibre and default settings, the main text body font will be scaled to be 1 em, however.

(making for a disruptive reading experience if you have both KF8 and MOBI books on your device), it *still* can't hyphenate, it somehow manages to be laggier than the Java-based mobi reader (fairly frequently missing page-turns or mixing multiple together, even on a K4 with its hardware page-turn buttons),

Can't comment on this, never experienced this problem. Quite the oppsite, actually.

and publishers can foolishly choose to jam in their chosen (pig-ugly) font and prevent you from changing it to the one you prefer for all your other books.

Last time I checked, Kindle defaults to using the font selected in preferneces, and you actually have to change to "Publisher Font" to see otherwise. Are we even talking about the same device(s) here?

Oh, and the file sizes are larger. None of these things seem at all positive to me.

Err, no, actually, AZW3 is actually much smaller, since it is a zipped format, like Epub. You are perhaps thinking of a .mobi that includes both KF6 *and* KF8 (often with the source epub as well.), which would, indeed, make that file much larger. If you actually read my post however, this is not what I was suggesting.