First, you are way behind the current standard.

Most (if not all)  ebook distributors are requiring high resolution graphics for cover images. (a Minimum of 1500 pix or 2000 pix for width). This has been true for at least the last 2 years.

It's true that some of the smaller devices will display only 600x800, but all distributors recognized early on that it's easier to require a high resolution cover graphic and then downconvert rather than accept smaller graphics which can't be converted to the newer screens.

Second, I'm assuming you are not using Indesign for a Fixed Layout. Fixed layout requires you to set dimensions etc, but this is NOT epub. Epub is more flexible for a variety of standards. That indeed is the point.

Amazon (which doesn't accept epub but lets you convert from epub to a Kindle format) has a tool called Kindle Previewer which also lets you emulate the various Amazon devices. http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=amb_link_359603222_5?ie=UTF8&docId=1000765261

I found that on Chrome there is an extension called "Screen Resolution Tester" which lets you simulate various display sizes https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/screen-resolution-tester/bnbpeddmakpmblddofjnoghpjminhjph?hl=en

You can also check this reference guide for screen sizes. http://mydevice.io/devices/

This should get you started. I would start by testing dimensions for oldest Amazon Kindle Fire, ipad 1 or 2, ipad 3, the 7 inch ipad, iphone, Galaxy Tab 7 and 10.


Cannot view the collections I created on my kindle touch

New collections were not implemented on K4. Collections which you can create on  K4 were created only on the local device. They won't go on the cloud.

According to the Amazon site, QUOTE: "Cloud Collections are currently supported on 6th Generation and newer Kindle e-readers, and 3rd Generation and newer Fire tablets." (and also, Kindle apps on Android/ios devices)

Finally, a tip from someone who uses collections often, you should organize your collections via the Manage your Content and Devices interface. (This is especially true if you are on an e-ink device). It's much easier.


Is it necessary/possible to specifically target foreign-language "editions" of amazon?

Amazon.es is amazon's website for Spain and not the Spanish language. Amazon has different websites based on a country (due to taxes, copyright, etc.) and not based on a language.

And I know that I cannot get access to ebooks in Spanish that are not in the US Amazon website if the author or the published didn't make it available here. So even though you can look at those other amazon.com  websites, you'll not be able to make any purchases.

So when searching a book in Spanish, I simply type the name of the book (either in Spanish or English) and add

  Spanish edition


You can try the good old ebook reader bundled with Calibre. It's a multiplatform software, so it's available for other systems too, not just for Windows. Besides being a great application (Calibre itself is the swiss army knife for all things related to ebooks), it's also free and open-source.

There is also EPUBReader, it's not a standalone program but a Firefox extension. Anyway I've never used it so I can't tell you much more than this.

Other available ereaders are those tied to online ebook stores, like Kindle, Kobo, Nook, and so on.


When in a book, tapping in the very bottom left of the screen will rotate through LOC, Page, Time left in Chapter, Time left in Book, and off. When in any mode other than off, the percent completion will appear in the bottom right of the screen.

This is based on a 7th gen Paperwhite with firmware version 5.11.1.1.


.acsm files contain only Adobe Content Server download instructions, not the actual ebook. If you want to generate word counts, you'll have to download the actual epub, remove the DRM and use Calibre.


After so long I came back to this issue and found the solution.

I open the epub in 7z (but not unzip)
I drag the image folder out and recompress it with Ifranview to my liking.
Now I drag it back into the open 7z window to replace the old image folder
close 7z, and now the epub is half size and opens correctly in any epub app,


Does a basic CSS file to produce acceptable documents exist anywhere?

You can also try the Blitz general purpose stylesheet.


Transferring “copied to kindle” mobi ebook files from one iPad to another

Personally I keep my entire library on calibre, which is installed on my PC, and I make regular backups to ensure the books remain safe.

Easy to move them back and forth between devices.

See Related post here calibre


How can I toggle text reliably across all ereaders in an epub file?

Javascript would be the best way to do this, but as you note, not all ebook reading systems support Javascript—in fact, very few of them beyond iBooks do. Without Javascript, this isn't really possible, unfortunately. The doppletext site that you link to uses Javascript, for example.

Ebook reading systems support a fairly limited subset of HTML and CSS. Of particular relevance, most of them do not support the advanced CSS selectors like the type being used in the checkbox hack that you link—there's no selecting the adjacent sibling.

The only other option that I can think of is epub 3.0's epub:trigger. Unfortunately, at present that only allows you to toggle visibility:hidden and not display:none, which means the space the invisible paragraphs take up will still be there, so you'll have giant translation-sized holes in your text. Even if the IDPF adds a display control to epub:trigger, epub 3 support in reading systems is sadly lacking (despite it being the approved standard for two and a half years now), so that probably won't get you any farther than using Javascript.

Sorry for being the bearer of bad news! I'd love to be proven wrong on this—I've worked on several ebook projects that could benefit from this type of thing, and have never been able to find a way to do this acceptably other than with Javascript.


How can I create internal links with Sigil?

Well, it turned out that Insert->Link works even across files contained in the epub (and if it was really necessary I could use Insert->Anchor for inserting an anchor which I may use later). It is also possible to select some text, so that the link corresponds to the section selected.


Table headings that may repeat for several "pages"

Great question.

First, you should be making epub3 files because generally epub3 files work on epub2 reading systems. All epub2 readers can view epub3 files -- though perhaps not optimally.

My current book production method lets me show table headers across different pages, but only for printed books. So I know exactly what you're talking about. One idea is just to distribute it as a pdf instead of as an epub.

Here is what I have learned:

epub3 specification does not have any requirement for this kind of
feature. CSS does not appear to support it.
You may find information about how to accomplish the same thing by
checking accessibility guidelines. Unsighted people need a way to
navigate complex tables, and ideally a solution to address this
concern will also address your concern.
https://idpf.github.io/a11y-guidelines/content/xhtml/tables.html

  Tables are a problem that still need solving in reading systems, as most reading systems aren't able to provide extended horizontal or vertical scrolling to facilitate rendering. As a result, large tables get rendered in the available space – leaving rows and columns to spill across page views – compromising the quality of the ebook for sighted readers in trying to aid accessible devices.

Matt Garrish described this problem in his Epub3 Best Practices
        book. As of 2013 (the time he wrote the book), there wasn't a real
        solution. He suggested using the headers attribute, i.e.,  TD
        headers="batting-averages" to give extra information which an
        assistive technology could highlight. He wrote,

  There's also no reason why this functionality can't be equally useful to sighted readers, except that it's rarely made available. You've already seen the problem of visually rendering table data on small screens, and there's an obvious solution here to the problem a sighted reader will have of seeing perhaps only a few cells at a time and not having the visual context of what they're looking at. But whether mainstream devices begin taking advantage of this information to solve these problems remains to be seen.

From my own perspective, here are some possible ways to come close to solving the problem: 1)use CSS media queries to detect big vs. small devices and then change the styling accordingly. (maybe hide/reveal text?). 2)Use a fixed layout epub file rather than a responsive layout. (I don't recommend this, but it is a solution that works in kindle-land), 3)use typical clues to "remind" readers which columns go with what. For example, alternate columns can be colored, so it's easier for the reader to refer to headers on  a previous page. 4)You might be able to force page breaks with css and then simply create two separate tables with headings where the second table is a continuation of the first or 5)you might simply use redundant labels throughout the table to remind the reader what is what. 6)you might put a warning (best viewed on devices with resolution larger than .....)

This is definitely a problem, and in my opinion, it needs to be solved by the specification first, and then the reading systems need to implement it. As I mentioned before, I believe this problem is an accessibility problem, so I would stay on top of the accessibility guidelines and the readers with the best support for accessibility.


History of my book's bestseller ranking on Amazon?

You might find a third party tool to do this:  https://www.quora.com/Which-is-the-best-Amazon-rank-tracker


Two Kindles synced to same account - reading location being shared, but not Kindle content?

When you buy book from Kindle, it auto delivers the books to your chosen default device or the device you might be buying that book from. So by default you'd get the book delivered only on one device. So to get it on both devices you'd have to do it manually. Like when the "thanks" page appears you can deliver the book to your another kindle as well or from kindle you can view the book and click to download (as long as both use the same account) apart from that, kindle unlimited gives only one copy so that might not work on 2 kindles one account thing.


Is it possible to create a sidebar in a reflowable EPUB3?

Most epub reading systems do not respond to media queries, so it's going to be hit or miss. You could try putting the sidebar styles first in your CSS, so that in the cascade on systems that don't understand media queries, the sidebar styles will get overwritten by the more general column styles, but no guarantees it will work.

Even on tablets, sidebars may be problematic at high font sizes: just like with tables, if the end of the sidebar does not fit on the current page, it will not continue onto the next page--it will just run off the bottom of the screen.


Epub: Paragraph breaks in unwanted places and leaves Widows

Many epub apps don't render ebooks in Indic languages correctly. However, there's one more thing that you could try.

Open your epub with Sigil or Calibre Editor and add the following parameters to the paragraph section of the main stylesheet:

p {
   /* more entries */
   /* more entries */
    orphans: 2;
    widows: 2;
}

This should theoretically fix your issue, however, many epub apps don't support the widows and orphans parameters.

Obviously, this solution only works with DRM-free ebooks.


Ebook content versus physical book content

They are actually two different questions :-)

In Europe, for example, sales are affected by the fact that (paper) books have a very low VAT on them (in Italy it's at 4%) while ebooks are taxed like most goods (in Italy it's 22%), so it may even happen that an ebook is more expensive than a book.

As for readability, my impression is that it heavily depends from the type of book. A novel, or in general a text with few if any pictures and which is read sequentially, is equally readable; for non-fiction books, where people tend to skim content, to return on a previous section, or to peruse the notes at the end of the book, a physical book is easier to read but an ebook is easier to search in; mathematics on an ebook is a complete mess, at least until epub3 will be deployed in full.

I read on Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think that Amazon actually collects statistics on how people read on their Kindles, but I don't think the results are public ;-)


Reader for scientific papers - what should I look for?

It's hard to tell exactly what is going wrong without being able to at least poke around inside the files you're having problems with, unfortunately. Just as not all ebook readers are created equal, not all ebook files are created equal. Images not showing up could be conversion errors as much as they could be problems with your device. It might not be a bad idea to check out the files on other reading systems (there are a myriad of free desktop reading systems, like the Chrome extension Readium, the Firefox EPUBReader add-on, and good old Adobe Digital Editions). If the images don't show up in those systems either, it's probably a problem in the ebook file rather than with your device.

For scientific texts, I would advise that you check to be sure the reading system supports MathML, which will allow properly formatted equations to show up as readable, searchable text. Note that for MathML to work, the manuscript must have been formatted properly, and since not all reading systems support MathML, not all publishers necessarily bother with it. Since this is a chicken/egg problem, I'd advocate picking up a MathML reader and making sure to harass publishers that don't use MathML until they do. You can use the support grid at epubtest.org to find MathML-capable systems, but most of that information is geared toward tablets.

For reflowing not working where there are formulas or graphics—do you mean that the images (and formulas that aren't MathML are frequently just images, to preserve formatting) aren't expanding in size when the font is increased, for example? That's something that you'll see in any ebook reader, I'm afraid. The best you can do there is get something with a good zoom feature, which unfortunately argues against eInk devices.

Display size is probably the easiest single criteria to look into, though it's also fairly subjective—what's fine for you to read my be too cramped for me.  As mentioend above, zooming is going to be somewhat problematic on any eInk device, as the refresh rate for eInk is much slower than for a tablet screen. If tablets are absolutely not an option, you might want to look around for eInk readers with large displays; a quick search found me this article.

Best of luck with your search!

EDIT: Here's a good summary of which reading systems support MathML: http://www.mathjax.org/resources/epub-readers/


How can I display 'word count' in Calibre while browsing my Library?

This is not straightforward but there is a Calibre extension that you can install : Count Pages (it counts pages but it also counts words). It works only for MOBI and EPUB files so it won't be able to show the word count of books you have only in Amazon Kindle format for instance.

First you need to install Count Pages :

In Calibre Preferences window, go to Extensions, then click on Get new extension modules
Look for Count Pages and install it

You also have to create a custom column :

In the Preferences window, click on Add a custom column and then on the + button
Name the column "Words" for instance (the first field is used for advanced search and does not allow capitals so you can enter "words")
Select Integer as the column type
Create the column and apply changes
Check that the column now shows up in your library (but it is empty and you need to populate it)

Finally, use Count Pages to populate your new column :

You should have a new Count pages button in the main menu : Select Customize the extension module in the drop-down list
In the Word count options select your custom column
You don't need to bother with the other options but you could create a "page" count column too if you'd like
Select all the books you need counted and click on the Count pages main menu button
You might get an error message saying that it could not process x books because it did not find them in a supported format
It takes a while because the plugin needs to open and process each file
Your column finally gets updated.

Each time you add a new book in the library you will need to use that Count Pages button to fill in the column for this book.

Calibre will need to be restarted several times in the process. My Calibre is in French so the words I used in my answer might not exactly be the ones used in the English interface, sorry.


I suppose this shouldn't be hard, as a basic translator can figure out which paragraphs/sentences are translations of each other, and can then put them (in some sense) next to each other.

Actually, it's not that easy, because original and translated documents often have different paragraph/sentence counts.

Even sophisticated CAT tools don't perfectly align translated documents.

AFAIK, the only Open Source alignment tool is LF Aligner, which is based on Hunalign.


It sounds like the pages you've looked at are telling you the right thing. If you have an image-based PDF, then there is no text in it, just pictures of text. In order to convert the pictures of text to actual text, you have two options: have a human do the conversion, or have the computer do the conversion. Having a human do it would mean someone sitting down and typing out your book for you. Having the computer do it for you involves Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. If you have Adobe Acrobat (not Adobe Reader), it has built-in OCR software. Other than that, I know that ABBYY Fine Reader has an excellent reputation. There may be other options as well.

Bear in mind that whatever OCR software you use, the conversion will not be perfect, particularly if you're dealing with a bad scan. Even in a best-case scenario where you've got 99.9% accuracy on the conversion, you'll still have about one error every thousand characters—two or three typos per page. That will mean that you'll have to be careful cutting and pasting code; the whole process may not save you any effort over just typing stuff in.


how to enable landscape mode on a Kindle?

Try the following:

Open a book.
Tap Aa.
Select Page > Orientation


Calibre changes font coverting AZW book to EPUB

You are best served to ask this in the Calibre Support forum on MobileRead.com.  Calibre author Kovid Goyal is an active participant.  See https://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=166

MobileRead is a privately funded site with free signup.  It's the single best site I am aware of for all things eBook.

(Disclaimer: I am on staff and a moderator, thus biased. :-) )


How does the 3G carrier designation limit a Kindle's use?

If you want to use the Kindle to read PDFs then the connectivity to the mobile network is not relevant once you have the PDF documents installed on the Kindle.

There are various ways documents reach a kindle, these include downloading them over WiFi and/or 3G connections. They can also be copied directly from a computer using a USB connection (using a USB cable to connect the kindle to the computer).

Here's more info, in case you are interested in knowing more about the 3G aspects...

3G is the main mobile network protocol available in many countries. Some kindles include 3G support, others may WiFi only, and some support both WiFi and 3G. A 3G connection uses a SIM card within the device, in this case a Kindle DX. Amazon use various SIM cards in their kindles. The main difference is which mobile / cell company they obtain the SIM card from.

AFAIK Kindles with 3G connectivity & sold in the USA have an AT+T SIM card installed. In some countries Amazon includes a SIM card from another company, Vodafone. The choice of SIM card can affect which countries the 3G Kindle works in. There is an interesting article on that topic, which compares the 2 configuration of Kindle 3 Keyboard devices.

Like you, I'm not quite sure why some sellers in the UK describe their Kindles as unlocked? Possibly it's to indicate that kindle might have a working connection abroad?


Calibre custom news source - How to set publication author(s)

This was kind a hard nut to crack...
Regarding this issue this functionality is currently not available nor planned for the future.

In fact there is a workaround to more or less solve this issue. There is a real master tool called 'Metadata Plugboards' hidden in the settings. This allows you to modify metadata when media is exported (save to disk, send per mail or upload to device etc. - this applies not when you simply convert to another format).

The tool gives you a lot of options - For this example I just chose any format -> any device. Then you can specify what should go to which metadata field. Select authors as target and enter the following template code

{authors:contains(calibre,{title},{authors})}

This replaces the author field with the title, if the author currently contains calibre, otherwise the authors field remains untouched.

More details on the template language are available at the calibre manual.


The content of "My Clippings" file are not shown when in the book

When you make a highlight or note, a copy is written to the My Clippings file. This is a one-time, one-way operation. Think of it as a record of the notes and highlights that you've made in the past. The file is only a text file, and you can open it on your computer and modify it any way you like, or even delete it, and it will have no effect on what you see when you read the book on your Kindle. Likewise, removing or changing a highlight or note in the Kindle book will not affect the original entry in My Clippings, although it may create a new entry.

The notes and highlights that are displayed in Kindle books are stored in a companion file on the Kindle. It used to have a .mbp suffix, but it may be different with the newer formats. What may have happened in your case is that you downloaded the book file but not the companion file. This can happen if you downloaded it to your computer and transfered to the Kindle with a USB cable, or if you just did not allow enough time for all the "extras" to be downloaded before turning off wireless.

One more possibility is that you deleted the book and/or deregistered it from the original account before the Kindle was able to back them up on Amazon's servers. Normally this happens in the background, but if you do not use wireless very often, it may not have happened. If that is the case, your notes may actually be gone, but as Debra said, you do at least still have the copy in the My Clippings file, and that can also be your guide if you want to put them back in the book as well.


Highlights and notes are not save to my Clipping file

Ok, much to my surprise, I solved this.
I had to delete my (empty) Clippings file, then connect to the internet, then make a highlight. Apparently the issue was somehow caused by synchronization, because after doing this my highlights and notes appear on my Clippings file again, even if I'm not connected to the internet.


Baen Books has an interface that I find works well (as a consumer).  When you buy a book -- or if it's one of their free books -- you get a download page with links for all the formats they support.  Here's an example from their free library (so this link should work for everybody).  The page is persistent; if I buy a book from them and download, say, the Kindle format, and later I want to read it on a Nook, I can just go back to the page and download that format.  This does mean that users have to create accounts (to track this), but (a) you can make that lightweight and (b) you might have done that to support the purchase anyway.

I would advise against sending all formats in a bundle.  For the phone case, in addition to the problem of users not knowing how to unpack it, you're sending several times the volume of data the person actually needed, which could annoy people with lower-usage data plans or frequent purchases.


Is it possible to only extract text from a PDF file for free?

Yes, there is.
The program is called Calibre. There is even command line processing support which I have used to batch process multiple pdf files' 'extraction'. By adjusting the parameters, one can extract standard text. Of course, some pdf files are an assembly of images and contain no actual text. But give this 'a shot' :)


Is it possible to emulate the firmware of ereader devices?

It'd theoretically possible, but no device manufacturer (except for Amazon) bothered to develop and release emulators.

If you want to make sure that your epubs look OK on each device, you might want to check them with the desktop versions of Adobe Digital Editions, because all major eInk manufactures, except for Amazon, ship with an app that uses the same rendering engine. (All eInk device manufacturers that offer ADEPT DRM support are required to include RMDSK-based ePub apps, because no other ePub app will open ADEPT DRM-protected ebooks.)


Standard settings for OCR'ing and compressing a book scan

The answer really depends on your needs, time you might be willing to invest, money you might be willing to spend (for commercial software), and what you are going to do with the result (is it just for your own reading, or do you plan to distribute it).

A couple of open source tools that might help you are k2pdfopt and ScanTailor.  They can both clean up scanned images, de-skew them, and crop them.  k2pdfopt can perform OCR (using the Tesseract OCR engine).  I believe they both do batch processing.  If you have MS Office, MS Word also will automatically OCR a scanned PDF and convert it to .docx format if that is helpful to you.


Royalties on self-published ebooks on Amazon

Royalties from books purchased build up in your account until you meet Amazon's payment threshold.

Amazon's payment thresholds are here - but seem to be about $100 USD or similar equivalent.
https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A3E24YJK5O82TD

Also, you get paid 60 days after the month where you exceed the threshold.

And you must meet the threshold for each country.
(so if someone buys your book in another country like United Kingdom or New Zealand, you would have to pass their threshold before you received a royalty payment).

Having only sold a few books in other countries, I do not expect to ever be paid for those royalties.


Why can't I remove books from my device?

It might be that the TRS-1 plugin for Calibre is broken, or that Calibre deletion is broken in the version you have. I would try to delete files outside of Calibre using the steps here, and if that works blame things on Calibre, file a bug-report and wait for the next version.


The national official bodies that you mention are the only ways to get an ISBN in your name for your manuscript. If you go through, say, Smashwords to get your ISBN, then Smashwords will be on file at the ISBN agency as the publisher of the manuscript. When you get an ISBN from anywhere else, they are basically buying them from Bowker (or whoever) in bulk and reselling them for a markup. Here's some further info: https://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/author-beware-unauthorized-resellers-of-isbns/


What is the expected content of a child of a page-list in epub3?

I am looking at the excellent book EPUB 3 BEST PRACTICES by Matt Garrish and Markus Grylling in the section "Page Numbering."

First, we need to describe what the function of the <nav epub:type="page-list" ..> element is supposed to do. Some reading systems  (specifically Readium) have the ability to search specifically by page number (presumably printed page number). IN Garrish's book this feature is called  "page jump functionality."

Only if a reading system provides this functionality, then it would be helpful to include an ordered list within the nav "page-list" type. So nav epub.page-list is an optional method for providing an alternate navigation/search method.

Important: the only constraint on page-list type is that it must contain an ordered list. For this reason, the semantics for LI are interchangeable; there's no special requirements or constraints on the value. If the writers of the standard wanted to constrain the values of the ordered list items, they would have created an additional unique element with the nav page-list element.

So yes, these references are arbitrary -- you could use letters of the alphabet, Roman numerals; it does not matter.

Later the book mentions providing anchors for page numbering.

<span
         epub:type="pagebreak"
         id="page24"
         title="24"/>
   …

Presumably for the example you used, you would switch id=page752 on the georgia.xhtml page.

(The book also describes the pros and cons of using css to show/hide these page indicators throughout the text).

A few things worth noting: First, I don't even know which reading systems support this feature of search by page number. Second, I am skeptical about whether this is implemented on Kindles (I could be wrong...) Third, I suspect the ideal way  to implement references to printed pages is by letting a tool like Adobe Indesign auto-generate these things.


How to use the e-ink Kindle readers to display photos?

Older Kindles

On older generation Kindles (with keyboard) it is actually possible out of the box. You just have to store them in a very specific way.

Create a folder named pictures in your Kindle's root directory.
Create folders with arbitrary names for the collections you want to create.
Copy the images into those collections.
Press Alt+Z to start the image viewer.

You can then use the following shortcuts:

q = zoom in
w = zoom out
e = reset zoom
c = actual size
f = full-screen
r = rotate
nav controller = pan
page forward and back = cycle through images

I tested this some time ago on a Kindle3 keyboard and it worked.

Newer Kindles

I found a post on the Amazon forums. It claims that a similar approach still works on the Kindle Paperwhite.

Create a folder named images (not pictures!) in your Kindle's root directory.
Create folders with arbitrary names for the collections you want to create.
Copy the images into the collection folders. Make sure that the extension is JPG and not JPEG.
Select your collection.

I do not know how to select the collections, but I assume that they are listed along with normal ebooks. Feel free to add information on whether this works for the K4NT.

Kindle 4th/5th Gen

Zip your images. Name the zip what you want the title of this collection to be.
Copy the zip file to your documents folder.
Eject the Kindle and you'll find that name in your list of books. Turn pages to browse through the different pictures.


Conversion of djvu file into pdf file without increasing file size

The short answer is: PDF is not a good format for storing image data. The only reason that it is often used for doing so, is that it is one of the few formats (the other more well known ones are DjVu and TIFF), that allow you to store multiple (scanned) images in a single file.

The longer answer is that the possible storage of image data in PDF files is done in a less efficient way than is possible in the way DjVu does. So in general, unless the DjVu file is compressed inefficiently to start with, you will always get a bigger PDF file, or you get a much worse quality image.

The primary difference, apart from algorithms used for compression, is that an image in a DjVu file consists of multiple layers, each compressed separately, with optimized algorithms for the layer's data (monotone, color etc.), and recombined for display/printing. Especially on a page with characters (not selectable text associated with the characters) combined with images DjVu easily gets 20x smaller files at similar lossy quality.


Flip between L->R and R->L reading on CBR/CBZs on Kobo

While many desktop readers have this feature, I own a Kobo Glo and this option doesn't seem to be available.
As you probably already know, CBZ and CBR files are just plain standard zip and rar archives with renamed extension. On their inside, the comic pages are numbered image files, which the reader simply shows to you in alphabetical order.
So, in example a typical content could be
 - cover.jpg
 - page01.jpg
 - page02.jpg
 - page03.jpg
 - page04.jpg
and so on. If you have comics that should be read in R>L order, I think that your best option is to rename the image files to their correct display order, so, in the previous example, page01.jpg should be renamed to page02.jpg and viceversa, page03.jpg to page04.jpg and viceversa, and so on.
Doing this manually can be an annoying task, but surely if you put in a search engine "file renamer" plus your OS, you will find a lot of tools that can assist you in this task.


How can I embed fonts in a kindle ebook (azw3/kf8)

I'm just speculating wildly here, but the first thing you need to do is to specify 2 fonts which you know for sure are supported on the Paperwhite.

Kindle Personal Documents Service does some strange things. I'm not sure if it even reads font information from MS Word. It certainly will not embed fonts automatically from MS Word.

However, if it is able to read and convert font(s) info from MS word, Here's a list of Kindle fonts you can choose from (which may or may not be out of date). http://www.paulsalvette.com/2012/06/embedding-fonts-in-kindle-ebooks.html

You can differentiate texts in other ways than fonts. For example, you can put it in italics or make the font size smaller. Generally it is frowned upon to use more than one font except on the heading.


Scan epub and pdf to ascertain absence of malware

epub have an html format, is possible to insert malware inside. Any antivirus can check your ebooks and report you if some is infected.
By other side, if you bought it from a marketplace as Amazon, probably your ebook is virus free.
If you download it from "other sites"… well, you must assume that "can" be infected, so use any online antivirus to check your files


Is the Triton eInk display a viable option for future ereaders?

The Triton display is an E Ink display so it should greatly reduced power consumption when compared to a conventional LCD display. According to the E Ink website the Triton display has a similar crispness as an monochrome E Ink display. The price for the Ectaco Jetbook Color using this display is $499.95. However the price of future color E Ink displays could decrease.


Is it possible (and how do I do it) to set up my Kindle to talk to Calibre over Wifi, instead of talking to Amazon?

Kindle devices have the ability to receive books via a special email address. Each kindle has a unique address ending in kindle.com. You can use Calibre to send the books via email to your kindle through your own email address. However, if the end goal is to bypass Amazon entirely, this method would not suffice.
Before sending any books to your kindle email address, your sending address will need to be added to your document "whitelist". You can find this list of permitted senders on Amazon by navigating to "Manage my Content and Devices", selecting "Preferences", and scrolling down to "Personal Document Settings". You will then need to configure Calibre to send emails; when doing so Calibre's FAQ recommends sending the email through a known service, as sending the mail directly may lead to it being dropped as spam along the way.
The options for configuring send to email can be found in Calibri's Welcome Wizard.


Will I be able to read PDFs in Cyrillic on Kindle (classic)?

Yes, Kindle (classic) has no problem with displaying Cyrillic characters in PDFs.

Here is the proof:


Changing my eBook reader. Any way to take my kindle books with me?

It depends if the books have DRM (Digital Rights Management) or not.
If they do then you can only read them on Amazon devices or with a Kindle app on PCs Macs Android or ios.
If not DRM then download them to a computer using the transfer by USB option on the "manage your contents and devices" page on Amazon on the Web.
Then you need to convert your books to a different format usually. .epub  The usual way is to use the program calibre. https://calibre-ebook.com. Some calibre plugins might be able to import the books from where the kindle app stores the books on a computer, look at kfx importer


Problem with hyperlinks after converting chm to epub with calibre

CHM and epub are based on html files, but generally the production method for chm determines how simple the code is. Often the HTML files in the CHM files are made of complicated code which confuse calibre.

The first question to ask is: why do you want to convert it to epub? 1)Because you have one special file  you wish to read in that format or 2)eventually you want to republish (i.e., "repurpose") the content so that others can read it in an epub reader? or 3)you have many different chm files you wish to convert.

If you need it just for your reference, I would try skipping the step of converting to epub and just look for a chm reader on your device. Android and Ios have decent apps which can read chm files natively. That is always the best option.

I tried converting a simple chm to epub using calibre. Guess what? All the hyperlinks work for me. It sounds as if you are saying that the glossary for your chm contains all the definitions, and the problem is that every defined word goes to the top of the page (instead of going to the right part of the page).  My test files don't have anchors, so I cannot see what you are talking about.

To diagnose the problem, you need to view the source of the chm and epub.

The first step is renaming the epub to zip and then unzipping everything so you can see the html. Then open one of the files in a text editor (or open it in a browser, right click and select VIEW SOURCE).

You can also view source in a chm file on Windows. Just right click on the topic with a defective hyperlink, view the hyperlink and see what is supposed to happen.

From doing these two steps (and especially the first), you can see why the hyperlinks in the epub are not working. Perhaps epub stripped the part of the hyperlink that would put the target hyperlink to the middle of the page.
Normally it should look like this  where "elephant" refers to the anchor in the middle of the page.

Another possible cause of the problem is that the chm file might be doing weird stuff. Perhaps, depending on the authoring tool which produced the chm file, javascript is making the anchor (I'm guessing randomly here).

Another possibility is that when producing the epub file from chm, for some reason calibre removed the anchor references. If the glossary page does not have something like:

 or

it will be impossible for the hyperlink to find the anchor on that file.

Calibre gives you powerful tools (like regular expressions) to rewrite certain code when converting. (although it may take you a while to learn how). If you are motivated, you can probably just re-edit the html files and make sure the references work and then rezip it again and rename the file extension to epub.

Again, without seeing the HTML source, it's hard to know where the problem lies.  But again, finding an chm reader to read the file natively would probably be the easiest thing to do.


Is regex available in Sigil clip editor?

No, Sigil Clip Editor cannot use replace patterns. The way that Sigil Clips works is you highlight text, and then you apply the Clip.

Your highlighted text will be grouped into:

\1

So let's say you highlight:

This is text I |want in italics|.

Clip: \1

This is text I want in italics.

Clips are designed more as a one-button-push for redundant stuff (like pasting in template code for a figure with caption, etc. etc.)

For example, mobileread user Tex2002ans created this Sigil Clip for himself:

and then he can easily just insert the needed info/images.

To do more advanced Search/Replace using Regex, you use Tools > Saved Searches.
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3808345#post3808345


linear="no"

is the attribute that prevents a file in the spine from appearing in iBooks. In your case, you would simply remove it from this line which appears in the content.opf file:

<spine toc="ncx">
<itemref idref="cover" linear="no"/>


Do book prices tend to fluctuate with seasonality

Do prices tend to increase, decrease, or stay the same during the
  holiday season (i.e. Christmas, Hanukkah, etc.)?

From my experience, book prices tend to be reduced around the holiday season, September-January, to drive sales when some people buy tablets or mobile devices as gifts or even on Black Friday.  Depending on the e-retailer there are some programs you can sign-up for that will help drive a sell, such as package deals.  I've seen some publishers drive prices lower than usual when they have a feature series they are trying to push.

  Is there a most expensive season for book prices?

I wouldn't consider it a "most expensive" I would look at it as less discounts or specials in the transition from spring to summer but that's my experience.

  Do eBook prices have different trends than paperback book prices?

The only trend I would consider is the pricing model with printed books VS ebooks.  Some people think that it's OK to price retail for print when some people refuse to pay the same price for a physical item compared to a digital copy.  One of my dislikes with ebooks compared to print is the design around them. Some people think that as long as I take my well designed print book and copy all the text and drop it into a .doc file I can generate an .epub or .mobi file out of it then charge a bloated fee when you don't get the same quality as a printed or even own the rights to it.

  For geographical context, this question is about books sales in the
  northeastern areas of the United States.  I mostly shop for books at
  Barnes & Noble, so I'd be most interested to know how their prices
  fluctuate.

In regards to pricing e-retailer VS e-retailer you actually sign away your pricing rights, such as: Amazon mentions in their contract that if they find a cheaper price for your title they are allowed up to a 10% option for less and I believe Apple does it, too.  The downfall with many stores is the gouge to sell your title and that will play a factor on where you buy your book and the price.


First, I've formatted lots of poetry for epubs, so I can offer insights.

I don't know about what kind of visual demands you have for poems. But I'm assuming that you have the usual ones -- keeping lines of a stanza together, having the proper indents and line widths and forcing page break.

Poetry is easier to format by creating HTML and css style sheets.

The html source looks something like this:

 "Look not thou on beauty's charming, –

 Sit thou still when kings are arming,  –

 Taste not when the wine cup glistens,  –

 Speak not when the people listens,  –

 Stop thine ear against the singer,  –

 From the red gold keep thy finger,  –

 Vacant heart and hand, and eye,  –

 Easy live and quiet die."

Admittedly, this is a plain vanilla example. Depending on the formatting, you may want to use two different classes for individual  lines with different styles. Look at this css

p.line-verse {
    text-indent: -2em;
    padding-left: 3em;
    padding-right: 3em;
    line-height: 80%;
}

You get the point. Once you have the css right, it is trivial to create html pages for poems. More examples are here: http://epubsecrets.com/formatting-poetry-in-epub-part-1.php and http://epubsecrets.com/formatting-poetry-in-epub-part-2.php

The two issues you have are: 1)would the advantage of being able to style poetry in html and css outweigh the convenience of using a word processor and 2)are you testing the poetry book adequately on different devices? Poetry can look bad on mobile devices, so you need to make sure they render reasonably well on all devices.

It may simply be easier to pay someone to format an ebook for you and then keep the template for later ebooks. Or you can crack open any epub file of a poetry ebook (.epub is just a zipped file with the file extension renamed).

Or you can unzip any of the Project Gutenberg poetry ebooks (which are formatted pretty well: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Poetry_%28Bookshelf%29 ).

To summarize my answer: It is actually not hard to format poetry for html; it actually can be easier than doing it from a converted word processed file. My feeling is that using word processed documents as your source creates more problem than it solves when you're trying to format something like poetry. Fixed layout books would definitely provide more pixel accuracy, but the ebook's appearance would be unpredictable on smaller devices.


Interior Image requirements for non-Kindle distributors & devices with retina displays?

Egad, I'm sorry that no one answered this very important question. I shall try to answer it by myself with what I've learned over the past week. I'm still testing and will add more information as needed.

The ipad Asset Guide 5.1 Revision 2:  https://itunesconnect.apple.com/docs/iBooksAssetGuide5.1Revision2.pdf

Images within the epub cannot exceed 3.2 million pixels. Apple recommends providing images that are at least 1.5 the intended viewing size.

For Kindle Formatting guide v 2015.2 (not my question, I realize, but still important to mention):  http://kindlegen.s3.amazonaws.com/AmazonKindlePublishingGuidelines.pdf

3.62 Maximum size of an individual image file is 5MB. You will obtain the best results by optimizing your image to the highest quality possible within the file size limit before inputting your files into Kindlegen. If the automatic file conversion is unsatisfactory, try optimizing the images before feeding them to Kindlegen.
3.64. Make sure that input photos are at least 600x800 pixels in size unless you optimize them according to 3.62

The key here is using media queries to differentiate screens with retina display and screens without retina display because they render graphics differently. Also, if you have high enough resolution graphics to begin with, you don't need to worry about them looking like crap in in ibooks with retinal display. (In my case, my original graphics don't meet the minimal requirements listed above, so I am experiencing major problems trying to upconvert everything).

Resources that I found helpful:

Simulating retina display on chrome browser:
http://www.marksenff.com/front-end/you-already-have-a-retina-screen-emulator/

https://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/media-queries-for-standard-devices/
media queries for various android and ipad devices

http://mydevice.io/devices/ screen resolutions

media queries specific to ebooks
https://medium.com/@sandersk/responsive-ebook-design-a-primer-8bba01328219

http://stephen.io/mediaqueries/ apple-specific media queries
how to target retina displays.

The key thing from the last link is the apple-specific nonstandard css:

 @media only screen
 and (min-device-width : 768px)  and
(max-device-width : 1024px) and
 (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2) {
> /* STYLES GO HERE */}

(I believe that other browsers have also nonstandard css  for specifying different pixel ratios. But I have no evidence that any of the ebook reading software supports them).

UPDATE: I ended up writing unique media queries at certain breakpoints. These breakpoints fit my need to make my graphics work. Your own graphics might require different breakpoints/thresholds. Please note that I did not use queries specific to android or ios and I did not need to specify device-pixel-ratio.

generic styles, for everybody (and for devices which don't detect
media queries)
phone media queries valid for both portrait and
    landscape: min-width 320px max-width: 767px
phone media queries valid only for landscape 768 to 1500 px
landscape (because we assume  2 columns, this is basically the same
as Phone/Portrait)
Landscape  over 1500px -- when 2 columns, this will look the same as
portrait 768-1024
768-1024 portrait -- this probably comprises about 60-70%   of the
devices
1025-up portrait -- future proofing, just in case

I probably will have 3 queries for Kindle: one for e-ink, one for Kf8, and one for 10 inch KF8. I haven't tested on them yet; maybe I need to add one more kindle query? I'm still working on that...


Epub Format
Epub is actually a collection of files in ZIP format. You can create an epub without any specialize tool, for example taking a book's content from https://github.com/Gluejar/open_access_ebooks_ebook and running
zip -Xr9D The_Velveteen_Rabbit.epub mimetype * -x .DS_Store

Pandoc
Pandoc is an easy to use command line tool to generate epubs, and a lot more markup formats such as LaTeX, Markdown, HTML5, Word docx and ODT are supported. Here is an example:
pandoc mybook.txt -o mybook.epub

Read more about epub creation examples.
I have used it to conveniently generate epub from a Git repositories' documentation to easier reading.
Sigil
A GUI alternative is Sigil, with the benefit of in-place editors as well as extensive styling tools.

Online Epub Generators
If you cannot/do not want to install applications, there are online tools that can generate epubs, such as http://ebook.online-convert.com/convert-to-epub


Sigil supports both epub2 and epub3 books and one of the Sigil developers has published a plugin that'll convert epub2 books to epub3 books.


how to NOT have calibre reduce pictures' resolution when converting from epub (or anything I guess) to MOBI

If you go to:

Preferences->Preferences->Common Options->Page Setup

you can set the Output Profile to Tablet. The Profile description reads:

  Intended for generic tablet devices, does no resizing of images [Screen size: unlimited]


Copy Chapter Numbers And Titles from TOC to Individual Chapters

You're looking at the problem backwards.

My admittedly complex solution is to code in Docbook XML, and then the XML to XHTML transformation autogenerates the TOC with correct title. (Docbook XSLT autogenerates the epub nav document and all related material).

With most tools the nav.xhtml file is autogenerated by whatever is H1 in the particular chapter.

To give another example: You can create an epub very easily in LibreOffice or MS Word by putting everything in a single document and then styling the chapter headings with the  HEADING style (or something like that). You can run calibre on that -- and as long as the chapter heads have a heading style, it will autogenerate the navigation document from the headings.

My Docbook-based production method includes an autonumber feature -- but I generally turn it off because I'd rather hard code the chapter numbers. Perhaps MSOFFICe/LIBOFFICE let you do autonumbering in the heading element.

The navigation document is usually both human readable and machine readable. Unlike epub2/older Kindle ebooks (where you needed to create a logical TOC (html document) and a ncx file, today's navigation documents serve both purposes.

I have not used transformations on Calibre, but I'm guessing it is theoretically possible to autogenerate these things from within it with xpath/xslt.


Images issue in iBooks 4.3 on ios 8 (iPad 2)

First, I don't know what your problem is. Is the problem that the images are shrunk or that there is space above or below the images?

The current trend is for ebook publishers to allow high resolution images and then to shrink them automatically or according to the percentages you specify.

I am working on a similar problem (and documented some of my helpful resources here: Interior Image requirements for non-Kindle distributors & devices with retina displays? ).
I haven't tested yet on the ibooks platforms, but I can speak about the kind of solution you are seeking. My guess is that the solution you want is similar to what I am doing.

First, you need to use css media queries. Second, you need to specify the width of the div containing the image. Here's an example to get you started. For HTML code:

Here would be the CSS code I am using.

@media only screen
  and (min-device-width: 320px)
  and  (max-device-width: 767px)
  {

div.image-replace-title  {
width: 94%;
  margin-left:  auto;
   margin-right:  auto;
}

div.image-replace-title img {
width: 100%;
display: inline;}

    }

        @media only screen
  and (min-device-width: 768px)
  and (orientation: portrait)

  {
    div.image-replace-title  {
    width: 80%;
    max-width: 684px;
      margin-left:  auto;
       margin-right:  auto;
    }

    div.image-replace-title img {
    width: 100%;
    display: inline;
        }

        }

For the record, the first media query is for iphones, the second one is for ipads 1-4. I think I added one more media query for dimensions over 1200 pixels.


Are there any games to Kindle Paperwhite 4?

Games (and Apps) for Amazon Kindle Paperwhite are known as an Active Content and you can search Amazon Store for them here. Some of these games are for money, some are free.

However as stated here they are fully supported on Paperwhite 1 & 2 and partly version 3, version 4 is not discussed at all. You have to test each and one you wish to try. Please leave a comment to complete my question on this topic.

Regarding controls, I found an article describing basic kindle paperwhite game controls here. This can help you, if there are any games working on your device.


How do I publish a book permanently free on Amazon

Amazon does still do the price matching, and that is the only way to get your book listed as free on their site. The advantage of Smashwords is in distributing to Apple and Sony. If you go to your e-book's details page on Amazon, you will see a link that says "tell us about a lower price". You can click that link and provide them a link to the product page for your free book at one of the other sites, and eventually they will match it. Again, this seems to be more effective with Apple and Sony. The process may take a week or two, so if you can get others to click that link and share the news, it will help speed things up.

If you want to make your book free for a limited time or on a specific date, I would definitely NOT recommend this approach. There is no way to control how quickly or when Amazon will respond, so you won't be able to determine the specific date(s). Also, if you think you may want to raise the price back up after a while, I would not recommend doing this. I have one title that I published under a pseudonym that has been free for months, in spite of the fact that I have raised the price on all other sites and tried repeatedly to get Amazon to raise the price.


Is it possible to add a Table of Contents to a CBZ file?

Since the CBZ format is not standardised, there are some pitfalls if you try to achieve this.

The best you can do is render the ToC as an image and add it at the front of list of image files contained in the CBZ.
Adding an extra file with the ToC information might break existing readers, if that ToC is not an image file.

An alternative is to load the data in the file comment of the CBZ file. This is limited in size (64K IIRC). There is an effort for metadata in CBZ this way (using JSON) that you could piggy-back on.

Disadvantage of a metadata solution is that there are no tools that currently display that information.

A bigger problem might be to get the information that you want to put into the ToC. Contrary to analysing the text of EPUB files after they are generated, the individual images of a CBZ have little to form the basis of a ToC.


I don't disagree with the above answer.

I just wanted to say that on the Title/Credits HTML page (which contains copyright, date, etc) I included this line:

The HomemadeApple Font embedded in this ebook is copyrighted 2010 by Font Diner, Inc. under a Apache 2.0 license.  (and I linked to the license).


The accepted answer for the question How do I convert a Word document into an ebook? describes how to convert a book in .docx format to AZW3.

As is very clear from the 3rd picture in that answer, where AZW3 is selected as output format, that there is a whole list of "calibre output formats". Searching the latter phrase should get you to the complete list of supported formats in the FAQ:
AZW3, EPUB, FB2, OEB, LIT, LRF, MOBI, HTMLZ, PDB, PML, RB, PDF, RTF, SNB, TCR, TXT, TXTZ.

From that list, someone can just select what they prefer for their device and/or software¹. For iPad users that depends on their software, but if that doesn't support AZW3 directly, it probably does support EPUB.

Assuming you already can convert the .docx to AZW3, and since the capabilities of EPUB and AZW3 in formatting the eBook are very similar, selecting the conversion is the only thing you (or the owner of the iPad) needs to do. There is not going to be any additional considerations, beyond what you do for going from .docx to AZW3, on how to go about the conversion².

¹ One can argue that if the device/software does not support any of these formats, it should not be called an eBook reader.
² That should only be an a concern if the other output format allows for very little formatting control, like TXT


Extracting notes and highlighting from Kindle books

Yes, this can be done through the Kindle website:

Go to https://kindle.amazon.com.
At the top of the page click "Your Highlights."
You may be asked to login, fill in the login information to the account your kindle is linked.
Your highlights and notes should show, you may copy them anywhere you want.


For Linux you need to run ADE in Vine. On this page there is a pdf and a video that I made for my library on using ebooks via ADE for Linux users. FWIW, I had trouble getting ADE to detect ereaders on Linux ( ubuntu). Your mileage may vary. Good hunting!


As a US citizen is it illegal to access an ebook from a country where it is PD, if it is not PD in the US?

Assuming the US Citizen is in the US then almost always yes it is illegal.

  Downloading a copy for personal use to an ebook device while in the US

Yes the US copyright law prohibits the downloading of works that are protected by copyright in the US from foreign servers that do not have permission to distribute the copyright protected material in the US.  This is part of the Title I of the DMCA.

  Reading a copy of the ebook from a server in PD country without
  downloading (i.e. html only)

Technically you are still downloading the text.  The HTML Files are stored on your local computer in your Temporary Internet files. This would be in violation of the DCMA.  In theory if you remote in to a computer in another country and read it, they there would be no violation of the DCMA.  However if you are remoting into that server specifically to evade US law then you are in violation of other statues involving international crime.

  Opening a copy of the eBook from a server in PD country without reading

This is going to be dependent on if the text gets stored in non volatile memory on your computer.  If it creates temp files with the text on your hard drive then technically it would violate Copyright in the US under the DMCA.  If it is only putting the text into memory then it is not actually creating a copy of the document.  So it does not violate the DMCA unless there is a way to save the text on your local device in which case it would be a tool capable of circumventing Copyright.  In which case the use of the tool is a violation of DMCA even if it is not used in this manner.


Authoring Kindle ebook from MS Word document - how to prevent pictures from stretching?

I would like to answer my own question.

What did not work

If you convert the DOCX to MOBI using the Export option of Amazon's Kindle Previewer tool then you are going to face the problem with images stretching horizontally

What worked

Convert the DOCX to filtered HTML (Save As dialog)
Use Calibre to generate a MOBI file by pointing it to the HTML file that was exported out of MS Word
I had to fine tune some settings in Calibre (e.g. show ToC at the beginning). But, the result is very close to what I had expected.


collection shows as empty and refuses to populate -- not syncing properly

I think I see the problem (or one problem at least).

I have a massive set of collections on the kindle app for android. (Like 50 collections holding 2000 or more ebooks).

But when I install the Kindle for PC app for my Windows desktop, it does not let me import the organized collections from the Kindle app for android. When I use the Kindle for PC app, there is an IMPORT COLLECTIONS option, but it prompts me to choose between two older devices instead of my current android devices. These older devices used a type of collections which is different from the current one.

If I create a NEW collection on Kindle for PC and add ebooks to it, this new collection does not appear on my android app or even on Manage Your Content and Devices page.

You would assume that collections propagate to all Kindle platforms, but what I'm seeing now is that any collections you create on Kindle for PC will not be propagated onto your other reading systems. As you see, you can still access your ebooks, but you can't use the collections from your other devices.

You're not doing it wrong; the Windows program is just using an incompatible kind of collection system.

On the plus side, any collections you make on Kindle for PC are just for that computer -- and nothing else. (Just to be safe, I would create only a small number of collections on Kindle for PC). I have verified that annotations on the Kindle for PC propagate (albeit slowly) to other devices.


After doing more research, I've learned that Calibre allows subfolders in the Images folder but Sigil doesn't. There are some suggestions that you can tweak Sigil to allow subfolders, but I haven't verified that it can be done.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=283132


Transfer books from Adobe Digital Edition to Calibre

The simple, answer is that you export the PDFs to files on your disc and then use the add books function of Calibre to add them  (or drag and drop) to get them into Calibre.

Any files that have DRM you will not be able to import and read, but you should continue to use these on ADE. Removing the DRM is probably against the law.

Once you have the files adding the ebooks that have correct metadata should give you little problems. Calibre will ignore a lot of the PDF metadata during addition, I am not sure if it just tries to extract the title from the filename, but up to 2.19 my Calibre (on Linux Mint 17.1) would not extract the author from the appropriate metadata field. I always add PDF files using a python script that extracts the Title and Author from the PDFs metadata and then calls calibredb add -t Title -a Author.

I used that to add other files to Calibre as well because the script does some basic clean up, e.g. on the author's name (changing "Lastname, Firstname" into correct "Firstname Lastname" form etc).

You can of course also add your ebooks using calibredb add that way too.


Long story short: Poorly.

The user control that you mention is one of the great strengths of ebooks, but the problem that it brings with it is that really precise control of the look of the page gets thrown out the window. Many (myself included) would argue that this is a worthwhile sacrifice. As I mentioned in an answer to a question about embedding fonts in ebooks, many devices will automatically override publisher styles. Even without that, though, the simple ability of users to change fonts on the fly means throwing kerning out the window--text that looks too tightly spaced in Times New Roman may be a little spread out in Bulmer.

Ligatures are another tricky area--one ebook I prepared recently had a font that used ligatures, and while it showed up fine on most of Amazon's devices, on Kindle for PC there were empty rectangles in place of the "fl" and "fi" ligatures.

Without getting into the justification vs. ragged right argument, Kindle at least will automatically justify your text, and further will take down your book if it receives word that you have forced the body text to display left-aligned.

Hyphenation rules are by and large terrible as well. Most reading systems will at least honor some of the various ways to turn off auto-hyphenation for things like headers, but not all of them do. Discretionary hyphens will usually produce a line break where you put them, but will not always leave a hyphen at the line break, which is decidedly suboptimal.

My business partner and I covered a number of these issues at Tools of Change 2013 a year ago. The slides are available at SlideShare. The bits on hyphenation in particular start on slide 38.

The best solution at the moment is to keep styling as simple as possible. Reading systems are in a state very similar to the Browser Wars of the late 90's, so we're in a lowest-common-denominator situation--complex formatting is almost guaranteed to look bad somewhere.


How to tell if an entire ePub ebook was downloaded for offline viewing?

I don't have a recent ipad and I rarely buy things through the iTunes store, so my answer is based on knowledge and guesswork.

When you first try to read it, the reading system (in this case, iBooks) will download the complete ebook if it has not done so already.

There is a simple way to test this. Open the ebook, and then put your device in airport mode (ie. no network or wifi). You can quickly check that you can get to the last page. I know, some itunes ebooks have multimedia content; that is a different story. In some cases, the multimedia is embedded and available only online (i.e., youtube). In some cases, it is actually part of the ebook, so it would fully be available in offline mode.

When I have downloaded purchased items from Google and Amazon, occasionally the download will be interrupted, but usually the cover icon won't appear on the bookshelf (or it may only partially appear). I assume iTunes does something similar.


It is possible, but will need prior processing for optimal results.

You can use the free tool k2pdfopt to optimize PDFs for your reader's display size.

It can handle up to four columns, works with "normal" (using actual stings in the PDF) as well as scanned text and will turn your input PDF into a PDF with more pages optimized for your screen's size. Newer versions of the program can even text. Text reflow preserves images and even mathematical formulas -- which is something that Sony's built-in text reflow cannot do.

Download the program, set the options for your reader on a Windows/Mac/Linux machine and generate a new PDF with only one column, cropped margins and possibly larger letters. The conversion progress is largely automatic, just give it a try.

If you do not mind jailbreaking your reader, there are also PDF viewers that include k2pdfopt and so you can change font size and other parameters on the fly. These also have the advantage that you can use the PDF's table of contents (something the official PDF viewer does not support). The readers are all forked from the same project and only differ in how you input your data. They are KOReader (for Kobos and Kindles with a touch screens), KindlePDFViewer (for Kindles with keyboard) and Librerator (for Kindles with neither touch nor keyboard).

A clear disadvantage is that these programs seem to drain more battery than the official PDF viewer, but on the other hand reading is more convenient, because you can still read in portrait mode and your pages are preprocessed in the background (turning pages feels faster in large PDFs with many images). And battery life is still several weeks.

Other than this you can of course read in landscape mode. This can be quite annoying with multicolumn documents or if you want to go back just one page to look something up (may feel slow). It is fine for texts you read without going back and it's still the way to go e.g. if you have large tables in your document. I used it for text books as well for years, so it is not too annoying.

Another option is converting the PDF to Mobi using Calibre or Amazon's mailing service. This will usually fail completely in multicolumn documents, will remove images and destroy mathematical formulas. It will also often lead to page numbers or chapter names (if it is written on top of every page) in between the text.


Removing identifiable metadata from azw3

You can edit the AZW3 format with the calibre editor.


Accessing Clippings Deleted from MyClippings.txt

Another answer suggests they are available on a web interface, but only if they are books sourced from Amazon (and that you keep it connected to the internet).

If neither of these cases apply to you I may have serendipitously made a starter of a solution to the issue; on my Kindle Paperwhite there's a file under /Kindle/system/userannotlogsDir/ titled annotation_<Unix_Epoch_timestamp>, which I assume is used to determine where the shading for your highlights shows up (I don't know if this file sticks around on Kindles that get connected to wifi). If you download this to your computer, I wrote a perl script to format it as a proper .jsonl file.

From there, contentReference.guid is a permutation of the book title, and position.begin & position.end define the start and end of a highlight by the number of characters (might be bytes) in the ebook file, you may be able to find where your highlights were from there.
Another bash script to generate a spreadsheet of byte lengths of may help to find the exact location of the quotes by dividing by the total length, but it's not always 1:1 with the Kindle's percentage calculation (I suspect images embedded in the files may be the culprit).

Hopefully that's enough to get you started! Sorry it's not as simple as a toggle in the main menu.


Amazon eBook Self-Publishing vs Major Publishing Houses

Big publishers may have a more direct route they can take for submitting their titles, but they are still required to follow the same formatting guidelines and provide the same information that Amazon requires of any self-published authors who use their Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) program. The KDP program provides an interface that authors can use to submit and manage their titles to Amazon for sale as e-books. Basically, this interface is how the author (or publisher) provides all of the pertinent information for the book, and regardless of who is submitting it, that information has to be provided. I think the only real advantage a major publishing house would have would be in their ability to hire a staff that manually enters this information for each book.


How do I direct links in popup-footnotes directly to main text?

First, one possible thing to look at is using the ASIDE element to contain the footnote. The Kindle way to do footnotes requires this.I used a DIV container which contained epub:type="footnotes" and inside that a ASIDE element containing what you want to be in the note. This is just a stab in the dark though.

Here's  a suggestion for a workaround on iBooks.

Perhaps iBooks only does this for internal links, but not for external links. The popup box fills with the internal HTML page you are linking to. This might be a feature, not a bug --- because letting  an HTML fragment appear in the popup is a cool thing though probably not part of the EPUB 3 spec.

Unfortunately I don't have an ipad handy now or I'd test and report back. But I vaguely remember seeing this before for footnotes on iBooks.

If you are linking to another place in the same ebook, why not just do an ordinary hyperlink in the main text and not a footnote? (If you need to add extra explanation, you can do it in the main text as well). It seems that providing an internal link from the popup is redundant. That's my two cents anyway.


Are there any e-Readers that can't surf the net?

AFAIK, most pre-2011 Sony PRS readers  don't have Wifi. For a list of models, see this Wikipedia topic. (Search the list of discontinued models.)


How to export (or share) a highlighted PDF from Kindle Reader?

Kindles' have USB Drive Mode. which allows you to export all of your notes (except pictures):

Plug the Kindle to your computer.
Open the Kindle folder.
Go to the documents.
Get the My Clippings.txt file, which has all of your notes & highlights.
Eject the Kindle.

  Note: My Clippings is a txt file, which is quite hard to read. I would highly recommend you to use a third party service like Clippings or Readwise to make it easier.


EPUB 2 will probably not remain an active standard, in the sense that it would evolve over time. The EPUB 2 standard is of course there and stays there and there will be files and devices that follow that standard.

Looking at the differences between EPUB 3 and EPUB 2 it seems entirely feasible to make an EPUB 3 device (with or without multimedia) that also properly supports EPUB 2 files. This is little extra work and much more interesting for device manufacturers than asking for and implementing EPUB 2 extensions.

There is probably also going to be a subset of devices that don't support the EPUB 3 multimedia extensions, but are based on a rendering engine that supports EPUB 3. Whether you depict such a device as EPUB 2 with some EPUB 3 support or EPUB 3 with backwards compatibility is probably a marketing decision.

From a file generation point of view, you can include EPUB 2 compatible info in an EPUB 3 file. I expect publishers to do that. And if they don't it is feasible to add that information later on to such EPUB 3 file. I expect e.g. Calibre to do get such a feature, if it not already can do so. Of course that will not give you multimedia, but for normal books (with the same info as EPUB 2 files have now) that will work.


EPUB3 defines a profile for CSS which is pretty much a superset of CSS 2.1 and a subset of CSS 3.

I haven't checked to see whether the CSS facilities mentioned are covered in the profile, but if they are it will then depnd on how well those are implemented in particular readers.


Kindle - single gesture / action to go "back"

No.  I have found no way of doing this with my Paperwhite (and I have tried quite a few things).  This would be very useful to have; perhaps if we suggest it to Amazon, it may become a feature?


Are there any WYSIWYG editors for EPUB books?

When someone asks me what GUI to use I suggest Sigil. I find that Sigil, unlike it's alternatives, does not add unneeded code to your ePubs which cause bloating, errors, and slower viewing.

Its code is also on github.


If you have a fixed layout epub 3.0 file, it's not much of a jump to prepare it for conversion to KF8 fixed layout. KF8 is, of course, the newest version of Amazon's proprietary ebook format.  KindleGen or Kindle Previewer are the two options for creating a KF8 file from an epub file. Kindle Previewer is essentially a graphical interface for KindleGen that comes packaged with a previewer for the various Kindle devices. Personally, I prefer it over KindleGen; the previewing functionality is really handy. That said, don't trust the previewer too far--it will not always accurately represent what the devices will show. It's always best to test on an actual device, if you can.

The guidelines for preparing an epub file for KindleGen/Previewer are found here: https://kindlegen.s3.amazonaws.com/AmazonKindlePublishingGuidelines.pdf (PDF format) In general, having a validating epub 3.0 fixed layout file will get you 95% of the way there, though KF8 introduces some extra functionality like being able to define verso and recto (left and right) pages in a two-page spread, and also region magnification to allow zooming on particular areas of text. There is a sample KF8 fixed layout file available at http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1000729511.

Again, be certain that the Fixed Layout epub that you have is the epub 3.0 variety, rather than Apple's iBooks-only fixed layout format. The Apple format came out before the IDPF developed Fixed Layout for epub 3.0, and while Apple's format seems to have served as the basis for the IDPF format, it doesn't necessarily make a valid epub 3.0 file. You can use the online validator here (http://validator.idpf.org/) to test your file to be sure that it's valid.

So, long story short: Amazon does not sell or support epub files of any type, but they do have tools and information available for converting valid epub files to mobi/KF8, including for Fixed Layout books.

Hope that helps!


How to remove extraneous page numbers from ePub TOC

I suspect you can persuade InDesign to export this correctly, but if this is a one-off and you don't need to do many like it, it would very probably be easier to open it in Calibre (free), edit the ToC, and use Calibre to re-pack the ePub. Alternately, you can unzip the ePub, edit the ToC file in a text editor, and re-zip it in this order -- OSX, but I think the flags work on Linux and maybe Win:
prompt$ zip -X0 title.epub mimetype
prompt$ zip -Xr "title.epub" "META-INF/" "OEBPS/"


How to change Kindle Windows 8 into a 'normal app'

I have found 2 solutions to this.  The first is to download the Windows 7 version of the Reader from here.  When I installed that particular version on W8.1, the popup said it was going to "expire soon" (which likely speaks to the fact that the company will be dropping XP support from the next version, not that they'll be discontinuing the non-Metro version completely).

The second is to use the Kindle Cloud Reader.  While it is designed to be used "in the cloud" you can download your books to have local copies.  Using this method, you can open the app in a dedicated browser window and resize it as needed.


Yes, they do!

In fact at this page you can find the update for your kindle (if it's not a kindle touch, then it's called kindle 5th generation), with the following information (bold is supplied):

  We have a new, free software update available for your Kindle (5th Generation). This update automatically downloads and installs on your Kindle when connected wirelessly; however, you can also manually download the software and transfer the update to your device via USB cable.

This means that, yes, it is possible that your Kindle automatically updated itself downloading the new firmware online.


Linking to the same reference many times (instead of writing it over and over), while inserting each time a page number to it: possible?

Since most epub3 readers and current Kindle models and apps support popup footnotes, the easiest solution would be to use footnotes for all book references.

What app(s) are you using to write your book?


How do I remove pages from an ePub file?

Calibre has had a book editing feature, since version 1.15. If you manage your ebooks in Calibre, just right-click on the book and select "Edit Book".

If you have Calibre installed, but do not use it to manage your books, you can start the editor from the commandline with:

ebook-edit /path/to/your.ebook

One thing you should note however is that in an EPUB file a "page" depends on the rendering device, the font etc. A page-break can be "inserted", through page-break-* styles associated with an element, and seem to be enforced through splitting of the HTML within different .html files of the .epub as well.

If a section of HTML contains enough text to require rending in multiple pages, it is difficult to speak about something like "removing the first page", as what is exactly contained on the first page is not constant even if the EPUB doesn't change.


Is it possible to convert Pocket articles into epub format?

There are several different possible solutions for your task. The approaches differ in terms of used tools and level of automation.

a technically very easy way is a special Google Chrome browser plugin which allows an epub export within the pocket website.
a rather automated solution is the use of pocket as custom news source for calibre.
And last but also as rather a complex way you could use IFTT and some mail forwarding procedures to automate the epub generation. This approach is covered in a blog article on the tech blog "Dancing in Technology"


Has anyone managed to replace a screen on a Sony PRS-T1?

Look at this thread on Mobileread, it also has a link where you can download the service manual.

There is also a video guide on youtube.

Please note that I don't own this ereader and that this is only the result of a quick web search, so I can't help you further.


How to self generate a Kindle ebook with Enhanced Typesetting so that I can left align the text?

I managed to have my left-aligned book inside my Kindle, but I warn you that was way harder than I thought.
You must convert your book to the Amazon proprietary and undocumented format, KFX. This format will allow you to have an ebook with Enhanced Typesetting. Just books with Enhanced Typesetting can be left-aligned.
Now here are the instructions to have your left-aligned book in a dozen complicated steps. Next year, Amazon will probably have changed its tools and this info will be outdated.

Install the wonderful Calibre
Install Amazon Kindle Previewer 3. It should be installed in the default location under the same user account as is being used to run calibre.
In Calibre go to Preferences (the icon may be outside the ribbon) -> Add plugins -> write KFX in the text box -> Select "KFX Output" plugin, right click on it, and install.
All the magic is made by the KFX Output plugin, here is KFX plugin documentation. Any problem you have in this process, the answer is probably in this thread.
Now I'm considering that your book is already added to your Calibre library. This is a good moment to check and fix the book metadata.
Right-click your book and select "convert individually"
Next dialog, top right, select KFX, run and wait for it to finish.
Now connect your Kindle to your computer using a USB Cable. No, you can't email your file. You can't use "send to kindle". You must transfer it using a cable.
Right-click your book, select send to device, send the specific format to device, select KFX and send it.
Eject the device.

Now you have your left-aligned book in your Kindle. I don't know if it is worth the trouble.
If you need to check if your book is correctly converted, rename its extension from kfx to awz8, open it with Kindle Previewer, got To View menu, Book Information and it must have "Enhanced Typesetting" supported:


Downscaled screenshots of HTML tables look blurry. Why?

I don't think that you can really "fix" this; representing text with a raster image and downscaling it means that it will be displayed with far less pixels that are required to provide a clean and readable image.

You can try by using an image format that is better suited for this task; I would suggest .png (avoid .jpg like the plague in these circumstances!), it can help but honestly I won't expect miracles if the text is going to be downscaled a lot.

Long story short: don't use images to display text.


Will selling on Amazon significantly limit readership of free ebook?

The answer is closely tied to the author's purpose. Amazon can provide significant exposure. From the question's comments, the purpose may be to track the number of readers.

If the real purpose is simply to track the number of readers, Google Analytics or other tracking systems can give you that information with free software. There are other options (meaning other public websites) available which track downloads for you.

On the other hand, tracking your own downloads on a relatively unknown web site as compared to tracking a LOT of downloads on amazon... if you want more exposure, go to the established venues such as amazon.

Wherever you place the book, do work within that site's paradigm or ecosystem. There are ways to get better exposure on Amazon, for example, with lots of books and online tutorials available. If you're going through another venue, find out how to best work within that venue.

Consider multiple venues, multiple e-book file formats, and so on. This becomes an exercise in online marketing or search engine optimization. If tracking is the important consideration, research the various download-tracking options. Once you understand the tracking options available, that may help direct your decision as to how to go about distributing the book or books.

If you have a specific book, niche, or genre in mind, do some searches for free e-books in that genre. That may help you understand the expectations of the book's potential audience. If they're already out there looking for similar books, that fact may guide you in where and how to make it available.

Another way to look at your question is, "How many readers do I gain by putting it on Amazon?" If the book is free, the author is surely under no obligation to publish it EXCLUSIVELY on Amazon. Use amazon in addition to the other options.


How can I upload my 100+ ebook collection to kindle cloud?

If you use the Send to Kindle function, your books may end up stored as Documents. Kindle ownership gives 5 GB Cloud storage, so log into your Cloud Storage first and see how much you are already using (all your Documents back up here). If you want more storage, you have to buy it.

How to do it? I'd use Calibre's own download to disk function to put them on my computer, locate the files and right click to use the Send to Kindle. Yes, 100 books is a lot, but if you want to send big batches of data, I'd check with Amazon Customer service first to see if there is a way to do that. I suspect not unless you submit zip files, since they won't want their system flooded.


The value following "version" in the XML declaration must be a quoted string

There doesn't appear to be an issue with the code after I tested it in a dummy ePub with ePubcheck 3.0.  Since you haven't mentioned how the ePub was created I would trouble shoot by:

Creating a new XHTML file and re-doing the contents of the old XHTML file in it to make sure there isn't any issues with the file or if the file is corrupted.
Check to make sure your closing tag is proper or the document ends with </html>.  This can be tested by opening the XHTML file in a browser such as Chrome and you might get a code error in red at the top.
Sometimes empty lines after </html> can cause a validation issue with ePubcheck so make sure to remove them.
If this was created in an application like Sublime or BBEdit you can always validate the XHTML.


Getting a separate page count per chapter

Kobo ereaders have two different reading engines, one for .epub files, another for .kepub.epub files.
These two engines have some little differences, one is the way page count is displayed: for the entire book with .epub, for a single chapter with .kepub.epub.
If you want to use this feature the simplest way is to rename the file extension, but it is advisable to use Calibre instead. If you install the Advanced Kobo Driver plugin it will automatically convert .epub files in .kepub.epub when you send them to the device, while performing some optimizations that you won't have if you simply change the extension.
And, this is a feature of the reading device, not of the file itself: it's not coded in your ebook, it's the ereader that has it and use it when detects the file type: you won't get it in other devices even if you change the extension.


The PDF file format does not support cover images.

PDF was designed to show a faithful representation of printed pages.
Reflowing text to other page sizes typically is not possible; you should use PDF on an ebook reader only when the page layout is important.


Which distributor do authors prefer I purchase from?

I always buy from an author's website directly if he or she has one. Then there is no distributor or retailer fee paid by the publisher and author. Not many authors have this I know!


How can I use pdftk to make changes to my PDF ebooks?

pdftk, the PDF toolkit, is a program that has been around since 2004, and is available for multiple platforms: Windows, Linux, OSX. Although you could probably compile (it is open source) and run it on some (Android based) ebook readers, it is more intended to be run on your main computer, to change files before loading them onto your ebook reader.
pdftk can do a lot of things out-of-the-box: collate scanned PDF pages (including handling reverse ordered back sides); decrypt and encrypt PDFs; joining and splitting of PDFs; removing of pages; rotating (90° increments) of pages; reporting on PDF metatdata and bookmarks.
pdftk is built on top of the iText java library. It's development history is documented by its revision history.
Installation
Windows
For Windows (XP, Vista, 7, 8), use the installer that you can get directly from the pdftk pages at PDF Labs. Run the executable installer, you should select the option [Don't create a Start Menu Folder]², but make sure you leave [Add application directory to your environment path] selected.
Now you can open the Command Prompt (in the "Accessories" program group) and type³:
pdftk --version

to make sure the program is correctly installed. You can now use the examples provided in the answers that were mentioned in the question.
OSX
You can download the Mac OS X installer (for Snow Leopard, Lion and Mountain Lion) from pdftk pages at PDF Labs, or use homebrew-cask as explained in this StackOverflow answer:
brew cask install pdftk

After that, open a Terminal and type
pdftk --version

to make sure the program is correctly installed. You can now use the examples provided in the answers that were mentioned in the question.
Linux
Most Linux distributions include pdftk, try
sudo apt-get install pdftk

or
sudo yum install pdftk

or pick another installer appropriate to the distribution.
After installation, open a terminal (if not already open for the installation process) or switch to a console (Ctrl+Alt+F1) and type:
pdftk --version

to make sure the program is correctly installed. You can now use the examples provided in the answers that were mentioned in the question.
Usage
pdftk is not hindered by a graphical user interface, therefore it is easy to automate repetitive tasks⁴. The examples in the answers, e.g.:
 pdftk *.pdf cat output ../combined.pdf

(to combine multiple PDF files in one file), can be copied and pasted from your web browser into your command prompt/terminal.
To find out about other easy ways to manipulate your PDF files, try:
pdftk --help

or have a look at the manual pages.
When in a hurry, and only having to do things once, it is sometimes easier to burst a while PDF into individual pages with:
pdftk in.pdf burst

then remove the pages you don't need anymore, or rearrange them by renaming them, and then combine them using:
pdftk pg_*.pdf cat output out.pdf

(this combines the pages in alphabetical order so if you want the original page 2 to go after page 3, just rename pg_0002.pdf to pg_0003a.pdf).
¹ If you don't mind doing repetitive tasks moving a mouse around, there is also a GUI based version of the program: PDFtk Free
² That only creates a superfluous entry in the Program menu with an Uninstall option, you can do that from the "Add/Remove Programs" in the Control Panel
³ If you are not familiar with using the commandline: you have to type the characters shown and at the end of the line press Enter
⁴ For instance by calling it from a batch file, a shell script or (my favourite) a Python program


what devices will be affected by deleting iPad Kindle app

Generally Amazon offers a cloud solution for your ebooks, so removing the purchased ebook from your app or removing the app entirely is very unlikely to cause a deletion on your cloud storage.

On my android device, I don't see any option to remove the ebook permanently -- which leads me to assume that you cannot delete it on all devices and your cloud from one device. (You probably can do a permanent deletion from the Amazon website under Manage Your Content and Devices so be careful.


Is there any way to read an technical ebook quickly?

Yes there is a bunch of techniques.
short time ago i found a new one, called spritz.
http://youtu.be/slYKEKtYW-I

Other techniques are: speedreading, photoreading etc.


Convert a Spanish pdf into kindle format

Converting from PDFs is very difficult task and depends on vary of factors.
The short answer is that sending it over Amazon with different parameters (subjects) wont help.

Every PDF file can be saved in different ways. As Images(then you need OCR) or as text layers. If text layers it can be with different coding and sometimes that coding is not same as text in reality is. That makes a lot of troubles. Your problem can be caused by not perfect Amazon OCR system.

You can try to convert it manually by PDFtoEPUB software and then from ePub to kindle by kindlegen software but this will take a long time to do it properly.


Attempting to create an ebook for sale on kindle

If you upload valid epub2/epub3 books to Kindle KDP, Amazon will automatically convert them to KFX books with enhanced typesetting, if the device/app supports enhanced typesetting.

In order to preview enhanced typesetting features, you'll need to install Kindle Previewer 3.

Once you've installed the previewer, you can also install the KFX Output Calibre plugin and generate KFX files that you can sideload to Kindles and Kindle apps.

For more information on enhanced typesetting features also see Appendix A of the Kindle Publishing Guidelines.


A nice platform for selling PDF books like Google Play. Any suggestions?

Have you had a look at Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing? It says Kindle in the name, but it is also possible to send the ebooks to tablets or smart phones and read them on there.


Is it possible to use Amazon Kindle without signing to a non-free unlimited cloud storage plan?

The Amazon Send to Kindle service has been around way before the Amazon Cloud Drive was introduced. Amazon automatically adds any personal documents sent through "send to kindle" to its cloud drive (which is included for Amazon Prime members and fire device owners).

This supplementary feature would not be anymore available without an Amazon Cloud Drive subscription. Nevertheless the actual send to kindle feature is not affected by this change and would still work without such an additional subscription. Some months after switching to the paid subscription, kindle documents aren't any longer included into the amazon cloud quota.

An extensive disucssion about this notification email and the resulting consequences can be found on mobileread.com


Can you suggest an advanced ereader application for textbooks?

Assuming you are interested in Android apps (you don't specify your OS), I can suggest you Moon+ Reader and Aldiko Reader.

Both of these apps have the features you need.


Converting a gmail email to kindle as readable document

The best solution is to use a PDF via Send to Kindle Email Address using the steps below in order to retain the functions you are asking for- variable size font, annotations, etc.

Open the Gmail email you want to transfer and click the print button
at the top right corner.
From the print screen, change the printer option to PDF and save.
You must have a Kindle
Send the PDF as an attachment to your Kindle Paperwhite via your Send to Kindle Email Address BUT you must put convert in the subject line. This automatically converts the PDF to Kindle format retaining the features mentioned above.

Just as a heads up, Amazon may limit how many documents you send and store through the Kindle Personal Document Service, so I would routinely delete old documents and make sure you have backups on your computer of any personal document you might want at a later date, just in case Amazon deletes them for any reason.

There is also a Kindle Convert app you can download from https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00K7HEGZ6


Can Kindle books handle side-by-side texts?

You might try using a two-column per page method for translation, where column A has your source text and column B has your target text.  With this method the source and target paragraphs can easily be spaced so that the first line of each of the source-target paragraphs are in perfect alignment with each other.

I've been using this method to do a bi-lingual translation of a German hardcover book.  I'm writing Adobe .PDF files, (which are non-reflowable) so I'm able to write 2- and 4-column glossaries, page indexes for each chapter, and a cumulative page index at the end of the book.  I'm also able to do this translation on a page-by-page basis that's in sync with my source book's pages.

Since my eBook will be a .pdf encoded eBook a reader will be able to read the eBook with virtually any of the available eBook readers.  However, that being said, I tested a couple of my two-column .pdf pages using Amazon's on-line Kindle reader and found that the Kindle reader was unable to render my two-column side by side page translation format, even though Kindle's are supposed to be able to read .pdf files.

The two-column aligned paragraph method I'm using has proven to my satisfaction that learning is much faster and easier when the eyes have only a very short distance to move to read the translation of a word, phrase, sentence, or even a complete paragraph.