Re: ePub to MOBI conversion

[Richard L Hamilton <dick@rlhamilton.net>]

Hi Robert,

Thanks very much. This is a big help.

One other thing I'm finding useful is the Kindle Previewer, which can be set up for different versions of the Kindle. As far as I can tell, it is pretty accurate regarding some of the idiosyncrasies of the original kindle (including its broken handling of <li><p>...:).

Richard
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On Aug 16, 2012, at 12:06 AM, Robert Nagle wrote:

> Richard,
> 
> My knowledge about mobipocket and docbook is almost a year old, so I
> don't know about any  Kindlegen improvements.
> 
> But I seem to recall seeing on the #eprdctn twitter feed that Calibre
> conversions weren't accepted by Amazon. I might be incorrect or maybe
> it has been updated since then.
> 
> (I know Jason Zech had some good experiences with Calibre to Mobi.
> Maybe he knows if Calibre can be used for kindlegen/kindlepreviewer.
> 
> I'm assuming that your problems are on the mobipocket side and not on
> the KF8 side.
> 
> I had to do profiling to output mobi-friendly code. Even with that, I
> ended up  doing the title page and table of contents HTML by hand.
> Much easier.
> 
> Sometimes I did profiling to change attributes and value (i.e., <p
> width="50">. ) what a pain. Bob walked me through doing this here:
> https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook-apps/201108/msg00091.html
> 
> Also, indices totally didn't work in Mobipocket. Not even close for
> me. (I can't remember if Bob updated that code, but I doubt it would
> have made indices work in the older mobipocket code).
> 
> I wrote some templates to get images to work passably well in the old
> mobipocket format, but it was still a bit of a struggle. (and captions
> didn't work very well).
> 
> I assume that KF8 solved most of these problems, and that media
> queries will let you deal with the older and newer format.
> 
> I did a fairly complex ebook last year in docbook to produce
> mobipocket. Then again, I had no images really and it was not very
> structured.
> 
> I wrote some notes about converting docbook to mobi here
> http://www.imaginaryplanet.net/weblogs/idiotprogrammer/2010/11/ebookepub-production-secrets-tips-tricks/
> 
> One tip I found recently was about how to make the older mobi to
> handle multiple indents
> http://www.pigsgourdsandwikis.com/2012/02/multiple-indents.html
> 
> Anyway, those are my thoughts on the subject.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Robert Nagle
> 6121 Winsome Ln #56C, Houston TX 77057-5581
> (H) 713 893 3424/ (W) 832-251-7522 Carbon Neutral Since Jan 2010
> http://www.robertnagle.info
> 
> 
> Forwarded message ----------
> From: Richard L Hamilton <dick@rlhamilton.net>
> To: DocBook Apps <docbook-apps@lists.oasis-open.org>
> Cc:
> Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2012 09:38:23 -0700
> Subject: ePub to MOBI conversion
> At different times I've used kindlegen and calibre for ePub to MOBI
> conversion, with varying results, but I've never been 100% happy with
> the result from either.
> 
> Does anyone on the list have any suggestions as to which of these (or
> which alternative) is the best choice for conversion when the ePub was
> generated using the DocBook stylesheets?
> 
> Thanks,
> Dick Hamilton
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