Epubs to Kindle

[Inquisitive_Ram]

I use standard e-books to download epubs and send to kindle using the 'send-to-kindle' function. I do this because it's convenient to have the book in the cloud and because I occasionally read on my phone if I don't have my kindle to hand and I like the fact the page read syncs across devices

I note that standard e-books says that I should really download the azw3 file and side-load it to kindle to preserve formatting. I confess I can't tell any difference whatsoever between sideloading an azw3 and sending an epub to kindle (which then converts it)

As I'm happy with my process, that's fine. But I am just curious. Can anyone tell the difference?

[arturg]

Amazon seems to handle conversion quite nicely, don't have any issue with that either. Iäm just happy that since I started using send-to-kindle, I haven't had the need to use my laptop and cables in order to get books on my and my wife's Kindles.

[Frogm4n]

Originally Posted by Inquisitive_Ram

I note that standard e-books says that I should really download the azw3 file and side-load it to kindle to preserve formatting. I confess I can't tell any difference whatsoever between sideloading an azw3 and sending an epub to kindle (which then converts it)

They just keep that as a warning that when you use StK you are not getting the exact file you got from Standard Ebooks, so they can't have any guarantee that the formatting and whatnot hasn't been changed. If you aren't extremely picky about formatting then you probably won't notice or care.

https://standardebooks.org/help/how-...ks#kindle-epub

[DNSB]

I've seen minor changes in formatting since Standard Ebooks does not encumber their ePubs with the media queries needed to maintain more or less consistent formatting across multiple platforms. I haven't seen a formatting changes that would cause me to regard the ebook as being totally unreadable for the average reader when sent as azw3/KF8.

[JSWolf]

The problem with Standard eBooks is they use convoluted code that does not work in some cases. If they used simple code for the simple formats of these eBooks, then everything would work and look either the same or very close.

I have taken one of their eBooks and simplified the code and it cut out a lot of the useless code.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The problem with Standard eBooks is they use convoluted code that does not work in some cases. If they used simple code for the simple formats of these eBooks, then everything would work and look either the same or very close.

I have taken one of their eBooks and simplified the code and it cut out a lot of the useless code.

Yes, I had an issue converting one of their books too (I think I picked Advanced epub, which I took to be ePub3). I don't remember how I fixed it.

It's shameful that they blame Amazon for conversion issues with Send To Kindle, which handles ePub from other sources very well. They should clean up their code and verify themselves with Kindle Previewer. Once they do it for one, they can update everything and everybody will be happy, they can stop wasting their time generating AZW3 and thumbnails.

AZW3 just looks comparatively bad IMO, you can no longer add these to your Kindle (cloud) library, and one might ask how they are creating AZW3, presumably those also includes their useless code.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by tomsem

Yes, I had an issue converting one of their books too (I think I picked Advanced epub, which I took to be ePub3). I don't remember how I fixed it.

It's shameful that they blame Amazon for conversion issues with Send To Kindle, which handles ePub from other sources very well. They should clean up their code and verify themselves with Kindle Previewer. Once they do it for one, they can update everything and everybody will be happy, they can stop wasting their time generating AZW3 and thumbnails.

AZW3 just looks comparatively bad IMO, you can no longer add these to your Kindle (cloud) library, and one might ask how they are creating AZW3, presumably that also includes their useless code.

I don't understand why they feel the need to use code that's too convoluted and doesn't work in a lot of cases. The format for these eBooks is very simple. They could make one very simple ePub 3. That would work for most ePub. Then that could be the source for other formats. Problem solved.

I even told them what they needed to do so their ePub worked with RMSDK on a Kobo and they refused to fix it. It was a very simple fix to remove a media query they didn't need.

[Frogm4n]

Originally Posted by tomsem

AZW3 just looks comparatively bad IMO, you can no longer add these to your Kindle (cloud) library, and one might ask how they are creating AZW3, presumably those also includes their useless code.

Could you add it before? IIRC they only accepted MOBI before. Then they added EPUB and deprecated MOBI. The only way to get AZW3 was to rename the file with a .txt extension and fool the upload service because it didn't look at the actual file.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by Frogm4n

Could you add it before? IIRC they only accepted MOBI before. Then they added EPUB and deprecated MOBI. The only way to get AZW3 was to rename the file with a .txt extension and fool the upload service because it didn't look at the actual file.

I didn't know there was a workaround, but presumably that is gone now. It was only ever intended as a side load format, which is all the more reason it's kind of insulting for SB to provide these instead of making sure their ePubs convert without issues (which is a straightforward task). People that want to side load can do their own conversion with calibre (either to AZW3 or KFX).

Instead they say 'complain to Amazon'.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by tomsem

Yes, I had an issue converting one of their books too (I think I picked Advanced epub, which I took to be ePub3). I don't remember how I fixed it.

It's shameful that they blame Amazon for conversion issues with Send To Kindle, which handles ePub from other sources very well. They should clean up their code and verify themselves with Kindle Previewer. Once they do it for one, they can update everything and everybody will be happy, they can stop wasting their time generating AZW3 and thumbnails.

AZW3 just looks comparatively bad IMO, you can no longer add these to your Kindle (cloud) library, and one might ask how they are creating AZW3, presumably those also includes their useless code.

Interesting. They supply an azw3 version for those who have Kindle ereaders/apps but you complain that they do not test their ePubs which pass epubcheck which means that they are ePub compliant, for conversion by Amazon Send to Kindle service. Might I be insulting and ask why you are not complaining about Amazon's StK not accepting azw3 books? Why you seem to feel that a company that supplies an Amazon compatible version should also ensuring that you can send any of their 3 ePub versions to StK? Their azw3 readme has a couple of spots to click to complain to Amazon about Amazon's bugs. Did you click on any of them?

As for comparing their ePub to their azw3 ebooks? At one time I downloaded 5 ebooks in 4 formats. The ebooks were (At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft, The Head of Kay's by P. G. Wodehouse, Search the Sky by Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth, King Coal by Upton Sinclair & Space Viking by H. Beam Piper. The main reason for choosing those 5 ebooks was that I already had ePub versions.

I compared the 3 epub formats (compatible ePub using RMSDK and kepub and advanced ePub using the WebKit based renderer on my Kobo, all three with Books on a Mac and iPad) with the azw3 versions being tested as the downloaded azw3 and an azw3 extracted from the dual mobi generated by Kindle Previewer 3 from the compatible ePub and tested on a Kindle Paperwhite 10th gen.

Other than expected differences between the RMSDK and WebKit based renderers on the Kobo Clara HD, there were really not that much of a difference between any of the five versions (the Clara HD was used since it has a 6" screen matching the Paperwhite 10th gen. screen size). The Mac and Ipad had larger screens.

If I had to grumble, I would complain that neither the kepub nor the advanced epub versions include a toc.ncx but since all ePub versions I downloaded were ePub 3, a toc.ncx is an option for those still using a ePub2 renderer.

A few other items are that since the contents document in the .azw3 files shows a calibre identifier, I suspect they are using calibre to convert ePub to .azw3 and the advanced ePub version as they make clear uses some features that few renderers currently support. Kobo using the WebKit based renderer and iBooks come close but Thorium was the best of breed so far in my testing.

Renderers that are able to handle code such as the one below are not all that common:

section[epub|type~="copyright-page"] blockquote p span{
	display: block;
	padding-left: 1em;
	text-indent: -1em;
}

Since you mentioned downloading the "Advanced epub" version. are we to assume that you did read "Advanced epub — An advanced format that uses the latest technology not yet fully supported by most ereaders." and simply decided that a Kindle ereader could deal with those features?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by tomsem

I didn't know there was a workaround, but presumably that is gone now. It was only ever intended as a side load format, which is all the more reason it's kind of insulting for SB to provide these instead of making sure their ePubs convert without issues (which is a straightforward task). People that want to side load can do their own conversion with calibre (either to AZW3 or KFX).

Instead they say 'complain to Amazon'.

Does Standard Ebooks run the Send to Kindle service? Should they be responsible for any of the glitches that Send to Kindle can and has caused?

And could you please translate your "It was only ever intended as a side load format, which is all the more reason it's kind of insulting for SB to provide these instead of making sure their ePubs convert without issues" into something humanly understandable? Standard Ebooks offers .azw3 to sideload to your Kindle which you specifically state is that format's only intended purpose and then complain that Standard Ebooks should be responsible for making sure their ePubs (also downloaded for sideloading) are not going to be munged by Send to Kindle. Pull one of the other ones, bucko! It's got bells!

Perhaps you should look at the CSS generated by Vellum in it's attempt to cover all the multitudinous variations of mobi and KF8/azw3 that Amazon Desktop Publishing can spit out? A CSS stylesheet with 800+ lines of media queries which is close to double the number of lines in the main stylesheet trying to compensate for the limitations of Amazon's ebook formats.

[Frogm4n]

Originally Posted by DNSB

A few other items are that since the contents document in the .azw3 files shows a calibre identifier, I suspect they are using calibre to convert ePub to .azw3 and the advanced ePub version as they make clear uses some features that few renderers currently support.

They do list calibre as a dependency when installing their development toolset. I'm sure you're right that they use it for conversions but I haven't looked at the code itself to see where it gets called and what any specific configs they might use with it.

https://github.com/standardebooks/to...e#installation

[tomsem]

AZW3 is explicitly for side-loading, e.g. with Download for Transfer via USB from your Amazon account. Amazon never explicitly supported it for Send To Kindle (except as was pointed out when you were able to fool Send To Kindle by renaming with .txt extension, and just as .epub was supported by using .zip extension).

Dual format Mobi was fully supported for Send To Kindle, until it wasn't, and that is what most third party content providers supplied for Kindle users (some, like Gutenberg, still do). It has all the same features as AZW3.

It's true that AZW3 has been reverse engineered so other eReaders can read it directly, and it can be generated somehow by the likes of SB (using calibre apparently).

But SB knows very well that AZW3 is incompatible with Send To Kindle, that it doesn't support advanced typography features, and that Kindle customers cannot add these to their Amazon cloud storage as is.

Instead they discourage Kindle people from even trying the ePub (which they explicitly say is for 'All devices and apps except Kindles and Kobos') and make it sound like AZW3 is going to give the best results, when functionally that is just not the case. You need an epub file to get the best functional results, via Send To Kindle.

It is not rocket science to do some minimal testing with an actual Kindle and Kindle Previewer and Send To Kindle as a sanity check. Even running it through ePubcheck would probably suffice. I assume their CSS and HTML markup is consistent for all titles so they only need to do this once.

If they ever want donations from Kindle users they would make sure the ePub works okay and announce 'we have made sure our ePubs convert well with Send to Kindle' and get rid of the AZW3 option altogether.

It just seems lazy and short-sighted.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by tomsem

AZW3 is explicitly for side-loading, e.g. with Download for Transfer via USB from your Amazon account. Amazon never explicitly supported it for Send To Kindle (except as was pointed out when you were able to fool Send To Kindle by renaming with .txt extension, and just as .epub was supported by using .zip extension).

That statement that azw3 was only intended for sideloading seems more than a bit off in light of the sheer number of azw3 format ebooks that Amazon has synced to it's ereaders. You do remember when the choice of ebook formats sent to your ereader was mobi or KF8/azw3? You remember the fuss when in January, 2023, the K4PC and K4Mac apps dropped downloading .azw3 in favour of KFX? It's been less than 16 months, after all.

Originally Posted by tomsem

But SB knows very well that AZW3 is incompatible with Send To Kindle, that it doesn't support advanced typography features, and that Kindle customers cannot add these to their Amazon cloud storage as is.

Instead they discourage Kindle people from even trying the ePub (which they explicitly say is for 'All devices and apps except Kindles and Kobos') and make it sound like AZW3 is going to give the best results, when functionally that is just not the case. You need an epub file to get the best functional results, via Send To Kindle.

It is not rocket science to do some minimal testing with an actual Kindle and Kindle Previewer and Send To Kindle as a sanity check. Even running it through ePubcheck would probably suffice. I assume their CSS and HTML markup is consistent for all titles so they only need to do this once.

If they ever want donations from Kindle users they would make sure the ePub works okay and announce 'we have made sure our ePubs convert well with Send to Kindle' and get rid of the AZW3 option altogether.

It just seems lazy and short-sighted.

I still fail to see why you seem to feel entitled to having Standard Ebooks spend the time and effort to add the media queries to their ePub ebooks to make them compatible with Send to Kindle. Does the term 'Karen' hold any meaning for you? Are you offering to fund the ongoing effort that this will take? Or are you going to sideload their azw3 version?

As for SB saying that their ePubs are not intended for use with Kindles and Kobos? That is their privilege. If you don't like it, you can download the ePub from Gutenberg or other PD book supplier, spend the effort to edit it to make it compatible with StK and then send it to StK.

As for your unbounded love for KFX? To me as a person who is used to the flexibility of ePub, KFX with it's limitations is a non-starter.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by DNSB

That statement that azw3 was only intended for sideloading seems more than a bit off in light of the sheer number of azw3 format ebooks that Amazon has synced to it's ereaders. You do remember when the choice of ebook formats sent to your ereader was mobi or KF8/azw3? You remember the fuss when in January, 2023, the K4PC and K4Mac apps dropped downloading .azw3 in favour of KFX? It's been less than 16 months, after all.

KFX has been the direct download format ever since they introduced 'enhanced typography'. That includes the apps. It was possible to prevent the PC/Mac apps from downloading KFX but that was just a lucky thing for people that wanted to remove DRM more easily.

There are still some books that have never been 'upgraded' and still use older formats (Topaz even).

I still fail to see why you seem to feel entitled to having Standard Ebooks spend the time and effort to add the media queries to their ePub ebooks to make them compatible with Send to Kindle. Does the term 'Karen' hold any meaning for you? Are you offering to fund the ongoing effort that this will take? Or are you going to sideload their azw3 version?

As for SB saying that their ePubs are not intended for use with Kindles and Kobos? That is their privilege. If you don't like it, you can download the ePub from Gutenberg or other PD book supplier, spend the effort to edit it to make it compatible with StK and then send it to StK.

As for your unbounded love for KFX? To me as a person who is used to the flexibility of ePub, KFX with it's limitations is a non-starter.

KFX is functionally the best format to use on Kindle platform, period. "When in Rome".

I do not side load to Kindles at all, and deal with AZW3 only because I buy books mostly from Amazon and I download that format and have calibre convert to ePub so I can read with non Amazon devices and apps (which I do).

Except for experimentation, I don't convert to or from KFX. ePub and PDF are the 'formats of record', not AZW3 or KFX. If I get a book in epub, I let Amazon convert it to KFX for reading on Kindle platform.

So SB is wasting their time and effort providing AZW3 as far as I'm concerned. Perhaps that aligns with the preference of the Kindle people using their service. I have no way to know.

As far as I can tell, the 'compatible epub' versions look perfectly fine when they are fed to Send To Kindle for conversion (I haven't found any with footnotes to see if they popup). They don't actually need to do anything other than change the wording on their web site. If they want to hedge their bets, they could say 'should work, but don't blame us if it does not'.

If they got rid of AZW3, they could direct Kindle owners to download 'compatible' epub and use Send to Kindle, or convert to Kindle format with calibre.