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Comment by cpach | Hacker News Reader

What formats does it handle? Can it handle EPUB for example?

For this I recommend Calibre: https://calibre-ebook.com/

It will convert any format of E-Book to a compatible format for the Kindle (usually MOBI) and allows you to upload it directly. I use it often and it's an amazing piece of software!

I actually prefer KindleGen[0] to convert EPUB to MOBI - I find it produces a superior e-book.

Edit: Oh no, Amazon removed KindleGen! When did that happen? I still have x86 copies for Linux and windows if anyone wants it. Supposedly "Kindle Previewer" can do the same thing, but a cursory glance looks like it no longer supports Linux...

[0] https://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000765...

> Edit: Oh no, Amazon removed KindleGen! When did that happen?

We know where this is going, don't we? Offering interoperability in the beginning and then gradually taking it away - the old bait and switch trick. We consumers fall for it again and again.

It's replaced with Kindle Create: https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Create/b?ie=UTF8&node=18292298...

Again though, KindleGen had Linux support, it looks like this doesn't...

Damn, they removed KindleGen?! What a bummer!

Aghh, I have (had?) a project that relied on downloading kindlegen as part of the CI/CD step. I just downloaded it from Amazon each time.

I doubt I have a copy of it somewhere. Does anyone have / know of a copy of kindlegen for Linux anywhere?

Edit: Wayback machine has it, thank god. Had a very real sense of loss there. Unsure why it's a project I've hardly touched for years. https://github.com/wjdp/gotdict for the interested.

It works pretty well except for the latest generation of Kindle DRM. AFAIK, it hasn't been cracked yet. There are workarounds but the workaround result in a lower quality book.

I second that, I have older Paper Kindle with only wifi. And I never connect to wifi, Calibre is excellent for managing kindle archive without amazon's breathing down my neck.

Highly recommend.

No it cannot. It only supports Amazon's proprietary ebook formats: AZW and MOBI. I love the paperwhite, but the limited format support led me to choose a different ereader when I last bought a new one.

Edit: I know I could convert between formats, but that process is not always perfect and can lose important formatting.

Loading books using programs like calibre [1] allows you to covert EPUB to MOBI (the kindle format) seamlessly before transferring. In my experience this works perfectly.

[1] https://calibre-ebook.com/

The Kindle handles .mobi and .azw3. It is trivial to convert EPUB to MOBI before you send the book to the device over USB (it can even be done as part of a command-line script, for example).

Having to deal with the .epub conversion was the main reason I ditched my Voyage and got a Kobo Aura One instead.

Why ditch a device just for that reason? Again, the OP assumes that one will transfer books to the device over USB for privacy’s sake. In this case, creating a shell wrapper around cp to automatically convert any EPUB to MOBI upon copying the file (naming the command, say, kindlecp) is trivial.

Conversion can occasionally barf and completely screw up the formatting. It's annoying to have to go back and re-convert with different settings for a problem that's non-existent when native support exists.

There are online converters for it all, the process is a little annoying but works fine and you can do it locally too with various tools:

https://www.epubconverter.com/epub-to-mobi-converter/

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