Rejoice! Kindle Previewer v2.91 Improves Ebooks for iOS - Digital Book World

Categories: Expert Publishing Blog | Tags: ios, kindle
September 16, 2013 | Iris Febres |

One valuable tool for ebook developers ice Kindle Previewer (CP), a free utility Amazon Provides That Allows us to proof ebooks for the Kindle platform. Amazon recently released an update for the utility (version 2.91) and I’ve been able to do some light testing to find differences between the versions. When it came to accented content – namely, sidebars – Immediately I discerned a difference in how an ebook rendered in Kindle for iPad, Which I hope to Illustrate in this post.

The previous version of KP rendered Kindle / Mobi files very poorly for Apple iOS devices (iPad and iPhone). For many of our titles, we include fallback CSS for ebooks rendered in Mobi7 – that is, When they’re read on “old-school” Such as the Kindle DX devices and pre-Kindle Touch. However, for whatever reason, the same ebook would preserve Such treatment on an iOS device – eventhough logistically, it Should have interpreted more advanced aspects of the code, as KF8 does.

An example of this can be seen in this proof copy of Knock ‘em Dead 2014 (Which you can preorder on Amazon).

Here is a mobi file generated in KP v2.9 (click to enlarge this and all Following screenshots):

For our sidebars, we have some simple CSS (specifically, media queries) That do the Following (for Mobi7 files):

Display “hidden”

---

rules

Hide background colors of a sidebar

The CSS to do this is

@ Media AMZN mobi-{HR { visibility: visible; }div.sidebar { margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: none; padding-left: 1.0em; padding-right: 1.0em; page-break-inside: avoid;}}

The hidden

---

's are Utilized in order to differentiate the sidebar from the running text Because of Mobi7's shortcomings. If the background color is left on the

for the sidebar, the background color will render on iOS - but not on the Kindle DX or older generation Kindles. However, the background color is rendered poorly, as seen in the screenshot below.

Yeah, not the loveliest of pages, right? A good chunk of CSS outside the media query is ignored, Such as margin, padding, and even the

---

we seek to hide:

HR {visibility: hidden;}

div.sidebar {margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;background-color: # E6E7E8;padding-left: 1.0em;padding-right: 1.0em;page-break-inside: avoid;}

For us on the F + W ebook team, we found it so bizarre to see Such poor rendering in iOS. EBooks on Kindle for iOS felt incredibly stunted, and we were oftentimes frustrated with our code. The media queries were a decent solution for our problems.

What's the good news? The future looks bright for our Kindle books going forward, thanks to the Kindle Previewer update. Check out how our ebook now looks on iOS (Kindle for iPad), after creating it in v2.91:

We have a beautiful rendering of our sidebar on Kindle for iPad: as you can see, it ignores our Mobi7-specific CSS. If we load the same ebook in KP 2.9, our original Mobi7 CSS is still executed successfully:

(Side note: In KP 2.91, the options for e-ink device previews drop to the Paperwhite and the Kindle DX: Previously, you could check for the Paperwhite, the Kindle DX, and the regular Kindle .)

However, there's always a caveat for our progress: we can no longer preview Mobi files Directly within the Kindle Previewer app. In order to view what a customer would see When They read a book on an iOS Kindle app, we are forced to sideload a file to our devices manually. We are not reading a mobi file here: the format is actually . Azk :

It looks like the format is Specifically for iOS. The release notes for the Kindle Previewer details how to load the file for viewing. You can do this with any mobi file you create, but keep in mind That Kindle ebooks produced only in KP v2.91 will render this more advanced code.

If you sideload the. mobi file made in KP v2.91 and do not generate option an. azk file, you'll have a stunted ebook in your Kindle for iOS apps

Meanwhile, where a side loaded Kindle ebook is stored has been changed overpriced. The. Azk file œthe Great's an ebook in Books , instead of Docs :

Additionally, it seems That the. azk file is for previewing Purposes only; That is, you do not need to separate deliverable. mobi and. azk files to Amazon for distribution.

Through this update, it looks like format fragmentation May begin to ease, at least with regard to Amazon. However, it must be saidthat Kindle QA practices, in light of this update, now Require a device for proofing - A Considerable investment for any ebook department at a publisher.

Encourage developers to obtain ~ an iPad (at the very least) for QA Purposes with regard to Kindle for iOS. Utilizing a device to proof ebooks on Kindle apps is now indispensable with this new update to Kindle Previewer.

I'll keep testing and follow-up with any Crucial updates. Have you tinkered with the Kindle Previewer v2.91? What improvements have you found? Please let us know in the comments!

Iris Febres is a Boston-based ebook developerWorks with F + W Media. In 2012, she earned a master's degree in writing and publishing from Emerson College, Concentrating on electronic publishing. She has spoken at various conferences, including Digital Book World, Book Expo America, and most recently, the Future Publishing and Accessibility Conference in Copenhagen. She can be found on Twitter (@ epubpupil) and LinkedIn.

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