Kindle Touch: "Sections & Articles" index page missing on newspapers/magazines

[theseamonkey]

On previous versions of the Kindle (including the Kindle 4 Basic), newspapers and magazines fetched by Calibre and sent to the device would include the nicely organized index page with sections on the left and articles within the selected category on the right. While reading, there was also always the option at the bottom of each page to return to this "Sections & Articles" index.

On the Kindle Touch, these features have disappeared from all magazines and newspapers fetched by Calibre. Instead, the only option is to choose "Table of Contents" from the Go To menu to view the much uglier and less useful linear table of contents.

Is there any way to bring back the properly formatted "Sections & Articles" index? Does the Calibre code need to be tweaked to format magazines and newspapers to work with the Kindle Touch? Or has Amazon blocked this functionality in the new touch-enabled devices?

Looking forward to the insight anyone can offer. Thanks!

[kovidgoyal]

No idea, presumably Amazon have changed their requirements for periodicals, again, like they did when the K3 was released. We shall have to wait until someone with some coding ability gets hold of a KTouch. It may also be that amazon have moved to the new KF8 format for periodicals on the newer devices. I'm just guessing.

[theseamonkey]

Thanks so much for your reply.

I did a little bit more troubleshooting on this, and I made the following observations that may be helpful in resolving this problem:

1. When Calibre emails fetched magazines to my KTouch email address, they are converted and delivered by Amazon as .azw files. The Sections & Articles index does not appear.
2. Magazines that I buy through the Kindle store are delivered to my KTouch with a .pobi file extension. The Sections & Articles index successfully appears.
3. Magazines that Calibre fetches are stored locally with a .mobi file extension.
4. When Calibre transfers the fetched magazines to my KTouch via USB, they are transferred onto the device as .pobi files (even though they are stored locally on my computer as .mobi files). The Sections & Articles index successfully appears.
5. If I manually transfer one of the local .mobi files to my KTouch via USB (drag and drop in Windows Explorer), the Sections & Articles index does not appear.
6. If I rename one of the local .mobi files to have a .pobi extension and then manually transfer it to my KTouch via USB, the Sections & Articles index successfully appears.
7. Fetched magazines that Calibre previously delivered by email to my K4Basic were saved on that device as .azw files, and the Sections & Articles index appeared correctly on the K4Basic.
8. If I manually transfer one of these .azw files from the K4Basic to my KTouch via USB, the Sections & Articles index does not appear.
9. If I rename that same .azw file from the K4Basic so it has a .pobi extension and transfer it to my KTouch, the Sections & Articles index successfully appears.

It seems, then, that the problem is not an issue of Amazon changing the requirements for periodicals or that they have switched to the new KF8 format, but rather just that the file extension for periodicals must be .pobi on the new KTouch devices.

For what it's worth, I tried emailing a .pobi file to my KTouch email address, and Amazon rejected it.

[kovidgoyal]

How utterly annoying can Amazon get? .pobi, really?!! At least the transfer via USB works. I'm not sure what I can do about the email, since you say amazon doesn't accept .pobi files via email, so changing the extension while emailling wouldn't do any good.

Try contacting Amazon and asking them how you are supposed to email periodicals to your KTouch.

[Bob Butler]

It is probably related somehow, but stranger still: Fetched news that Calibre emails to my touch often can't be deleted from the Kindle. I touch and hold on the document and nothing happens. If I transfer through USB it works. How annoying.

[mkgtu]

Will try the .pobi gimmick and see what happens with the Kindle Fire.

But at the moment, the Fire has the same problem, basically it does not recognize any periodicals as periodicals, i.e. all the navigational tools are missing. It treats them, and they function on the device, the same as books.

My guess is that the "p" in ".pobi" must be telling the new devices that the item is a periodical, and then the device engages all the internal navigational apparatus appropriate for periodicals. Very annoying way to do it though since that prevents emailing of these files! Would have been more agreeable to use some kind of tag and leave the extension alone.

[kovidgoyal]

Those of you that want this feature on your new devices will have to lobby Amazon, I don't see any other way of enabling emailling.

[mkgtu]

Tried the above fixes on the Fire. None of them worked.
The files transfer from Calibre as .mobi.
If save a newspaper to disk, rename as .pobi, and copy/paste in manually into any of Fire's folders (Books, Documents, etc), it doesn't show up anywhere on the home screen. Just disappears.

[nickredding]

It's possible KTouch is using EXTH[501] in which case the fix will work but emailing is out since Amazon overwrites EXTH[501] with "PDOC" on any files emailed to a Kindle.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=157745

[Breed92014]

Originally Posted by Bob Butler

It is probably related somehow, but stranger still: Fetched news that Calibre emails to my touch often can't be deleted from the Kindle. I touch and hold on the document and nothing happens. If I transfer through USB it works. How annoying.

I have figured this one out. Your news, when emailed through Calibre, is stored on Amazon's server. If you go ahead and delete the server copy, (Your Account-->Manage Your Kindle--> Personal Documents), then you can delete the news off of your touch.

I cannot understand the reasoning behind this, but at least it works.

[miked378]

Hi everyone--

I'm new to the Kindle platform, and got my Kindle Touch last week -- and like the rest of you, was disappointed about the lack of "Sections and Articles" in Calibre-delivered documents (but love Calibre!). Sending RSS feeds to my Kindle each morning for my train ride was an important factor in my buying a Kindle.

I'm thinking about returning my Kindle Touch for a basic Kindle 4. From what I've been reading, it still works with Sections and Articles, right?

Also, understanding we can't see the future -- my fear in going to the Kindle Basic is that a software update will disable the current ability to see S&A on emailed files, bringing us right to where the Touch and Fire are. I have no experience with Amazon -- is this the sort of thing I should expect them to change in an incremental software update, or are they usually more bug-fixing updates?

If you were into RSS feeds as a major use of your Kindle, what would you do?

Thanks! I'll be following the discussion, hoping that the community can figure this out!

--Mike

[nickredding]

Originally Posted by miked378

Also, understanding we can't see the future -- my fear in going to the Kindle Basic is that a software update will disable the current ability to see S&A on emailed files, bringing us right to where the Touch and Fire are.

That is quite possible (in fact, likely) as Amazon will want to harmonize their software streams. You can do one of two things: use USB to transfer your peridicicals, in which case Sections & Articles should work properly (it does for Fire so I'm assuming for Touch as well), or buy a Kindle 3 (now called Kindle Keyboard) because I doubt that model will get any future software updates, so the Sections & Articles functionality for emailed periodicals should continue to work.

[daletsteele]

I've posted about this problem on the Amazon Kindle forums and provided feedback to kindle-feedback@Amazon.com

Hopefully others will do the same.

[tylau0]

I don't have Kindle 4 or up, so I can't test the following out myself.
Could anyone try out what happens if we email periodicals generated with kindlegen, or a periodical sold by Amazon.com?
You may generate kindlegen-generated perioidcals using Calibre with this AZW output conversion plugin.

[nickredding]

Originally Posted by tylau0

I don't have Kindle 4 or up, so I can't test the following out myself.
Could anyone try out what happens if we email periodicals generated with kindlegen, or a periodical sold by Amazon.com?
You may generate kindlegen-generated perioidcals using Calibre with this AZW output conversion plugin.

It doesn't matter how the periodical file is generated. Amazon always sets EXTH[501]=PDOC for all documents emailed via xx@kindle.com. In the past this hasn't matterd because K3 and below didn't use EXTH[501] for anything. However K4 and Fire use it to decide what reader to use, and a documet with EXTH[501]=PDOC always uses the book reader. Also, a periodical sold by Amazon and then emailed will also get this PDOC treatment, but if that periodical is delivered via whispernet the EXTH[501] remains intact as NWPR or MAGZ, and the Kindle invokes the news reader for those files.