I'm hoping that some of you, especially those with Kindles, Old and New, can test my Mobi eBook outputs. You can compare with the other outputs as well. :)
I have uploaded a few eBooks to a Calibre server available on my Calibre Server at Calibre Server.
These are for layout testing only and only going to be up for a few hours.
Now, these eBooks are NOT Calibre conversions. They are hand built from a single XML file, usually for my own benefit.
The ePub output is created by importing the XSL transformed html files into Sigil (Sigil).
In .mobi's case, I have epubed the output and fed that through KindleGen (Kindle Publishing).
The Transforms for ePub and Kindle are slightly different.
Please, if there are any problems with these, Let me know so I can try and correct the layouts.
Comments
The MOBI
formats look good on my cloud Kindle so I assume they will on my actual Kindle.
Commentator
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Alfhildr Kindle Format
is very well done, if a little plain. Calibre thus far has refused to learn how Kindle works its magic *without* a meta-TOC, so just pastes a fake Meta TOC on the end of the Mobi file. It's an ugly solution that only a programmer would like. The real Kindle uses embedded tags that the Kindle software picks up on and builds an internal meta-TOC without having fragile file directories and structures. Mobipocket designed the format to be easily created by amateurs, so its main design principle was to flatten files.
I do think that it's a nice idea to use the chapter titles to link back to the TOC, because the Kindle "method" requires one to fiddle with a state-changing menu, not as intuitive as a real book, which can be quickly thumbed through.
I'd also recommend more informative chapter titles, which would also look back to the habits of the time. Reading was such a slow process for most people that "glancing" through pages wasn't possible. One medieval monk once complained (in writing) that the workshop in which he was employed as a copyist was so noisy (because of other monks reading aloud as they deciphered the texts) that he couldn't *read*. This was the prescient triumph of "Phonics," except that every word had to be sounded out in those days, and there was no such thing as sight reading.
That's why there were mnemonic pictures at the head of every chapter, and a description of the chapters in what passed for tables of contents. You could thumb trough a book looking for a picture of a hound, or a lion, if you'd read a book before, and you could figure out by the chapter expositions in the extended tables of contents roughly where you wanted to go if not. The "illuminations" of ancient manuscripts were there as reading aids as well as ornaments.
As a design note, the AE ligature is not particularly attractive typographically. Traditionally, section florals had some horizontal width, where squarish florals were reserved for chapter and book ends, which the AE ligature does achieve. More importantly, though, whilst the ligature looks exotic to modern eyes, it would have been commonplace to medieval eyes, which typically looked for images from the natural world as typographical ornaments, animals, flowers, trees, even people.
By the way, I have a real Kindle so can vouch for the fact that navigation works, including the five-way button method of skipping through the chapters.
This is a vast improvement on most of the stuff one sees.
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Alfhildr Kindle Format
As I said earlier, these are not Calibre converted. Any Meta changes probably came from when I merged the records in the Calibre Server.
The Data structure, itself, came from my original ePub then using KindleGen.Exe to change that to Mobi 8. Sigil sets up the structure.
The chapter Picture headers were part of the Original story chapters. I just kept them. Allowed me to change my chapter headers to allow them in my transforms. The AE ligature was also part of the Original.
Informative Chapter headers? Not sure where you are going with this, but I can easily put back in the Sub-headers to the toc. Just need to remove a single line in the XML.
Never bothered with Toc in the main ePub format. Most readers, until recently, were not touch screen, so a TOC was moot. Easily added though, as you can see in the mobi format. The transform code is still there for it for ePub. I just don't use it. The NCX file allowed me to use the Catalogue function within the readers.
Thank you all for the comments. The Server is now Off-line. And I can now say I convert to 7 eBook formats. Html / Txt / Pdf / Lit / Prc / Mobi / ePub. All from one XML file.