What's Better? AZW3 or KFX

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by MrSlow&Steady

So far they’re the only Library Genesis books I know of with that problem. I’m thinking of deleting them, downloading ePubs, and maybe convert them to AZW3 on Calibre to see if it’s fixed.

BTW, I would strongly suggest not telling the world that you are downloading books from Library Genesis. For various reasons including not want to get taken to court, Mobileread frowns on ebook piracy.

[MrSlow&Steady]

Originally Posted by DNSB

BTW, I would strongly suggest not telling the world that you are downloading books from Library Genesis. For various reasons including not want to get taken to court, Mobileread frowns on ebook piracy.

That is fair, was not aware of it. Thank you for telling me.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by MrSlow&Steady

Yeah that’s why I’m kind of skeptical about KFX files. AZW3 looks like my best bet for now.

You can even have multiple copies of the same format eBook on your Kindle if both copies have a different file name. Let's say you make a change to the author name, when you send the eBook to your Kindle, the filename will be different and you'll then have two copies of the same eBook.

However, if you do make changes to the eBook and when you send it you end up with two copies, you just delete the first copy before you eject your Kindle. I've done that before on my Kobo. So when I've ended up with two copies, I just delete the original one before I eject.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by MrSlow&Steady

That is fair, was not aware of it. Thank you for telling me.

Nobody here will help you with pirated eBooks.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by MrSlow&Steady

Based on what you guys said KFX sounds like a scam then, right?

Almost but not quite. KFX is designed to move some of the very hard formatting decisions into the conversion process instead of the rendering process.

I've never experimented with it enough to find out if it succeeds in this.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by DNSB

BTW, I would strongly suggest not telling the world that you are downloading books from Library Genesis. For various reasons including not want to get taken to court, Mobileread frowns on ebook piracy.

There is a court judgement against them with about a $36M fine. Absolute immoral parasites cheating authors. Most authors hardly make a living wage. Rich ones are about 0.1% of published authors.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by MrSlow&Steady

Based on what you guys said KFX sounds like a scam then, right?

No, it's not.
Advantages for reader: Able to start reading while Whispernet downloading. Really only an advantage for Apps on Mobile/Cell connection or few Kindles with cell modems. Also in theory better rendering.

Advantages for Amazon: More control of over DRM, apps and ereader. Maybe slightly lower cost Whispernet via Cell/Mobile delivery. Does print replica differently to older formats. Also them to create a "walled garden" for the extra features on the Scribe, which also disqualifies it from business use (privacy issues and need to use internet & Amazon servers to load content and export annotations / notes from Scribe. Maybe this is why sales of Scribe are falling badly.


Since no-one can upload KFX for publishing, the formatting claims vs azw3 rendering are moot. The "Enhanced Typesetting" could be equally done with a revised azw3 renderer. Of course the upload workflow isn't the same for big publishers vs KDP used by self publishing and smaller publishers.

AZW3 is certainly good enough for novels / fiction and hugely better than old mobi, which was already obsolete when Amazon released 1st kindle in 2007.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

No, it's not.
Advantages for reader: Able to start reading while Whispernet downloading. Really only an advantage for Apps on Mobile/Cell connection or few Kindles with cell modems. Also in theory better rendering.

Advantages for Amazon: More control of over DRM, apps and ereader. Maybe slightly lower cost Whispernet via Cell/Mobile delivery. Does print replica differently to older formats. Also them to create a "walled garden" for the extra features on the Scribe, which also disqualifies it from business use (privacy issues and need to use internet & Amazon servers to load content and export annotations / notes from Scribe. Maybe this is why sales of Scribe are falling badly.


Since no-one can upload KFX for publishing, the formatting claims vs azw3 rendering are moot. The "Enhanced Typesetting" could be equally done with a revised azw3 renderer. Of course the upload workflow isn't the same for big publishers vs KDP used by self publishing and smaller publishers.

AZW3 is certainly good enough for novels / fiction and hugely better than old mobi, which was already obsolete when Amazon released 1st kindle in 2007.

KFX is a scam. When eBooks are supposed to be DRM free, they aren't. Also, KFX was designed so Amazon could take control of the DRM. KFX absolutely is a scam.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

KFX is a scam. When eBooks are supposed to be DRM free, they aren't. Also, KFX was designed so Amazon could take control of the DRM. KFX absolutely is a scam.

I think we have a different definition of scam, otherwise I agree. I'm not interested in KFX and it's one reason before having a Kobo that we changed to "Download to PC" rather than direct WiFi on books bought from Amazon.

[retiredbiker]

I wouldn't label it a "scam", but KFX is certainly terrible for accessibility. Take some book with very pretty "enhanced typesetting" and blow up the reading size to 24 or 36 points and see what you get...usually a complete unreadable mess.

For folks who need large print, dead simple text without large size differences is what is needed. Nobody offers that as a purchasing option. I'd sure rather buy a readable book than have to edit everything myself.

It's also largely why I dropped Kindle in favour of Kobo as my vision degraded.

[MrSlow&Steady]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

KFX is a scam. When eBooks are supposed to be DRM free, they aren't. Also, KFX was designed so Amazon could take control of the DRM. KFX absolutely is a scam.

So if I find a book that doesn’t have DRM and convert it to KFX does that book automatically get DRM?

Originally Posted by retiredbiker

I wouldn't label it a "scam", but KFX is certainly terrible for accessibility. Take some book with very pretty "enhanced typesetting" and blow up the reading size to 24 or 36 points and see what you get...usually a complete unreadable mess.

For folks who need large print, dead simple text without large size differences is what is needed. Nobody offers that as a purchasing option. I'd sure rather buy a readable book than have to edit everything myself.

It's also largely why I dropped Kindle in favour of Kobo as my vision degraded.

I’ve mainly stuck with AZW3 for now. Any thoughts on that?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by MrSlow&Steady

So if I find a book that doesn’t have DRM and convert it to KFX does that book automatically get DRM?

You do not get DRM when you convert to KFX, But you do get DRM when you download KFX from Amazon.

[retiredbiker]

Originally Posted by MrSlow&Steady

I’ve mainly stuck with AZW3 for now. Any thoughts on that?

Back when I read everything on a Kindle, I kept mostly azw3 files. But then the more I edited books, the more I just kept epub, which is what I do now. If I do want to put something on a Kindle, say for my wife, I just let Calibre convert it on the fly, and I only keep the epub in my library.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Amazon's reasons for KFX rather than azw3/KF8

• DRM even if Author / Publisher asked for DRM free (in that case any authorised Kindle that supports KFX works)
  
• Ability to start reading the ebook while downloading via whispernet.
  
• More kinds of DRM
  
• More kinds of print replica / PDF like content. Proper AZW3/KF8 is basically similar to epub2.
  
• Needed for markup / Sticky notes on Scribe.

The visual advantages seem marginal. So unless you are using a Scribe converting to AZW3/KF8 is best as it's also difficult to create KFX without Amazon tools and thus very awkward on Linux. Only 4 old Kindles don't support AZW3. More don't support KFX.

I use AZW3 to test before uploading epub2 to Amazon to publish. Most fiction is now uploaded as epub2, though docx and doc are accepted (but not as good).

I also only buy Amazon ebooks that will download without KFX or fixed layout mobi/azw, most are AZW3/KF8, but some very old titles (very few) download to PC as mobi/KF7.

My "master" format in Calibre is epub. Master source is odt, with an extra temp docx for calibre import.

PDF only for upload to POD, or if the document arrived as PDF. Only paper or clay tablets are worse to convert.a

Also if you are converting some fixed-layout ePub or PDF or CBZ comic or manga, you can generate a KFX with guided view using Kindle Create and KFX Output plugin. Fixed layout ePub seems to get converted well by Send To Kindle to a KFX document, but obviously it will not have guided view.

In such a case one might well want to store KFX for side-loading (as well as the source).