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How Kindle support might actually be possible


R. Mansfield

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@Nathan Parker saidUnfortunately Kindle support is never going to happen.”

 

There is actually one way that this could be done. In 2005 Amazon bought MobiPocket and the “mobi” file format served as the proprietary format for titles on Kindle devices and apps. However, in the last year or so, Amazon has been transitioning over to ePub because it is now more versatile than mobi. 

 

Accordance already imports a number of formats to create User Tools. Add ePub import, and an entire world of content would be open to adding to the Accordance Library. 

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@R. MansfieldThat being said, would they be searchable or that would mean tagging on the Accordance side?

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User Tools are always searchable. 

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@R. Mansfield, does Amazon still plan on using DRM with ePub? My understanding is that it's not the Mobipocket (mobi) or Kindle (azw, azw3, kfx) file formats that's the hurdle, because non-Amazon readers for these file formats exist (e.g., Calibre). Rather, it's the need to communicate with an Amazon web service (or a piece of Kindle hardware) to unlock the DRM.

 

Also, can you please point to a source for Amazon switching over to ePub? The only information I've been able to find is that Kindles will support ePub via Send-to-Kindle, which simply converts ePub to Kindle format before placing it on the device. I couldn't find anything that said Amazon would now be distributing ePub files (with or without DRM) from the Kindle Store.

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How about the ability to export Accordance resources to ePub?

 

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6 hours ago, Steven S said:

@R. Mansfield, does Amazon still plan on using DRM with ePub? My understanding is that it's not the Mobipocket (mobi) or Kindle (azw, azw3, kfx) file formats that's the hurdle, because non-Amazon readers for these file formats exist (e.g., Calibre). Rather, it's the need to communicate with an Amazon web service (or a piece of Kindle hardware) to unlock the DRM.

 

I imagine you will still have to use a program like Calibre to remove Amazon DRM. But I, personally, have no ethical problem with that as I'm not distributing the file to anyone else. 

 

At the same time, I've purchased epubs from IVP and Orthodox Christian Ebooks that, as far as I can tell, are not copy-protected. I'd love to be able to import these into a Bible software program.

 

6 hours ago, Steven S said:

Also, can you please point to a source for Amazon switching over to ePub?

 

On March 13, after sending a mobi file to my e-ink Kindle, I received this email from Amazon:

Dear Kindle Customer,

 

Thank you for using the Send to Kindle service to send personal documents to your Kindle library. We noticed that the following document(s), sent by you at 03:26 PM on Mon, Mar 13, 2023 GMT are in MOBI (.mobi, .azw) formats: * pilgrimage_to_pascha-x.mobi

 

We wanted to let you know that Send to Kindle will soon remove the ability to send MOBI (.mobi, .azw) files to your Kindle library. Any MOBI files already in your library will not be affected by this change. MOBI is an older file format and won’t support the newest Kindle features for documents. Any existing MOBI files you want to read with our most up-to-date features for documents will need to be re-sent in a compatible format.

 

Compatible formats now include EPUB (.epub), which you can send to your library using the new Send to Kindle for Web, the free Kindle app. We will be adding EPUB support to the Send to Kindle desktop app for PC and Mac.

 

If you have any questions, please visit our help page or contact our Customer Service team.

 

Regards,

Amazon Kindle Support

__________________________________________

 

And here's an article from Tech Republic.

 

 

 

 

 

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6 hours ago, RevM said:

How about the ability to export Accordance resources to ePub?

 

I can't imagine Accordance's publishing partners would ever go for that. Right now even a copy and paste is limited to a certain amount of characters. 

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Thanks for the discussion! I’ll add it to my feature list to look into some form of ePUB import feature for User Tools. We’re also looking at ways to make it easier for our module developers to get ePUBs from publishers and more quickly produce Accordance modules with them.

 

ePUBs from some publishers might not be copy-protected, so those that you import into Accordance for your own personal use would be fine. Those with Amazon DRM protection, it would be up to you to figure out what to do there (Calibre, etc). If you’re only using them for your own personal use, then it should be OK, although we’re not going to walk you through any steps to break DRM protection. 🙂 

 

Send to Kindle in Logos is long gone. Amazon broke something on their end, and Logos had to phase it out. 

 

STEP went away years ago since it was an ancient format based on RTF, and even STEP readers were clunky when reading STEP files. e-Sword might still have one around, but that’s about it. Wordsearch acquired Bible Explorer and ran with CROSS format for a while which was based on Unicode and XML and the goal was to be “STEP 2.0”, but we all know how that turned out.

 

Exporting to ePUB wouldn’t be an option due to publisher restrictions. Accordance has to pay royalties on all copyrighted material produced, and with that, publishers expect us to respect their copyrights.

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