Your question is really too broad and unprecise to respect the usual
rules of Stack-Exchange.  However, I will try to answer it in a way
consistent with such rules.

There are many places where books are discussed, but they are usually
specialized in some way. And no one is going to list the
possibilities, not here.

My best advice is for you to search the web with a generaly search
engine, for comments on books or authors you have been interested
in. This should occasionally lead you to sites that have commented
these books or authors.  Then you can explore the site to see what
else they offer and suggest, and whether you want to use it as a
comment and reference source.

We all differ in our tastes and ways of doing things, and no one can
really do that for you.

You comment on Gutenberg Press does not carry a link (which it
should have). I tried to see which site you mean, but found only
Project Gutenberg. Its purpose is not to suggest e-books, but to make
them available.

The choice of a retailer (Amazon) is a strange focus for suggesting books, and I am not sure I understand the connection with DRM. DRM are
universally toxic, not just with Amazon, if that is what you enjoy.


There are no size constraint as such for images ( eg . title page or any other image), however it is preferred to have high resolution images.

Note :  Just make sure if the book contain too many images, due to high res images epub size should not become too heavy.

Secondly make sure as a best practice following styling is carried for all images

All images width should be 100%:

img {width:100%;}

Bind every image inside a holder to control the size of the image as required:

div.imgHolder {
width: 85%;
text-align:center;
display:inline;}


Reader interactivity in epub3/other ebook formats

The epub 3.0 spec forbids scripts from changing the DOM of the document, so this will not be possible. Here's the relevant bit:

  It must not allow a container-constrained script to modify the DOM of
  the parent Content Document or other contents in the EPUB Publication,
  and must not allow it to manipulate the size of its containing
  rectangle. (Note: Even if a script is not container-constrained, the
  Reading System may impose restrictions on modifications (see also the
  dom-manipulation feature).)

This is required for security purposes. It sounds like in order to do what you're talking about, you'll need an app rather than an ebook.


How does Project Gutenberg structure their epubs?

Looks like indeed this was created with some automatic tool. I was snooping around the file in the Miscellaneous folder and found content.opf which has a bunch of traces of this Split on p operation showing up in the comments along with a relatively uniform chunk size.

Furthermore I emailed them about an error in the table of contents and got this response...

David Widger via RT
7:05 AM (3 hours ago)
Hi jxramos,

I find that this was one of the early PG productions which were only in the
ASCII format and had no accompanying html file made by the producer of the text
file. The html file listed with this ebook was one autogenerated and these are
often quite unsatisfactory.

A much better PG edition is:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/8300/8300-h/8300-h.htm

The html file was manually produced and the mobile viewer files appear
satisfactory.

I would refer you to PG #8300

Regards,

Project Gutenberg


What are the consequences of changing my Kindle's region?

It may not show up in your library based on what they are saying. This is a publisher distribution licensing issue. But, you should still be able to log in to Amazon.com (ie US) and read it in the web reader, or on a different device.


Which Kindle Paperwhite model/generation do I have?

While impossible for me to find on my own, an external link brought me to this page by Amazon with hints as to how to identify which of the many Kindle models you may have:

Which Kindle E-reader do I have?

From the blog post, How to Tell Kindle Paperwhite Generations Apart, I learned this:

The first Paperwhite has big “Kindle” logo on back, versus “Amazon” for the 2nd and 3rd Paperwhites.
The 2nd generation of Paperwhite has a light “Kindle” logo on front versus the 3rd generation that has a blacked-out “Kindle” logo on the front.

Generations

The first generation of Paperwhite is also known as “Kindle 5th Generation”. (firmware updates)
Second is “Kindle 6th Generation”. (firmware updates)
Third is “Kindle 7th Generation”. (firmware updates)

Flowchart

I distilled the information from the articles linked above into this flowchart.


Before looking at anything, you might want to look on the available fonts for each device. What are serif and sans serif fonts on different ebook reading systems? It doesn't show iBooks as having Arial or Verdana fonts, so it will be unable to render these fonts. When you edit it in Sigil, chances are that the computer browser already has Arial and Verdana fonts loaded, so that is why it looks different on your computer vs. your device.

To be honest, I am perfectly fine with using  "font-family: sans-serif;" or "font-family: serif;" .iBooks and Kindle both have excellent fonts, and users often like to specify a favorite.  It can be maddening trying to specify fonts for each device unless you're embedded fonts for ALL devices. (This guide will get you started: https://github.com/JayPanoz/Soma/wiki/How-to-embed-fonts and here's a listing of some google font combinations which you could use for ebooks if you decided to embed the font: http://fontpair.co/  ).

I should stress again that embedding fonts is a complicated deal; I've started trying it myself with my ebooks. I am very taken with Google's Merriweather font for the body text.


Create an e-book with Devanagari characters

Like Nemo XXX said, Times New Roman is a commercial font, so you are not allowed to freely include it in your ebook and distribute it without acquiring a proper license.

However, I think that you can still freely reference it in your CSS stylesheet without physically incorporating it(1).
Anyway, this presupposes that the font will be installed on the end user's PC or device, which you can't be 100% sure. Granted, Times New Roman is a fairly common font, at least if you don't look beyond Windows machines, but, in example, it is NOT installed by default in many Linux distributions and many e-reader devices.

I think that your best option is to look for an open source font with a free license and directly incorporate it. You really have a lot of alternatives, I'm listing here juts some of the most common ones.

My personal suggestion is to check out the Noto font family, from Google; they are designed to cover all the scripts encoded in the Unicode standard. It is easily one of the most complete and compatible font sets out there, and they are generally good looking and pleasant (this is of course subjective). An alternative, always from Google, is the Droid family, from which Noto is partly derived.
The Liberation and Linux Libertine/Biolinum families are specifically designed to be a free and open substitute to Windows standard fonts such as Times New Roman, Arial and Courier New.
DejaVu, similarly, is a fairly complete set of fonts that is installed by default on many of the main Linux distributions.
As Nemo XXX suggested, Charis SIL is a good and fairly complete font (and, if you ask me, also more distinctive and better looking that the old plain and kinda boring Times New Roman). Another option, always from SIL International, is Gentium.
(2017-06-22 EDIT) Martel and Martel Sans fonts are specifically designed to cover Latin and Devangari characters.

I'm not really familiar with Devangari (or any other non-latin) script, so you should check these alternatives yourself and see if they suit your needs. I can't guarantee that all the fonts that I've listed include the characters that you need to display, I've just pointed out some of the major open source font projects, I leave it to you to make your tests.

About the samples: I've tried to open both the ePub and PDF that you have provided, they are BOTH displayed with latin characters, even the non-english text.

1) Please note that I'm not a lawyer and I'm just saying this out of common sense, do your research accordingly.


Is it possible to disable screen zoom on a Sony PRS-T1 reader?

Unfortunately, it's impossible to disable the "zoom" function. Typically it's not something requested in user experience, and a disabling function would cause more harm than good.
What you can see are alternative options to avoid and get out of a zoomed screen, laid out in this guide.
While the back button is a way of reverting back to default, you can also pinch (by placing two fingers on the screen), moving inward or outward to either zoom in or back out of display.


Create ePUB in Calibre without Document Outline?

I found a way to remove the Document Outline from Calibre.

Select the book
Press edit book
At left under 'Text' section: find the file with the Document Outline (press doble click to check)
Remove it (right click - delete)
Save

Done


Programming Sigil for importing annotations

The Windows and macOS versions of Sigil are bundled with a Python 3 interpreter. (Linux users will have to manually install a Python 3 interpreter.) For more information on the Sigil Python API, see the Sigil Plugin Framework documentation.

If you have additional questions, you can post them in the official Sigil Plugin Delevopment thread.


Does something about DjVu prevent making a free viewer on iOS?

In my opinion the relative inaccessibility of DjVu's libdjvu, including having their own bytestream compression contributed to the low acceptance of the DjVu format over the years and not patent issues. This hinders other software developers adapting their software to support DjVu and even more so
when porting to a new platform.

The DjVuLibre software has several characteristics that make it difficult to port. It is C++ based code that builds on a framework that seems to be generically usable, but is probably DjVuLibre specific. I conclude that on not having encountered the framework anywhere else, as well as specific names of classes, etc. that include the substring DJVU) in the framework. That framework, in the form of libdjvu, is however used in all of the DjVuLibre tools (bzz. djvu...)

The libdjvu being a C++ library  makes it less portable and less accessible for being called from other languages (e.g. Python), than a C based library.

To complicate things, the bytestreams in the DjVu file format are compressed using a Burrows Wheeler encoder. The encoder is similar to bzip2 but has its own, DjVu specific, implementation. This gives a small advantage over more standard compression schemes, but this is dwarfed by the conceptual better handling of compression of the images through the use of wavelet encoding and individually compressed layers.

I analysed the DjVuLibre software some time ago, to extract OCR-ed text. I settled for a minimal Python implementation for that piece, as I could not get a Python program to hook up to the C++ libraries in a reasonable amount of time. I spent a few days getting the Python implementation to work, analysing the intransparent program flow of the library, all the while comparing the output with results from djvutxt and bzz. This resulted in the DJVU OCR extraction program included in Calibre. (The difficulties might be based on
my lack of programming experience: I have been programming C++ since the late 80's—one of the first commercial things I developed in C++  was a library  for creating GIF files in 1987—and have used Python since the mid 90's).

I must say I really like the DjVu concepts, and love the superior quality/filesize ratio, compared to scans in other file formats I have used. I always scan to .DjVu. But although I primarily work on a Linux system, the scanning/conversion process includes commercial software running on a Windows box that gives me even better compression results than the open DjVuLibre library does (as well as OCR without an additional program).


The device that you need is basically an e-ink ereader, all of them have the features that you have requested.

Since there are many different brands and models, each one with its own set of different features, I suggest you to take a look at the comparison page on Wikipedia, that has in one place all the informations that you need to make your choice; if you understand italian, also look on eBookReaderItalia (anyway it's just a table filled with tech specs, so even if you don't speak my language you should be able to understand it nonetheless).

There is also another comparison page on Mobileread wiki, but it is a bit outdated .


Could my eBook reader be infected by some sort of virus?

As long as those readers don't provide the possibility to install third party software you should be quite safe.
As the main weakness of Android is the Enduser - installing bad applications containing malware and in the worst case viruses.


Installing own font & using it to read ebook

Kobo ereaders are known for their font customization capabilities. They have a dozen of preinstalled fonts, and a couple of them aimed exactly to dyslexic readers.
Besides selecting the font, you can also tweak it to your needs with many options for dimensions, spacing, margins, justification and thickness.

You can read a couple of reviews, here and here, that explain these features with pictures so you can see if this is what you need.

On Kobo ereaders it is also easy to add custom fonts, we already have a question on this site that explain how to do it.


epubcheck error: mimetype entry missing or not the first in archive

This error can occur when the mimetype is compressed inside the epub zip file. What can be done is to create a zip file with only the mimetype file inside but with no compression.

You can do that with 7-Zip setting the Compression level to Store.

In Linux, you can also do that with the terminal command:

zip -0 file.epub mimetype

Then drag and drop the META-INF and OEBPS folders to the file.zip and change the extension to .epub, as usual. With the Linux terminal you can use this command line instead:

zip -9 -r file.epub META-INF OEBPS


How practical is it to learn to develop apps for e-ink Kindles?

Learning to develop apps for eBook readers is very practical:

The reason being, the same technology that applies to creating ebooks; also applies to developing websites, software, etc.

Meaning that the skills you learn from developing apps for eBook readers improves your overall skills as a Web or App Developer in general.

These skills in turn can allow you to start developing more complex skills for becoming a Programmer, Software or Application Developer.

Now that we know the type of jobs related and the career path that follows, we can look at the skills and technology required and used by those in the related industry; to learn how to do the same development.

Basic Skills Required by Web and App Developers:

HTML
CSS
Javascript

An ePub is a zipped up package of content, containing items such as the above, for the purpose of creating the ePub Book/App:

HTML (eBook content)
CSS  (eBook code to stylize layout, etc.)
JavaScript (For Advanced Use) such as eBook App development.

If we learn the above technology then we will have the core skills needed to develop applications for eBook readers.

Learning Priority Order:

Learn first: HTML this is the document that holds all your content.
Learn second: CSS this is the document that stylizes your HTML content.
Learn third: JavaScript this is the programming language that gives the 'app' like look and ability to your HTML, CSS content.

Where to Learn Online:

http://www.lynda.com/

courses such as:

"HTML Essential Training"
"Developing Applications for Amazon Kindle Devices"
"Creating Ebooks for the Kindle"

Udemy is another website for online learning.
Code Academy (learn to code)
Coursera - (Take free online classes from 120+ top universities and educational organizations.)

Learning Offline:

Books of course! O'Reilly is a good publisher to checkout for technical skills.

Comparison Chart of eReader Features and Supporting Platforms:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_e-book_formats#Comparison_tables
I apologize, there are many more resources and links I'd like to give you but for now my reputation will not allow more than two links so I've provided the most important two links.

However, learning to develop apps for the e-ink kindle devices specifically is a bit too narrow for me to personally consider it "practical".

For example the Kindle Fire has much better support for epub3 formats, app like content, etc.

That being said, what is practical may depend on your use or application as it is a matter of opinion.

What you DO NOT need to know for eBook App Development:

Databases such as MySQL, MongoDB, etc.
Frameworks (although you may find boilerplates that help your app development, packages, libraries, etc.)
C++, C#, Python, Java to name a few.

Good to be Familiar with but may not Need:

AJAX/JSON
PHP

Above Skills related to Web Developers more so than having practical use for eBook app development

Final Thoughts:

I've worked for a major Distribution Book Publishing company for the last two and a half years as a digital content engineer managing the QA of our eBooks and can say without doubt, that if you use the above information, it will lead you into the correct direction.

That being said, there are many vendors that provide a service for ebook conversions and ebook app development. At some point you may consider or decide to look into what is available if you have the time or resources.


Nook Simple Touch: erratic or unresponsive touch-screen

I found that the elastic straps of the cover I was using (one at each corner) had permanently deformed the nook st sufficiently to unalign the IR light grid over the screen. I'm now getting the nook to respond by bending the top front corners forward to realign the ir grid.(by placing my thumb at top front centre and my index and little fingers on the back of the two upper corners)
Awkward, but it works until I can get another Nook st.


The Kindle pdf app only works well with plain .pdf files, however, the user experience isn't that great, because the pdf app doesn't have a reflow option.

If you haven't updated your firmware to the latest firmware version, you might be able to jailbreak your Kindle and to install KOReader, which has a much better PDF reader. BTW, you can also read epub2 books with KOReader, as long as they don't contain RTL text (e.g., Arabic books or Japanese Mangas).


Different copyright notices on printed and digital versions of a book

The rights are personal to you. The consequences are more practical than legal. For example, a reader of the library copy can copy a portion of your text if such use constitutes "fair use." Whether a use is permitted under the copyright law is often a close question. In general, short quotations are permitted. Copying an entire chapter is not. Failure to attribute a quote is more of an academic or journalistic crime; proffering a quote as your own is not a violation of copyright, it's plagiarism. You, as rightsholder, own the intellectual property in the text. You can sell it, or give it away (as in a CC license). For example, you could sell the copyright to your thesis and the buyer could then decide to give the thesis away. You could sell some rights (say, audiobooks) and retain others (digital editions). If you have licensed your content under Creative Commons, the existence of a printed book that predated the grant does not affect the grant or make the grant unenforceable. This answer is grounded in US law. Other countries may or may not recognize the principle of fair use.


Many sites propose free or cheap ebooks? Which are legitimate?

The short answer is that any website offering permanent access to large numbers of copyrighted books, for very little money, from multiple publishers is unlikely to be legitimate.

HumbleBundle offers its bundles for limited time.

Book Barbarian, ManyBooks, BookBub, Luzme, and no doubt many others, search the web on your behalf and find books that are currently being offered from reputable sites, like Amazon and Kobo, for little or nothing.  Almost all of their free books are available only for a day or two, but in any case to get them you will have to click through to a recognizable merchant site.

Then, publishers like Baen Books offer a large number of their e-books for free as loss-leaders. You'll notice that it's highly unusual for them to give you more than the first one or two books in a series, and the rest will cost you retail.

Another clue to legitimacy is if the site offers payment in multiple currencies: there's almost no chance that any site accepting payment in US$, GBP and EUR is legitimate, because very few books are made available from a single distributor worldwide.

All that said, if a site seems too good to be true, google that site's name and the names of some of the authors. Odds are they already know somebody's pirating their work, and they frequently rant about those sites on their own blogs.


How can I read notes alongside with text in Kindle readers?

The short answer is no. The only way to make notes easier to read is to find a book that has been properly formatted to have hyperlinked inline notes. If a book doesn't have that, then you could either request it from the publisher or fix it yourself.


Identify if a PDF document is digital native

PDF documents embed all its fonts within the document. You can get these embedded fonts information programmatically with most PDF libraries.

If there are no embedded fonts then the PDF at hand is a scanned one.
If there are only one or two fonts, then the document is OCRized.
If there are three or more fonts, then the document is a digital native.

Potentially, there can be digital native PDF with one or two fonts only but luckily for me this is an acceptable error rate.


which kindle supports remote factory reset?

Currently is it not possible to remotely factory reset any Kindle device.

The best you can do is de-register the device that has been lost, as you've mentioned.

This Link outlines what you should do if you lose your device or if it is stolen, but again, it only suggests de-registering the device


When the DjVu support for Calibre was added a few years ago, it was implemented by taking the  text layer, when available, and extract and convert that to textual material usable for conversion, by Calibre, to other formats. When available it uses the C++ based djvu2txt from the djvu-libre toolset, otherwise it uses a, much slower, decoding done in Python.

That text layer can be generated when "printing" to DjVu, but it normally is built from the image material that you get when you scan files to the DjVu format. And the layer allows you, in most DjVu viewers, to select something on the image and then either copy the image rectangle or the associated text in the text layer.

What you see in WinDjView is the image layer in your DjVu file, what you see in the EbookViewer is the text layer. The text layer has some positioning information (otherwise a viewer would not be able to associate text with a picked area of the image data), but most of that is discarded and only used to make paragraphs.

When I wrote the original DjVu support for Calibre (several years ago), I did so, to make it possible for conversion as indicated above. I had no idea that this made it into the Calibre ebook-viewer. The ebook viewer should directly use the image data, but it obviously doesn't (and that is even less trivial than writing a Python based extractor of the text layer).

I tested viewing a DjVu file without text layer on a recent version of the Calibre ebook viewer. It shows nothing, which confirms my expectation.
It could be that the ebook-viewer just picked up the DjVu plugin by using the same interface as the convertor, that would make sense, but in the case of DjVu files that is not the right approach. IIRC there was no way to provide such a plugin and tell Calibre it should only be used for conversion (and not for display).

You're not doing anything wrong. I would rather say this works as can be expected knowing the implementation, but that doesn't make it very useful for books that are not paragraph oriented. So in your words: it is converting the books to some basic format. And this is not easily/quickly fixed.


Collections Mangement of Kindle Paperwhite 3

An alternative, which at least gets round "kindle is slow" is to use the Kindle app, on e.g. Android phone or tablet, if you have one, to manage your collections.

The Android app does support the new-style "cloud collections", as used by the PW, Voyage, etc.

The advantage here is that it is much more responsive, both in screen display and touchscreen behaviour and, with a tablet, larger with easier to see covers. It supports a multi-select mode, where you can select many titles at once, to add to a Collection.

That's what I do, anyway: use the Kindle device to read, and the Android app to manage.


How to bundle 5 PDF ebooks into 1 file for download

Hi you can do so by using sites like ilovepdf.com and combinepdf.com. They are very straightforward to use and there will instructions. But if you have trouble, please leave a comment below.


How to add a calibre bookmark txt to manifest

Just hit this myself trying to put a book on Smashwaords. It seems that browsing a book with Calibre adds an extra file called 'calibre_bookmarks.txt'. (Smashwords spots it, but the IDPF's Epub Validator doesn't!)

The solution's simple enough:

Change the book's extension from .epub to .zip. (Eg: mybook.epub ->
mybook.zip)
Open the .zip file.
Delete the 'calibre_bookmarks.txt' file.
Save and close the .zip.
Rename it back to .epub.

Alternative method: Don't open your books in Calibre ;-)


Some classic literature is available for free - but where?

The best-known resource is Project Gutenberg, which exists for precisely this purpose.


How do I open my Ebook library in kindle?

In Calibre, the Add books menu choice has several options. One is:

"Add books from directories, including sub-directories (Multiple books per directory, assumes every ebook file is a different book): Allows you to choose a directory. The directory and all its sub-directories are scanned recursively and any ebooks found are added to the library. calibre assumes that each directory contains many books. All ebook files with the same name in a directory are assumed to be the same book in different formats. Ebooks with different names are added as different books."

If you point to the folder and use that Add option, it will do them all,see this:


Changing screensaver images on Bookeen Odyssey

I have not tried, but I think you can put the image anywhere. I have put it in the internal memory in the Pictures directory. Particularly I did not want to risk finding out what happens when you put it on an SD card and remove the card.

To set it a file abc.jpg as screensaver. Select the file via the front Button and then Library (if you have folder view on, go all the way up the directory tree and then to Cybook → Pictures first).

As the picture you want is displayed, click the front button and then Menu.
Once the TAB Picture appears (top line Fit Screen) you are in the Picture context menu, there you have to scroll down. The last line—normally out of view—is 'Set as Screensaver`, make sure it is selected (✓).

You can have only one image as screensaver. Selecting another image, deselects the previous one.


Windows explorer - preview thumbnail of MOBI and AZW files

If you have a Windows machine, MobiHandler should work for you.


The size of a PDF file is dependent on the content of that file. A PDF file is a bundle of streams, with mostly compressed data.

If you generate a PDF file from e.g. a Word or OpenOffice document, these file tend to be relatively small, especially if you do not include Font information and rely on the system provided fonts or font substitutions.
Adding images to your text will make the files much larger.

Since PDF is one of the minority of image file formats that support multiple images, it is often (mis-)used to store multiple images, that e.g. come from a scan. Those scans are often already compressed JPEG images and for those the PDF file works only as a container (no, or little further compression  is possible). For those kinds of PDF files, the size can be very large, depending on the pixel size of the images (scan resolution x paper format) and in case of lossy compression (JPEG) the quality of the compression.

If you extract such lossy image files to a lossless format like PNG immediately blows up each of the images often by an order of magnitude. So your results are not surprising.

It would be much better to just extract the individual pages of the file into separate PDF files and recombine only the pages that you need. This can be done without  having to decompress the streams containing the imagery e.g. by a program like pdftk. If you pick half of the pages of a book, you can expect to have halve the size document in the end (on average).


How do I embed my own font (i.e designed by me) in an epub file?

When you export yours book int ePub format with inDesign CC your fonts will be automatically added to ePub. Only thing you must ensure is your document in inDesign have provided fonts (font must be installed in your system). Also  you can check what font is declared in inDesign paragraph style window.


Is there a detailed guide for creating an ebook for Kindle in HTML/CSS

Your best bet is to start with a solid epub file and run that through either KindleGen or Kindle Previewer. Other tools such as Sigil and Calibre are convenient, but often cause problems down the road by inserting their own bits of code. If you want to be certain that you know what is causing your problems, it's always best to do it yourself.

The single best resource for creating a solid, valid epub file is the IDPF's epub 3.0 specification. Once you feel like you've gotten it pretty close, use epubcheck to find and iron out the kinks. A valid epub 3.0 file should transform seamlessly into a valid mobi/KF8. Once you have the valid epub, you can begin your Kindle-specific styling. Make sure you pay attention to the specific requirements of the Kindle Publishing Guidelines when you are doing so.

For basic getting started guides, you might check out Harrison Ainsworth's "EPUB Format Construction Guide." It's a bit dated by now, and only deals with epub 2.0.1, but it will cover the basics pretty well. O'Reilly has a book on EPUB 3 Best Practices that's not too shabby, but it might go into more detail than you need to get started.

Do a bit of reading, but not too much, and then find a non-DRM'ed epub file and tear it apart (just change the filename from .epub to .zip and unzip it) to see what makes it tick. Change stuff, re-zip is (how you do that will depend on the operating system you use) run it through epubcheck, and see what error messages you get. Getting a valid book is quite doable with minimal experience.

As far as styling goes: there are lots of quirks in reading systems and devices. If you want to only do Kindle, you're cutting out a lot of potential issues, but each of Amazon's devices has its own quirks as well, so be prepared to test a lot, and ask lots of questions when problems come up.

Best of luck!


SVG in azw3 for kindle paperwhite always going to new page

This is not strictly an answer to your question, but...

I can't read your file but I have had a look at the epub and the pdf from archive.org. It seems to me that it would be a simply immense amount of work to format that book satisfactorily as xhtml for use on an ereader. It looks to me to be a case where the pdf has a definite advantage.

If you are going to do that work (or have already done it). Wouldn't it make sense to make it available to an many other interested people as possible by producing the ebook as epub (an open and documented format) and then converting that to basic mobi. With your illustration as a PNG bitmap.

There's a place for experimenting with exotic ebook and image formats, but I don't think this project is it.


Kindle vs Kindle paperwhite, is the resolution really important for eyes?

Here's a comparison of 300 ppi (Voyage, Oasis, 2015 Paperwhite) vs 221 ppi (2014 and earlier Paperwhite) vs 167 ppi (Classic Kindle).

Actual dimensions seem to be

1072 x 1448 (300 ppi)
758 x 1024 (221 ppi)
600 x 800 (167 ppi)

The 300 ppi can legitimately claim to be nearly indistiguishable from paper to my eye, once you factor in the natural fuzziness of eInk and the 16 shades of grey.


There are a standard EPUB version or format to assign with PGP?

Theoretically, you could add a signatures.xml file to the epub. However, I don't know of any epub app that actually supports this feature.

I.e., you'd also have to provide readers with a standalone app that validates the checksums.

It'd probably be easier to generate an MD5 checksum for the whole epub.


Is there any ereader that can split the document in to 2

You didn't mention what platform you wanted (iOS, Android, Fire, etc) so I'll just answer this the best I can for Android.

Android OS has a feature where you can run 2 apps at the same time - so you could run any e-reader app on both sides, and open different documents.  If the e-reader app itself didn't like running twice, I'm sure you could just use 2 different e-reader apps of your liking.

If your Android device does not already have MultiWindow capability, then you can install a package like XPosed (you can find instructions here) that will (in some cases) give you that capability.

Note that on the Samsung devices where multiscreen is built in, not all apps are supported.  In order to get around this limitation, you can install an app like MultiWindow Apps Manager that allows you to specify which apps should be listed.

Hope that helps!


css - select only when followed by specific element

As you've discovered, the challenges here are that:

in CSS, it's not possible to select a parent or ancestor element by its child; the browser applies CSS 'downwards' only; and
you can't know what CSS properties and selectors EPUB2-capable readers will actually support.

If I've understood your needs correctly, here are three possible options you could try. For readability I've renamed your 1 class as line.

Option 1

.line {
  margin: 0;
}
.line + .text {
  margin-top: 1em;
}

Option 2

.text + .line {
  margin: 0;
}
.line + .line {
  margin: 0;
}

Option 3

* + .line {
  margin: 0;
}

I've created a pen here to demo these: https://codepen.io/arthurattwell/pen/NQKRrp Just comment out/uncomment the options in the CSS to see how they behave there. You'd need to test in some older EPUB2 readers to see what really works. As @idiotprogrammer explains, support for the adjacent sibling selector (+) is very unpredictable. As I see it, users whose readers support it get your ideal spacing, and those that don't can still read the content at least.


Can you use a Kindle without an Amazon account?

I just got a new paperwhite, and am reading my own books on it without registering. It nags you to register, but if you open Calibre, and then connect via USB, you can put books on, and it all works just as normal. The only thing you can't do if you don't register is to "buy" Amazon's drm books, or access the ones you've already "bought."

Although it is possible you may be able to transfer said books through your kindle desktop app, I haven't tried,don't really care.


Trouble hooking up Goodreads with sideloaded ebook on Kindle Paperwhite

I have found the best way to get it 100 percent working is this:

If your book is not already in AZW3 format then convert it. (Has to be AZW3 and not just AZW.)
Secondly, highlight the book and edit metadata.
Once you are at that screen delete any other format that you have shown in the top right side leaving only AZW3.
Delete the tags by hitting the recycle icon next to the tags box and hit download metadata.
Once you have done that make sure the only tags you have are ISBN, Google, goodreads and amazon. You may not have all 4 but make sure that you do not have any mobi-asin tags.
Save and download the quality check plug in for calibre.
Highlight the book and click on the quality check icon at the top, look for 'fix' on the drop down menu and click 'fix asin for kindle fire'. Don't worry it will also work for paperwhite etc.
Delete any copy you already have on the device and resend.
For completeness I also go to the top of calibre and click device and update the cached metadata on device.
Eject device and you should be good to go! Full integration with goodreads as if you had purchased through Kindle store.


I only see the download links for DRMed ebooks on my Kobo Library

So I messaged Kobo's customer service and got this response

  Thank you for contacting Kobo Customer Care. We are more than happy to
  assist you.

  The book(s) you have purchased have been released by the publisher in
  the new ePub3 format, which can only be synced through the Kobo cloud.
  If you are not using a Kobo device or application, you will not be
  able to add this book manually. Additionally, ePub3 books are not
  compatible with some of our older Kobo devices such as the Original,
  Wifi, and Vox, nor the Kobo app on a Blackberry device.

  We apologize for this inconvenience and would be happy to offer you a
  store credit or refund. Please reply to this email and let us know
  which you would prefer.

I thought ePub3 is a standard? But I guess that's another issue entirely. At least now I know why those download links were missing.


You can download a free version of Dante's Divine Comedy from ReadBeyond (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso), these are well formatted epubs that also have numbered lines. You may find useful to look inside them and check their structure, to see if you can replicate these CSS settings for your own needs.


If the book has not a DRM and you are free to edit/convert it, you can use Calibre to convert to the same format (i.e. you can use an .epub as a source file and still convert to an .epub output.

In the Heuristic processing tab make sure to enable both the processing and Remove unnecessary hyphenation; if you want you can also enable other options here if you need to.

This method use the source document as a dictionary to verify if the hyphenated word is also spelled as a single word. Of course, if a given hyphenated word has a single occurrence it won't be corrected. From Calibre user manual:

  calibre will analyze all hyphenated content in the document when this
  option is enabled. The document itself is used as a dictionary for
  analysis. This allows calibre to accurately remove hyphens for any
  words in the document in any language, along with made-up and obscure
  scientific words. The primary drawback is words appearing only a
  single time in the document will not be changed. Analysis happens in
  two passes, the first pass analyzes line endings. Lines are only
  unwrapped if the word exists with or without a hyphen in the document.
  The second pass analyzes all hyphenated words throughout the document,
  hyphens are removed if the word exists elsewhere in the document
  without a match.

If you happen to have the the source .pdf, where all hyphenated words are placed at the end of their respective lines, you can use the Search & Replace tab to add another tweak (I've personally tested and used it many times).

You must enter -
 in the Search box and leave completely blank the Replacement one, and be sure to click Add to, well, add the rule to the conversion. This only works, as I've stated, if the hyphens are correctly placed at the end of their lines, so, in most cases, you need to have access to the source file. You can also click on the Wizard button to open a preview of the file, where you can preview what your source regex code (in this case -
) will select and delete (because we left blank the replacement box).


I would like to view full cover of converted pdf ebook originally purchased on Kindle Store

You can create an image of the page you desire to be displayed as the cover, and then have calibre use that image as the cover.

If you already have an image, then open the metadata editor and on the right side of that pop-up notice that under the cover image is a button to browse. Use that to select your desired image.

In your case, you don't yet have an image and I understand that you want to use a particular page of the e-book. What follows is a simple one-liner for the linux (debian) command-line using mutool from package mupdf-tools; if you don't use linux, it may be that the exact same package / program exists for your operating system, or you can look for a corresponding command...

mutool draw -o "OUT-%d.png" IN.pdf PAGE-NUMBER

... where OUT is your desired output filename, IN.pdf is your ebook, and PAGE-NUMBER is the page number of your desired cover.


Kindle Devices Which Support Two Page Layout

All Kindle devices that support fixed layout ebooks (so, the Paperwhite and the various versions of the Fire) should support two page layouts. It's important to note, though, that in the Kindle Publishing Guidelines, the only place that two-page spreads are mentioned is in Section 5: Creating Fixed-Layout Graphic Novels/Manga/Comics. In Section 4: Creating Fixed-Layout Children's Books the only way that page spreads are demonstrated is by making a single html page that looks like two print pages. In other words, if what you want is a book that will display a single page in portrait and two facing pages in landscape, you need to make sure it's a comic rather than a children's book.


looking for an easy way to look up possible values for Dublin Core Metadata Element Set etc

Sigil (freeware) will automatically insert the proper metadata entries for epub3 (and epub2) books.

(You'll have to delete the default dc:language en entry.
Then click Add Metadata, OK and select the language.)

AFAIK, it supports all metadata entries listed in the epub3 and epub2 specs.


Why can't I download the same books to Adobe Digital Editions and Overdrive apps?

Use your Overdrive account to authorize ADE:

"If you plan to use ADE and our mobile app, we encourage you to use your OverDrive account to authorize ADE. That way, you won't run into authorization issues when you read the same eBooks on your mobile device and on your computer. You can sign up for an OverDrive account through our mobile app or on overdrive.com."


Calibre: Adding ", " as a separator for splitting the authors string

I wouldn't recommend this, to be honest. The general naming convention that Calibre expects as default uses comma to delimit author's first and last name, i.e. either Jane Doe or Doe, Jane. If you fiddle with the splitting regex and then try to import a book with this name pattern, you'll get into trouble - and I don't know if this tweak influences just newly imported books or all books within your library.

But if you want to experiment, this regular expression should work: (?i),?\\s*(and|with|,)\\s+. I would try this on a test library first, though, if I were you.

In general, I highly recommend using an online regex tester (with Python regex flavor) such as this one for working with Calibre, it saved me a lot of headaches in the past.


Can I transfer my Purchased Nook library to Kindle or other Service?

Some authors and publishers require their books to be sold DRM free. Those books you can use on other reading platforms. Nook uses the ePub format which is used by just about everyone - Amazon being one of the exceptions. Depending on the specific reader, you might have to convert the file to a supported format. An ebook manager/converter program such as Calibre can help you with that.

Beyond that, your options will depend on the type of DRM used. A web search for Nook DRM found a document from 2009 describing the Nook DRM as a proprietary form of encryption using a credit card number as the key. Assuming that is correct, then your options will vary depending on where you live. In the US, you do not have any legal options under current law, as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) prohibits the removal of DRM, except under certain special circumstances, such as visually impaired readers wishing to use text-to-speech.


I use docbook for my ebook workflow, so I have a good deal of insight into this question.

Employment-wise, I haven't seen a lot of demand for docbook, though occasionally it is called for in open-source documentation. A lot of programmers know about it, and tech pubs know about it. I'm guessing that DITA is somewhat more popular in tech writing circles.  Knowing how to do XSLT is a somewhat hard to find skill (even among programmers).

Some positives:

The docbook-apps mailing list is small but dedicated. I usually get a
good answer fairly soon.
Docbook -- like DITA -- is a modular XML-based method for producing
documentation. I've repurposed it for ebook publishing. The semantics
are rich, and indeed, a branch called DOCBOOK FOR PUBLISHERS, uses
the same tools, tosses out some of elements used only for technical
pubs and adds a few ones for poetry and drama.
The best thing about it is that it's easy to read, it's easy to use
for version control and you can use general XSLT in a customization
layer to add functionality you need.
the HTML output is very clean, so it's easy to customize the CSS.
XML Oxygen is an extremely good client-side tool for producing and
transforming docbook files.
The standard is likely to remain stable and backward compatible for a long while. For now at least Oxygen is adequate as a tool.

Among the negatives:

Even though it's theoretically possible to produce epubs from docbook
xml and it's possible to use a framework like ANT to produce the
final output, I find it unwieldy. Instead I use the built in XSLT
transformations in Oxygen XML, and actually I do some manual steps --
moving image files into a directory, zipping the files up.
I often perform these manual steps because I'm too lazy/stupid to
write appropriate xslt code, but sometimes the stupid solution is the
easiest.
Because Docbook outputs into several files, often you will see some
extra elements and attributes which are remnants of this
functionality. Example: <div class="titlepage">
I have not seen any server-solutions for Docbook output although I'm
sure they exist.

The future:

3 trends I see that may suggest declining importance of docbook.

First, a lot of source is being written in markdown. I am seeing more tools (like Pandoc) to allow for richer presentation. Markdown isn't xml and not really a semantic language.

Client-based WYSIWG ebook tools are improving. None are really great (maybe Calibre?), but every year means more functionality and ease of use.

Static Site Generators - if they become more widespread, might result in more web-based ebooks. Docbook has a website builder function which I have never used btw. Hope this helps.


eBook format in nowadays: EPUB is de facto standard?

First, a note: I will not be considering PDFs in this answer, because I do not consider PDFs to be ebooks. There are a number of reasons for this, like lack of reflowability and end-user customization options, but the primary reason is that PDFs are not generally sold at sites that sell ebooks--you can't sell your PDFs through iBooks or the Kindle store or whatnot. Others have other opinions, and that's fine—the relevant info is that I won't be considering PDFs here.

In terms of variety of devices supporting the format, epub is the clear standard—it's supported on nearly everything that reads ebooks. When you look at numbers, though, it's a different story: according to an article at Digital Book World, a recent Book Industry Study Group found the following statistics to the question "Where do you typically acquire ebooks?":

Amazon.com website: 51.3%
Amazon App: 15.7%
iBooks/iTunes (Apple): 8.2%
Barnes & Noble App: 6.1%
Barnes & Noble website: 5.7%
All other sources: 12.8%

This means that Amazon accounts for roughly 2/3 of the sales of ebooks, making their proprietary mobi/KF8 format the dominant format.

In essence, there is no "winner" yet, and there is not likely to be any time soon. Apple, Google, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo are enough to ensure that epub will remain alive and kicking for quite some time. With a majority of the sales, Amazon has no impetus to switch to a standard, and they don't appear to be in any danger of losing much market share. Where we are is where we're likely to be for quite a while, which means making two formats: epub and mobi/KF8. fortunately, Amazon has gotten much better at making tools that convert from epub to their format, so concentrating on epub will give you something for Amazon as well with little extra work.


I wasn't able to try your example, because it was using a non-standard font that would have required me to download a font pack.
In general, to delete a comment in Adobe Reader, you simply right-click on the comment you want to delete, and select "Delete" in the menu that pops up.

Comments never come back when I delete them that way. If your comments continue to return, then it sounds like there's something wrong with your document.


KindleUnpack is primarily intended for debugging KindleGen issues. If your original Kindle books is an AZW3 book or a MOBI book generated with KindleGen, you can edit it with Calibre Editor.

Simply select the book in Calibre, right-click it and select Edit book. This will automatically unpack the book and open it in Calibre Editor. If you save the book it'll be automatically reassembled.


I don't know if there are studies into soft DRM, but there are studies
on difference in behaviour between people that are anonymous and people that are not. The non-anonymous generally being more "honest".

Removing soft DRM would rely on the non-anonymous person to do so, before handing the ebook on to someone else. Not doing so would have her/him run the risk of the passed on ebook being made even more public with name identification attached. I can only assume that for some of the potential passers-on, this is a deterrent.

You also would have to trust the software that removes the watermarking. Removing metadata is not enough, since the watermarking could be added via steganographic approach. Some formats such as PDF, have a plethora of possibilities to hide information. And you would have to remove images from an EPUB file, or severely change them, as there are watermarks for images that survive some of the re-renderings of the images. And your name could be watermarked in any or all of the images included in a book.


Why I can't buy books from Kindle Store using Kindle app on iPad?

Because otherwise Amazon would have to give Apple a cut of the 'in-app purchases'.

One article on the subject.


Can't download ebook from Amazon to my PC

After several hours of frustration and searching in internet (seriously, after like 3 hours), suddenly I remember the console. Hit F12 to open Chrome console and what a surprise: an error:
Mixed Content: The site at 'https://www.amazon.es/' was loaded over a secure connection, but the file
at '**HERE COMES THE DOWNLOAD URL**' was redirected through an insecure connection.
This file should be served over HTTPS. This download has been blocked. See
https://blog.chromium.org/2020/02/protecting-users-from-insecure.html for more details.

I tried to change chrome settings to no avail, so I just copied the download URL and pasted it in a new tab. It downloaded the book without a problem.
I don't really understand the problem, but yes, just copy/paste the URL and download your ebook.


This sounds like IMP format. The IMP file is a container for other directories files, namely (1) directories ending in .RES and (2) files ending in .FRK and .INF. From mobileread.com (no affiliation):

  IMP is an intermediate file format used to store eBook content for several eBook Readers, most notably the eBookwise-1150 and the REB 1200. These devices are end user names for products called the ETI-2 and ETI-1 respectively from http://ebooktechnologies.com/ (no longer available) The Wayback machine displays the last time this site was available Jun 20, 2010. Site downloads are still available from http://www.ebooksystem.net/support_download.htm

You can find a list of compatible software here.


Is it possible to sell PDF as Kindle books on Amazon?

No, Amazon does not sell PDFs on their site. If you submit a PDF to them via KDP, it will be auto-converted to mobi format for sale to Kindles. (As an aside, the fact that no major retailers sell PDFs in their stores is my primary argument for not calling PDFs "ebooks").


What are the different file formats that eBooks are available in and which of these is most widely supported?

There is an extensive (though maybe not exhaustive) list of ebook formats on Wikipedia. The article does a comparison on the formats.

The most widely supported formats are epub and pdf (and mobi/prc / KF8 / AZW if you include Amazon Kindle). Of course, plain text is probably THE most supported format, but I'm assuming you meant something that supports special formatting etc.


Is there a way to produce an epub with numbered equations?

It would help if provided a sample of the content to give a better answer or suggestion. Are the equations in html, mathml, or as images? What is your current html output for the equations, do you have a sample you could share?

If your number is wrapped in a tag with a unique css class, then you could use css to float the number to the right.

Example html:

The para with your equation 1/2(1)

Example css

span.eq_nu {float: right;}


is there any way to keep captions of the images always with the image?

Ultimately, it depends on which ereader devices you want to support.

Unless you are making a fixed layout book, the only method that will work 100% of the time is to make the caption a part of the image. Since epub and mobi are reflowable document formats, there is always a possibility that the device being used to view the document will push a text caption on the next page. However, devices do not usually split images across more than one page.

While I have used the text-in-image solution in the past, I don't personally recommend it, since images can be displayed at many different sizes and resolutions depending on the device or screen. It may be difficult for readers to read the caption while viewing on their phone, but the caption may look unusually large compared to body text on a computer screen. People using an e-ink reader may find the image text grainy or difficult to read. I agree that it is undesirable for the caption to get orphaned from its image, but I think that most readers of ebooks are accustomed to these kinds of text-flow failures, and would prefer the text being on the next page over not being able to read the text at all.

If you would like to do the best you probably can, you could try wrapping your image and caption in a <div> with page-break-inside: avoid; styling, but support for this CSS property is not universal, so you are still at the mercy of the device.

Some people prefer to use page-break-before: always; before the image, but this also has drawbacks. (You can end up with only one or two lines of text on a page and then a forced page-break for the image.)

In the event that all of the devices you plan to support can handle SVG tags, you could wrap the image in <svg> and include the text caption inside the SVG tag with the image. I have heard this works very well (but it requires SVG support).

If you're still interested in other more complicated ideas, you can check this thread on the MobileRead forums.


Yes, see the discussion on:

http://www.reddit.com/r/kindle/comments/2xojx2/how_to_fix_your_paperwhite_if_it_says_your_kindle/

It is happening IMHO due to Over The Air (pushed) software updates failing, either due to bugs in the new release or the update process not behaving. The biggest issue is that Amazon won't admit it and if your unit is out of warranty they want to sell you a new one instead of telling you the simple method of doing a factory reset, i.e. adding a DO_FACTORY_RESTORE file to your root directory! This is utter fraud by Amazon and I spent hours on calls to Amazon trying to get my unit fixed/replaced to no avail. The biggest conspiracy is why this simply fix seems to be widely discussed on Chinese and Russian web site but not on any english sites (hence my propencity to add the magic file name in posts on this topic).


Well, it's a bit of an involved solution, but you could access the "documents" folder on your kindle via miniUSB/USB data and charging cable with your computer, and compress the book (and remove the original). Kindle will not recognize the file anymore, though it still contains the same data.

NOTE, however, that if the file in question has a duplicate in the cloud, the duplicate will remain accessible.

For this purpose, I recommend Settings>Device Options>Parental Controls>Restrictions>Cloud (and an adequate password).

You may also want to restrict access to the Kindle Store? Just sayin'.

These steps will secure the files on your kindle, but inaccessible by kindle;
in your kindle cloud, but restricted to those with the password.

(Just tested on my Kindle 7th Gen.)


Any way to find a lost Kindle inside a house?

The OP's solution is below. Adding as a community wiki Answer and removing the solution edits from the Question.

Found the Kindle using the sniffing technique described below. However I'd still like to know if there's a way to find it that's less overkill.

I discovered that the Kindle updates its contents daily while in deep sleep around 5:30-6:30AM. So I set up the delivery of a biggish pdf file through the kindle email so I'd ensure a long enough connection, end set up three laptops with a Kali Linux running live with airodump sniffing packages (modified from here: http://www.androidauthority.com/capture-data-open-wi-fi-726356/  )

The following procedure can be used to physically find any active wifi device connected to a network:

Three lines of code in the terminal in at least three Kali Linux running devices (2D location, at least 4 receivers out of plane for 3D):

To start monitor mode on a wifi card (in this case wlan0, check on iwconfig if needed):

airmon-ng start wlan0

Airmon usually changes the card name to wlan[n]mon after this. Check the wifi interface name on iwconfig and modify accordingly if the next line returns a related error.

Then run airodump to find your wifi network and its channel:

airodump-ng wlan0mon

Enter Ctrl-C to end the capture once you note the desired network's channel

Run the following line to run airodump again only at the specified channel and record the data to the "allthedata.csv" file in the terminal directory (usually the root for a live cd/usb if you didn't change it). Replace the square brackets by the channel number:

airodump-ng -c [channel number 1, 6 or 11 usually] -w allthedata wlan0mon

I started the pcs before going to sleep and as I woke up a bit past the usual update time, I hit ctrl-C to stop the capture and looked up the device on the allthedata.csv files by its MAC number which can be obtained at the router logs. There are in fact 4 allthedata files with different extensions per capture, and on the xml you can find the manufacturer of the device in the logs, so even if you don't know the mac address by looking up an Amazon branded device connected to your router you may find the Kindle entry.

At the Kindle entry, find the signal strength value and note it for all the receiver computers.
Then convert the values from dbm to mW using the following formula: mW=10^(dBm/10)*1000.

To triangulate the signal (for a 2D location), draw a chart with the position of the laptop wifi receivers and for every pair of receivers, draw a line perpendicular to the line going through the points in a point inversely proportional to the square root of the mW power values, as the signal drops of proportionally to the square of the distance (for 3D use at least 4 receivers and a surface between the points).

The lines should cross at the source of the emission - the Kindle was at a closet in this case. The margin of error was about 1m/3ft even with several concrete/brick walls in between the receivers and the emission.

Notes:

This simplified location approach is only possible if the emitter is located in between the receivers, that is, a three-set of receivers (2D) form a triangle that has the emitter inside it.
Different receivers might have different antenna gains and correcting for it will greatly increase accuracy. A quick and dirty way of doing so is positioning the receivers at the same position from a constant power emitter (wifi router, for example) and using the signal strength value difference between them as a calibration factor to be subtracted it from the signals received afterwards.


You can use page-break-inside: avoid; in your CSS to keep information from breaking across pages where possible in a reflowable epub file, though not all reading systems will honor it. Another option would be using page-break-before: always; to force a page break before the content that you want to keep together. This is somewhat more widely supported, but still not universal. In the end, pagination is a relic of print and not something native to digital, so trying to force it might not be the most efficient way to go. Are there other ways you can accomplish the same end, perhaps with hyperlinks?


Can I factory reset a Kindle without interfering with another newer Kindle?

You assume correctly, resetting one kindle will not have an effect on your other kindle device :)


The one I use is Luzme It queries several stores including Kobo, Amazon, B&N and in several countries.

It then for each book shows the price that it last saw for each source and country.

It is searchable by book name and author and series, although the series data is not complete as it comes from the stores.

You can set up a wishlist of books and emails can be sent when they change price.

This site does provide DRM status if the store makes that data available.

The format is not shown however Amazon sites provide Kindle format and others at least ePub - I would be interested in any exceptions


How do I import an EPUB e-book into my Kindle?

I figured it out as I had not received an answer:

Download the open-source Calibre e-book management software from
here.
Once it's installed, open Calibre and add an EPUB e-book to its
library by clicking on the "Add books" button.
After you have added the e-book to the Calibre library, select it,
and then click the "Convert books" button.
This will open a new window with a few options and formats to
convert to.
Select ".MOBI" for the format.  This is important because .MOBI is
compatible with Kindle unlike .EPUB.
Once you've converted it, you can plugin your Kindle and use Calibre
to send the .MOBI e-book version to your Kindle so you can read it
there.


Calibre is very useful piece of software for ebook-handling purposes, it has many options for converting between formats and generally does a good job keeping the original formatting and images intact. Also works for batch conversion.


How to set a cover image on a PDF on Kindle PW2?

I've found a similar question to mine, but titled more generally:

Kindle doesn't show cover


Epub Software that Supports Folders/Subfolders

In html it should not matter at all what the directory structure for your unzipped epub files should be. With HTML, as long as you get the paths correct on the hyperlink, everything is great.

As a practical matter though, it is easier to work with flat directories. Maybe one subdir for media files, one subdir for scripts, one subdir for css. This can be unwieldy for ebooks with a lot of chapters though.

Many tools that produce epub files try to follow this convention, if only to prevent path problems later on. I would assume that an HTML-based tool like Calibre would offer more flexibility, while Adobe ID offers less.

There is a separate issue about how reading systems process an epub consisting of a lot of subdirs. But in the 5 or 6 years I have been creating ebooks, I haven't heard of any performance or rendering problems related to that -- but I could be wrong.

It's important to remember that all files in an epub file must be used or the epub won't validate.  So you can't have conditional directories (or else you must manually add/remove them for each output).


Syncing kindle book annotations (non Amazon books) across kindle apps

Amazon Support said (on 2019-05-24) that syncing personal documents is not supported.

Here is my chat:

► Amazon: I'm sorry, currently there is no option to see the highlights made in the personal documents.

► Me: Ok, you are saying that Amazon deleted the website that allowed viewing highlights made in personal documents. Then I still have the other 2 questions:
1) Should Whispersync work to keep my reading "location" up to date between devices when reading personal documents (or is that not supported anymore either)?

2) Should Whispersync work to keep my highlights identical between devices when reading personal documents (or is that not supported anymore either)?

► Amazon: I can understand your concern. Please allow me a moment to check this.
Thanks for waiting.
I'm sorry, the highlights will not sync through all the devices which are made on personal documents.

► Me: And I guess the current reading "location" / progress won't either?

► Amazon: Yes, exactly.


How to insert calculated page numbers based on word counting into an ePub file?

It's not possible to dynamically change content in epub2 books, however, you could theoretically use JavaScript in an epub3 book to re-paginate a book, however, this would be overkill, since the epub3 standard supports page numbers.

Unfortunately, very few freeware apps besides iBooks (iOS, macOS) and Azardi (Windows, macOS, Linux) support epub3 page numbers.

If your book is a textbook, you might want to consider using a print-on-demand service provider.


Well kindlegen basically just strips all code that isn't on Amazon documentation from HTML and CSS. So if your ePub is not too complicated the results should be satisfactory. This can change when you will try convert fixed layout where hierarchy of DOM isn't logic.

To give you straight answer: It not make any difference unless your DOM is in logic order.

DOM (Document Object Model) define structure of an document. Ideally structure (or hierarchy ) should be logic in terms of rendering. For example:

Lorem ipsum

Lorem ipsum 2

here you have two divs with two paragraphs one after the other. If you will not manipulate with them, they will also render one after the other. But you could use CSS or JS to manipulate them and render
Lorem ipsum 2
 before
Lorem ipsum
 without change your actual HTML. This situation happens very often when you designing fixed-layout ePub which are parto of ePub3 spec.


There is; EPUBtest provides a detailed grid of supported features by reader, app, and platform, as well as an extensive test suite for conducting your own tests.

For example, as of January 31, 2014, Kindle for PC 1.10.6 on Windows 7 has very limited support:

Note: I have no affiliation with EPUBtest; I just thought it was a handy tool.


Is it better to let a footnote link wrap to the next line or force it to remain with the last word block it references?

I'm somewhat mystified that the reading system would put the footnote on the next line. Are you sure that in the HTML source  there is no random space (or extra character) between the last word of the sentence, the period, and the number reference in brackets?  One might expect these characters to run after another without spaces regardless of which line it appears on.

My preference would be not to hard code wrapping/justification defaults in the element (P? LI? etc)  and just let the reading system (and the reader) do it. Or maybe specify a default for body text? For one thing, this becomes less of an issue when displays are wider and reading systems become more powerful. You don't want your publisher css to depend on the user turning justification on or off.  If the user perceives that justification is impeding the ability to read the text, they can usually turn it off on settings. Handling of justification on reading systems will only improve over time.

I'd be curious what screen dimensions this issue is happening in. This is an anomaly that I personally am fine with mobile phone users experiencing if width is 600 or less.


Does the MOBI file format for Kindle use the same CSS standards as browsers?

Are there differences or limitations in how MOBI renders or interprets
  CSS?

In a word - yes.  The CSS support for modern browsers is much much more extensive than the CSS support for e-readers.  There simply has not been the same level (or expectation) of standardization for the epub format, in general.  It used to be because of hardware limitations but now that mostly every e-reader has enough power it can really only be attributed to the negligence of the e-reader manufacturers.

This site provides metrics for specification support by e-reader including the Kindles
http://epubtest.org/rs/14/ and you can go specifically this page to see the stlyling support for the Kindle Fire http://epubtest.org/rs/14/.

Also, in reference to your specific issue, the TOC is more difficult to style than the regular body matter because it is automatically generated and adds one more layer of obfuscation when trying to find out the code that is generating the style.


How are Kindle standard pages calculated?

This can be really hard to estimate without narrowing your question down a bit.

But I just measured a text-heavy book to determine:

Mobile Phone App
852 characters 26 lines

On a small e-ink device:

1217 characters ...  25 lines (3rd font size from left)
802 characters  21 lines  (next larger size font, 2nd from left)

Large Tablet:

2003 characters 41 lines somewhat small font size
1666 characters       37 lines somewhat large font size

Users can adjust text margins and text size, so that plays a role. Also, my sample didn't have many paragraphs or line breaks. I was using a custom font on my large tablet, it seems that Bookerly is slightly smaller, so maybe add an extra 100.


Are there Perl modules recommended for reading and creating epub files?

EPUB::Parser is available and supports epub3 only.


Kindle forum gave me the solution! Synch only works when in the softwares's "home screen". Now they are properly synched :D sad I must always do it manually, they should automatically synch with Kindle server whenever there's internet available.


Can epub software be used to create an online web document?

SIGIL is probably not your best tool for creating static HTML files although it's not impossible.

The main goal of sigil is to produce an epub file, and to read an epub in the browser, you'd need to install a special extension (Readium).

If you get down to it, epubs solve a navigation problem -- of flipping between chapters and of creating a TOC.

On the other hand, an epub is just a zip of html files and some extra navigation stuff.  I build my epub files in another way (Docbook XML --> static HTML --> EPUB) -- but when testing/editing, I view each chapter and the table of contents web page in a browser.

I don't know if Sigil has a button to turn your files into an epub file, but my guess is that at some point, the chapters and TOC exist as  HTML files. Even if they don't, you could simply rename the .epub to .zip and then unzip.

The file tree for epubs are fairly standard; here's what's generally inside.

OEBPS

1.html
toc.html
2.html
my.css
images/

META-INF (navigation stuff and metadata inside)

You could just ftp the oepbs directory to your website and you'd have all the static pages there (you might need to rename the toc.html to index.html so that's the default view. An index file in ebook usually doesn't refer to the TOC but the subject index at the end of the book.

So SIGIL could probably get the job done (and is especially recommended if you are using internal links between web pages), but a simple html editor would work just as well. (Heck, even MS Word to HTML could do the job, although you'd have to live with ugly code).


Calibre can optionally use a server to send mail

Calibre uses the address that was entered in the Sharing books by email dialog box. Apparently, the developer didn't anticipate that someone would try to use send without configuring email settings.

You might want to contact him and let him know about this issue. (He usually fixes problems the very same day.)


Block quotes in numbered lists that don't interrupt numbering

I found my answer. Several things were being done incorrectly.

First, ScribeNet's conversion process likes to close non-linking anchor tags with a /> instead of </a>. E-books read this with no problem, but the basic HTML gets squirrely and starts thinking there has been an interruption in the numbering of the list. Thus, any page breaks that occurred in my original print book and that were marked up in my HTML needed to be closed properly with </a>.

From there it was just a simple matter of setting <p class="nlf"> (or nl or nll where nlf represents "numbered list first", nl is "numbered list", and nll is "numbered list last") to have the appropriate margins and text indents in CSS (which you can sort out for yourself based on what format you'd like). But the clincher was to use:

display: list-item; list-style: decimal in my CSS for these 3 class elements. What this does is display a paragraph as if it were a list element, and then look to the list-style to determine how the list is marked, which is in this case with cardinal numbers followed by a period/full-stop.

You can mess around with various list styles such as disc, decimal, lower-roman', etc. But there are also two modifiers,insideandoutside`. You can call them like this:

list-style: lower-latin inside

What this will do is go through the Latin alphabet in cardinal order from a to z for each subsequent paragraph in the list, and then rather than inserting a large whitespace (equivalent to a 'tab') between the period/full-stop after the Latin letter and the start of the content of the paragraph, it will instead indent the list-marker and tuck it in closer to the text. This is nice if you are producing, for example, multiple-choice questions at the end of a chapter/unit of a text book. Very handy!


Phonetic IPA sounds problem to transfer to ePub format

You might want to try to embed a different font. Free fonts with good IPA coverage are:

Charis SIL

Source Sans Pro

If embedding a different font didn't solve your problem, it was most likely caused by the epub converter that you used.
What's the source file format and what tool did you use to convert it to an epub file?


Genres/ Subjects/ Categories in epub's metadata

This field comes from the Dublin Core (DC) metadata standard, which is useful for interoperability between software and databases. I don't think there has emerged an accepted way to use DC metadata for ebook reading systems.

One idea might be to go with BISAC categories (as listed here). My memory could be mistaken, but I don't think the reading systems process these values in any meaningful way, (wouldn't that be nice if they did!) BTW, I seem to recall that Google Play required that you use BISAC codes when selling through them. For the DC metadata, don't use the alphanumeric value of the BISAC,  just use a simple phrase based on BISAC values.

Here's a book marketing guy explaining BISAC vs. Amazon's categories. Here's  more by this same book marketing guy.


How to prevent Calibre replacing my cover image

Calibre has had an option to insert a cover long before it offered editing some ebook formats. That option comes with additional utilities of finding a fitting cover using some internet services.
If such a cover is not selected, calibre generates its own and inserts that in the epub file.

With the relatively new editing possibilities in Calibre, the cover still comes from this explicit selection (via the metadata editor). And any hand-crafted cover page gets overwritten by the "insert cover from metadata" functionality.

That cover is actually stored along with the ebook and the metadata in the directory where the ebook is stored. You can probably just replace that there, or select the cover you want via the metadata change functionality.


How to alternate row colors of tables in ePub files

You can use the following CSS rules to style respectively even or odd table rows (See the Example on W3schools):

tr:nth-child(even) {
    background-color: #f2f2f2
}

tr:nth-child(odd) {
    background-color: #f2f2f2
}


No, this is impossible.

Since the Kindle email service converts everything to a personal document, you must USB sideload in order to retain the periodical tag.


No. I don't think it's because of your kindle discharged to 0. Many times my kindle also goes to Zero percentage but it connected to wifi again once I charge my kindle. If you can reset your kindle I think it might solve your issue. Please find the link to how to Reset your kindle.
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-reset-kindle-paperwhite?IR=T


Online ebooks management system that can be hosted on a server

I am not sure why you would need to run this on a web server; if it is just for backup reasons and distributed access I would just push the folder in one of the common online storage solutions like Dropbox or similar.

Calibre can be run as a server itself and offer the files in its library via a web interface. You can then access the files via the web browser of your reader. It works, but if you have access to a computer where you can use Calibre directly I think it is much more practical by several orders of magnitude.

But your specifications are not specific enough to tell if this solution fits your needs.

Google Play Books allows you to upload your own books so you could use this for synchronisation and distributed access also.


Can I copy or publish, text from a website.

I am not a lawyer, but: If the text is in the public domain, then yes, you can use it. Be sure that it really is in the public domain, though—copyright lasts for a very long time. Also bear in mind that if the text is annotated, translated, or altered in any other way, or if it's a collection of public domain works, there may be further complications. If you have any doubts, you'd be best advised to contact an IP/Copyright lawyer.


Transferring files from one Kindle to another with a forgotten password

You don't need to worry about accessing the old kindle. Everything purchased through amazon remains available from the cloud. Presumably your cousin used the same Amazon account to purchase both kindles.  Just log on and send it to the new kindle.

If not, go to amazon.com click sign in and than go through the forgotten password process for the original Amazon account. The password for the old kindle may be different and does not matter, it is only the account that matters.

Once you have access to both accounts, you will need to transfer the new kindle to ownership of the old account. Then you will be able to download to from the cloud as you learned in your earlier research.

Alternatively you can keep the accounts separate, after you have accessed the old account, you can download to the PC and transfer to the new kindle, but this will only work for non-DRM works.  DRM works will be restricted to devices registered to the original account.


Best platform and format for eBook on software/programming

I suggest you of using LaTeX for such work. LaTeX handles multiple types of documents, text and media environments (complex equations as well as images, videos, plots, program source code (you can find packages to provide syntax highlight)), languages. You can also meaningfully use a Version Control System with its source code (like Git). And the end, you can export your book as PDF, PostScript, or other formats.

There are compilers and integrated editors for every major desktop operating system, for example, various Linux Distributions, Windows, or even macOS.


Which size is taken into account by Amazon when calculating the download fees

You might find this article https://www.52novels.com/from-the-ebook-formatting-files-why-is-my-mobi-file-so-huge/ and this post to be helpful. How can I reduce the resolution of images in an epub or mobi file?

From the first article:

  Amazon understands this is unfair. After all, it prefers high-quality ebooks that play nicely with the various Kindle ereading systems.Rather than penalize authors and publishers for making beautiful full-featured ebooks, it calculates the delivery fee based on the smallest version which is usually the KF7 version. You can verify this by checking the Rights & Pricing page at your KDP Bookshelf.


Kobo by FNAC does not show covers when sleeping

It turns out it's a factory setting for the FNAC versions. It can be changed by connecting it to your computer and editing a file inside a hidden folder: .kobo/affiliate.conf.
You should change it from affiliate=fnac to affiliate=Kobo.

This was found at a MobileRead Forum post, and I thought it should be here for making it easier to be found.


Do any CSS media queries work for Kindle ios app?

Or is this an actual query which is digested and followed by the Kindle app on the ipad?

This is an actual media query that you can use in Kindle KF8 books.
For example, you could use the following code to display paragraphs in red if the orientation is changed to landscape.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN"
  "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">

  <title></title>

Media query test

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nulla ac tellus nunc.
  Phasellus imperdiet leo metus, et gravida lacus. Donec metus ligula, elementum at
  pellentesque pellentesque, suscipit ac nunc. Etiam lobortis, massa ac aliquam auctor,
  augue nisl sagittis urna, at dapibus tellus erat ullamcorper ligula.

Note that media queries only work with AZK (KF8) files. (Kindle Previewer will automatically generate an .azk file if you set the default device mode to Kindle for iPad/iPhone.)


Epub without a Table of Contents, is it possible?

I'm guessing that you are asking the question in the wrong way: you actually want to hide the HTML entries from the TOC so that the TOC doesn't spoil any surprises. I have good news. In epub3 you can create a navigation page and hide all the entries in that TOC.

Let me explain some basics. The terminology can be confusing because initially Kindle required a "logical TOC" (which was an HTML file linking to all the chapters) in addition to a TOC in toc.ncx  The real TOC (which is machine-readable) was in toc.ncx for epub2  but inside the NAV element of the required navigation document in epub3.

In epub3 it is no longer necessary to have a toc.ncx file (and for future versions it will be deprecated). Instead you include a HTML navigation document (which you mark by using the NAV  element in that file). For epub3, writers of the standards wised up; they realized that rather than requiring two different kinds of TOCs, why not just put everything in one navigation HTML document, with proper tagging and then forget about toc.ncx?

Fortunately, it is relatively easy to hide TOC entries inside the NAV element of the epub3 navigation document.

Here's how you do it in epub3.  "The presence of the hidden attribute on the root indicates that the entire list is excluded from rendering in the content flow." (Source)

Table of Contents

Preface

 Requiem on the Rappahannock

Version History

I'm not 100% sure you can hide all the entries (I haven't tested that), but I'm pretty sure you can hide almost all the entries (maybe you are required to have at least 1 visible TOC item).

If you want to hide one or more entries in epub2, edit this in package.opf.

 <spine toc="ncx">
        <itemref idref="cover" linear="no"/>
        <itemref idref="htmltoc" linear="yes"/>
        <itemref idref="alternate-toc" linear="no"/>
         ...

Linear="no" means to exclude it from the TOC entries for epub2 reading systems. Importantly, note that if you have an epub3 file, the reading system will probably obey the  and ignore whatever you put in the package.opf file.

I am talking about epub and epub3. If I remember correctly, converting from epub3 to mobi produces the same effect.

The ability to hide TOC entries is important for certain kinds of books (the first thing that comes to mind are Choose-your-own adventure ebooks and other hypertexts).


how to redeem Amazon gift cards on a Kindle?

I'm guessing that the reason you are asking the question is that for some reason you don't have access to the account associated with the device. YOu could probably check with the Amazon people, but I'm pretty sure that the only way to redeem a gift card is via a web browser and only if you have the account holder's login/pass.

Another option is to just wipe it clean and create your own account.

If you have ebooks that you want to add to the device and they are not encrypted with DRM, you can add them via usb.


Is a local page on my site or my Amazon author page better to redirect readers to?

This is an opinion/strategy question which is hard to answer. Generally though, even if you make an author page on a website, search engine placement for your Amazon page is going to be higher than your personal website.

That said, it's still good to have a presence outside the Amazon universe. Amazon is cluttered with promos to other products.  Book marketing guru David Gaughran wrote, “As I write these words, there are currently 248 different titles on the product page of the Kindle edition of “Let’s Get Digital.” Between the ads, Also Boughts, Also Vieweds, Amazon promotion, and other links, there are hundreds of things that could distract a reader before they purchase."

You have a lot more freedom to put multimedia, bios, blogposts on your personal page -- and obviously links to other bookstores. besides, The amazon author page doesn't really generate many leads. Even though it's owned by Amazon I would still establish a web presence on goodreads.


Your best bet is to validate with EPUBCheck. That will catch dupe @ids and other errors. I use a command in Linux similar to:

java -jar /home/epubcheck.jar book.epub -out errors.xml

The errors.xml file will give you filename, line numbers, and error descriptions.

Or you can use an online validator at IDPF if you don't mind uploading your work.


How to add my own ebooks in mobi format to be displayed in Kindle app on Android

Each Kindle device should have an email address where you email the books. Find system settings on your device to find that email address. Email the mobi file as an attachment to that email address.


How to (easily) get the back cover off a $35 Polaroid PER7021 e-reader?

Try using an iSesamo — it's a tool explicitly made for popping open the panels on electronic devices (www.newertech.com/products/isesamo.php)

The iSesamo is thinner than plastic spludgers and sits in a sweet spot between stiff/inflexible and too-bendable-to-pry-things-off.


Screen Rendering only 2/3 of eBook - Troubleshooting Ideas?

Simple answer is no unless you have access to this model e-ink screen. Scratches on display suggests that something or someone just broke the screen. It is not software issue - it is hardware.


Where are books downloaded from Amazon Kindle app stored in Android?

The path should be something like "mnt/sdcard/android/data/com.amazon.kindle/files"

Just navigate to it with file manager of choice.

Download history won't be of help.
App and it's data are usually stored in separate places.

Many file managers allow searching for a file, but most often then not it's a pain in the arse to do so. (With Root Browser, atleast)


How do I delete a book off of my Kindle account?

Go to 'Manage Your Content and Devices' on Amazon.
In the 'Your Content' section on that page, locate the row for the book you wish to delete.
In that the row, locate and click on the Actions button.
Select the 'Delete' option.

NOTE: Though your Kindle Library will list Audible audiobooks, as well as Kindle ebooks, you cannot use this method to delete Audible audiobooks from your Library. Audible currently does not provide users this option. If you insist, you can contact Audible customer support and they will do it for you, or if the book is eligible for refund, you can initiate a so-called 'book return' (and receive a refund) on the Account Details page of Audible.com, where you will see an 'eligible' link in the 'Return' column of the row corresponding to the audiobook you wish to return to Audible.


Where to find Programming Ebooks in epub/mobi format?

Depends on a lot of things.

First, are you using an eink version of a kindle? or a Kindle Fire?

If you are using e-ink (and therefore can't use pdf easily), I would recommend buying ebooks from Oreilly or Packt Publishing. They're very expensive, but at least they will format properly for an eink device.

(by the way, both companies have pretty good sales (and occasional free downloads), so I would recommend signing up for their email list.

If you have a Kindle Fire, then all you need to do is to download a PDF reader app (there are many -- don't try to read things  with the Kindle app).

You may be limited by what you can afford, but because PDFs are not reflowable, you want to get a fairly good screen size to read them. You need at least 8 inch screen in my opinion. If you buy smaller, the text size will be hard to read. (There's a zoom function in smaller devices, but it's inconvenient).

Try http://openbookproject.net/thinkcs/ for a good (and famous) introduction to basic structures (using python as an example). I recommend this for starting out. Here's the pdf of the latest version http://www.ict.ru.ac.za/Resources/cspw/thinkcspy3/

(Older editions of this book in other computer languages are here: http://www.openbookproject.net/thinkcs/archive/ ).

Here's a list of ebooks for free out there
https://github.com/vhf/free-programming-books/blob/master/free-programming-books.md

One more thing. If you have kindle fire, I would sign up for evernote, download the app on your tablet and then clip recent web tutorials on subjects which interest you. this is a good way to read articles when offline; evernote renders the content pretty well.

Finally, I want to really recommend buying a tablet which you can be comfortable reading PDFs on. 6 or 7 inch tablets just aren't good enough for most people to read PDFs on. I have an ipad 1 with the 10 inch screen and I still use it for reading technical manuals.


Here are four:

Kobo Aura HD (6.8" screen)
ICARUS8 e-reader (8" screen)
Kindle DX (9.7" screen)
Bookeen Cybook Ocean (8" screen, status 2013-12: announced)


Kobo eReaders have two reading engines:

Adobe RMSDK (epub2)
ACCESS NetFront (epub3)

The ACCESS NetFront epub3 engine supports RTL text in epub3 books with a .kepub extension. Depending on the model/firmware, you might have to embed/install Hebrew fonts. For more information also see this website.

You also might want to check out the Mobileread Kobo forum for more detailed information.

tl;dr The answer is yes, but you'll most likely have to convert epub2 books to epub3 books and change the file extension to .kepub. (You also might have to embed/install Hebrew fonts.)


I think epub3 is basically the standard format (especially now that Kindlegen is fairly well aligned with epub3 even though kindle doesn't support all features); what you have to decide is the toolchain to get the job done (especially regard to the editing process). You also have to decide whether you are going digital only or publishing digitally and print simultaneously.

I don't know what your content is or how many contributors or editors you will have. I also don't know your budget or what form your content currently is in; I assume it's in XML or in some SQL database. Maybe you'd be able to keep it in DITA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_Information_Typing_Architecture .
 For collaborative XML Editing, you're talking about pretty pricey things; maybe you can have data input in a php/mysql form which later could be converted into custom HTML.  Even though this probably has a hefty price tag though it's easier to maintain.

The other option is a mobile app. I assume there are templates for multimedia book apps which you can purchase and customize. I generally shun those kinds of solutions, but depending on your content and audience, this might be attractive. Also, an app could connect to a constantly updated online db.

On android especially epub3 support on software seems to vary widely, and so apps tend to look more uniform across platforms.

I can't speak of compression or performance, but I'd wonder how you expect readers to browse through. Will they be starting by searching for the keyword? I guess you can stick some javascript up front for a reader-friendly search form. That means you'd need the ereader platform to support javascript.

These are my superficial thoughts.


What information does my Kindle share with Amazon?

Hard to guess what information sends or what the device can do when connected via WiFi when this information is not open and probable it will not be.

Take as an example this incident( article excerpt/ my emphasis):

  Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle

  ...

  Digital books bought for the Kindle are sent to it over a wireless
  network. Amazon can also use that network to synchronize electronic
  books between devices — and apparently to make them vanish.

  ...

and also this incident where the account was also closed(excerpt/my emphasis):

  Why did amazon close a woman’s account and delete all her kindle books?

  ...

  According to Amazon’s terms of use, “Kindle Content is licensed, not
  sold, to you by the Content Provider.” It states that “Risk of loss
  for Kindle Content transfers when you download or access the Kindle
  Content.”

  ...

This are by no means isolated, and are a far cry from the Privacy Notice you mentioned, and made me keep always the Wi-Fi off and backup my documents.


Why does the text in my aside display in my ebook?

First of all, note that iBooks for OS X is very very buggy, and its behavior differs from iBooks on iOS with respect to many functions.

Said that, note that "iBooks hiding <aside> elements" is an Apple quirk; any other reading system, in absence of relevant CSS rules or if they don't have a specialized behavior on elements carrying an epub:type, will display an <aside> as any other <div>.

Have you tried applying a CSS rule (e.g., visibility: hidden) to your <aside>?

BTW, for compatibility reasons, I tend to group the notes at the end of the XHTML file.

Some links you might find useful:

http://www.idpf.org/accessibility/guidelines/content/xhtml/notes.php
http://www.pigsgourdsandwikis.com/2012/05/creating-pop-up-footnotes-in-epub-3-and.html
http://www.heliconbooks.com/article/epubfootnote


Can a custom column with "Date" type be added to the tag browser?

Yes, you can accomplish that using SubGroups in Calibre. The way to do a subgroup is described here (for user entered Genres) but I'll do the TL;DR below for how to do it with publication dates: https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/sub_groups.html

Create a custom column with desired lookup name (yearpub) and heading and give the column type "Column built from other columns, behaves like tags"
In the Template box, enter this code: {pubdate:'test($,
strcat(substr(format_date($,'yyyy'), 0, 3), '0.',format_date($,'yyyy')),
'Unknown')'}
Set "Sort/search columb by" to TEXT and mark a check in the "Show in tags browser".
After restarting Calibre, go to Preferences-->Look and Feel-->Tag Browser and in the entry "Categories with hierarchical items" enter your custom column's lookup name.

Now, what that all does is takes the Published Date data of that book/entry and puts it in the format of an hierarchical tag by decade.year which will now show in the Tags Browser under the lookup name you gave, then the decade, then the year. All without having to enter in any extra data! Just make sure the published date is correct. If no published date is given it will mark it as Unknown.

Enjoy!