asciidoctor-epub3: icons, mobi and mobi uploaded to Amazon Kindle

I use font substitutions in various places.

...
:icons: font
:icon-set: fa
:at: icon:at[]
:checkbox: icon:square-o[]
:checkmark: icon:check[]
:uncheckmark: icon:times[]
:rightarrow: icon:arrow-right[]
...

I build "book.mobi" using this command:

asciidoctor-epub3 -d book -a ebook-format=kf8 book.txt

When I preview in "Kindle Viewer 3" everything seems fine, see image1.png. So far, so good. In fact, having spent a long time on it, I'm rather happy with the final result. Rather stylish.

However, when I upload to the Amazon Kindle website, I've lost my icons--for example, right-arrow--and the fonts, headings, colors ... basically everything about the book is different. Oh, and all quotes are completely gone in the "Look Inside" preview, and headings are a garish green! Nothing whatsoever like the MOBI I uploaded. See images 2 (online previewer), 3 (online previewer), 4 (Look Inside) for what it looks like on the Amazon website.

What am I doing wrong?

---

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NAML

when I upload to the Amazon Kindle website, I've lost my icons--for example, right-arrow--and the fonts, headings, colors ... basically everything about the book is different. Oh, and all quotes are completely gone in the "Look Inside" preview, and headings are a garish green! Nothing whatsoever like the MOBI I uploaded. See images 2 (online previewer), 3 (online previewer), 4 (Look Inside) for what it looks like on the Amazon website. 

We're constantly at war with Amazon's book processing. I have used half dozen tricks over the years to prevent their scripts to stop mutilating books. Yet they keep adding "fixes" to ensure their mutilation process works. Aside from continuing to work around their hostility, I don't really know what else to do. Authors should be furious that Amazon is modifying your content. (This affects all books, not just books made with Asciidoctor EPUB3). Since Amazon isn't transparent about what they are doing, we can only guess as to what is really happening.

I have documented the steps to work around Amazon's hostile processing in the README. One of the main things they do is remove fonts from the book, which of course removes all icons and other font-based glyphs. It can also take away colors in certain cases.

To my knowledge, if you upload the book using KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing), the fonts and styles are preserved. But since I haven't checked this week, I can't say that with 100% certainty.

What I can tell you with absolutely certainty is that you cannot use "Send to Kindle". That mutilates books so badly there's just no way to recover. I explain this here: https://github.com/asciidoctor/asciidoctor-epub3#send-to-kindle

-Dan 

On Tue, Dec 12, 2017 at 8:39 PM, AJTSheppard [via Asciidoctor :: Discussion] <[hidden email]> wrote:

I use font substitutions in various places.

...
:icons: font
:icon-set: fa
:at: icon:at[]
:checkbox: icon:square-o[]
:checkmark: icon:check[]
:uncheckmark: icon:times[]
:rightarrow: icon:arrow-right[]
...

I build "book.mobi" using this command:

asciidoctor-epub3 -d book -a ebook-format=kf8 book.txt

When I preview in "Kindle Viewer 3" everything seems fine, see image1.png. So far, so good. In fact, having spent a long time on it, I'm rather happy with the final result. Rather stylish.

However, when I upload to the Amazon Kindle website, I've lost my icons--for example, right-arrow--and the fonts, headings, colors ... basically everything about the book is different. Oh, and all quotes are completely gone in the "Look Inside" preview, and headings are a garish green! Nothing whatsoever like the MOBI I uploaded. See images 2 (online previewer), 3 (online previewer), 4 (Look Inside) for what it looks like on the Amazon website.

What am I doing wrong?

---

If you reply to this email, your message will be added to the discussion below:

http://discuss.asciidoctor.org/asciidoctor-epub3-icons-mobi-and-mobi-uploaded-to-Amazon-Kindle-tp6076.html

To start a new topic under Asciidoctor :: Discussion, email [hidden email]
To unsubscribe from Asciidoctor :: Discussion, click here.
NAML

... [show rest of quote]

--

Dan Allen | @mojavelinux | https://twitter.com/mojavelinux

> to prevent their scripts to stop mutilating books.

to prevent their processing from mutilating books.

-Dan

On Wed, Dec 13, 2017 at 12:34 AM, Dan Allen <[hidden email]> wrote:

when I upload to the Amazon Kindle website, I've lost my icons--for example, right-arrow--and the fonts, headings, colors ... basically everything about the book is different. Oh, and all quotes are completely gone in the "Look Inside" preview, and headings are a garish green! Nothing whatsoever like the MOBI I uploaded. See images 2 (online previewer), 3 (online previewer), 4 (Look Inside) for what it looks like on the Amazon website. 

We're constantly at war with Amazon's book processing. I have used half dozen tricks over the years to prevent their scripts to stop mutilating books. Yet they keep adding "fixes" to ensure their mutilation process works. Aside from continuing to work around their hostility, I don't really know what else to do. Authors should be furious that Amazon is modifying your content. (This affects all books, not just books made with Asciidoctor EPUB3). Since Amazon isn't transparent about what they are doing, we can only guess as to what is really happening.

I have documented the steps to work around Amazon's hostile processing in the README. One of the main things they do is remove fonts from the book, which of course removes all icons and other font-based glyphs. It can also take away colors in certain cases.

To my knowledge, if you upload the book using KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing), the fonts and styles are preserved. But since I haven't checked this week, I can't say that with 100% certainty.

What I can tell you with absolutely certainty is that you cannot use "Send to Kindle". That mutilates books so badly there's just no way to recover. I explain this here: https://github.com/asciidoctor/asciidoctor-epub3#send-to-kindle

-Dan 

On Tue, Dec 12, 2017 at 8:39 PM, AJTSheppard [via Asciidoctor :: Discussion] <[hidden email]> wrote:

I use font substitutions in various places.

...
:icons: font
:icon-set: fa
:at: icon:at[]
:checkbox: icon:square-o[]
:checkmark: icon:check[]
:uncheckmark: icon:times[]
:rightarrow: icon:arrow-right[]
...

I build "book.mobi" using this command:

asciidoctor-epub3 -d book -a ebook-format=kf8 book.txt

When I preview in "Kindle Viewer 3" everything seems fine, see image1.png. So far, so good. In fact, having spent a long time on it, I'm rather happy with the final result. Rather stylish.

However, when I upload to the Amazon Kindle website, I've lost my icons--for example, right-arrow--and the fonts, headings, colors ... basically everything about the book is different. Oh, and all quotes are completely gone in the "Look Inside" preview, and headings are a garish green! Nothing whatsoever like the MOBI I uploaded. See images 2 (online previewer), 3 (online previewer), 4 (Look Inside) for what it looks like on the Amazon website.

What am I doing wrong?

---

If you reply to this email, your message will be added to the discussion below:

http://discuss.asciidoctor.org/asciidoctor-epub3-icons-mobi-and-mobi-uploaded-to-Amazon-Kindle-tp6076.html

To start a new topic under Asciidoctor :: Discussion, email [hidden email]
To unsubscribe from Asciidoctor :: Discussion, click here.
NAML

... [show rest of quote]

--

Dan Allen | @mojavelinux | https://twitter.com/mojavelinux

... [show rest of quote]

--

Dan Allen | @mojavelinux | https://twitter.com/mojavelinux

Dear Dan,

Even though your message is a bit depressing, it's very clear, and so a good deal of help. Thanks!

All of these "top dog" companies treat their customers like crap! Monopolistic behavior anyone?

That said, the only way to deal with them in the short-term is to find work-arounds. Thanks for the pointers!

Oh, and keep up the good work!

-- All the best, Shep

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NAML

I'm uploading the book through Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing website.

It's a multi-stage process: upload cover, description, upload book.mobi, set price, and so on.

When I upload my book it looks OK in their online viewer ... just minus my icons, but otherwise the book is recognizable.

After publishing to their website, the "Look Inside" feature shows a book that is unrecognizable from the original.

If I send a sample from the Amazon website to my iPad and read it using the Kindle app, the book looks like it did in the Amazon online previewer.

But in the look inside the book looks like crap.

---

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NAML