Comments on: Some Problems With the Kindle 2 Specific to Nonfiction

By: Meg Cox

Meg Cox — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 06:42:05 +0000

Books can be formatted to have functional indexes on the Kindle, but the publisher (or whoever converts the book for the publisher) has to set it up that way.

I am exploring the possibility of starting an ebook conversion service that will create live indexes for nonfiction books. Readers will be able to click on the page locator in the index to go to an anchored point in the text that corresponds to the top of the appropriate page in the print edition.

By: Walt Shiel

Walt Shiel — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:47:09 +0000

Although it is true that too many books suffer from these problems on the Kindle (as well as most other e-book formats), they all stem from two main causes: (1) Inherent limitations of the device -- this particularly applies to your first complaint. Unfortunately, I can see no way that e-books (on any platform) will find a solution to this for a very long time, if ever. The codex and its remote digital cousin are just too very different things. (2) Careless conversions. Too many publishers, including some large ones, seem to rely on automated conversion software that tends to generate many errors. This is particularly true if a printer-ready PDF is fun through the software. Odd codes, such as the #8217; mentioned by Shirley probably stem from trying to convert an ePub format to the Kindle's limited HTML format. The code #8217; would be recognized by most ePub-compatible readers as a curly right single quote, but Kindle requires that code to be rendered as the HTML code ’ to display properly. Again, that's careless e-book design. I've blogged several times about e-book design issues (we do a lot of e-book conversions to PDF, ePub and Kindle formats): Kindle Errors and Typos E-Book Design - Do Readers Care? Thoughts on E-book Design

By: Bob Hepler

Bob Hepler — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 01:44:34 +0000

Not only that, but I’ve noticed sections of missing text in the first book I purchased from the kindle store. There are blank sections between paragraphs with only a sentence fragment letting you know something is missing (that and the lack of sense of those passages).

By: Shirley Sanderson

Shirley Sanderson — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 17:22:25 +0000

Your observations about formatting are right on target. I read Outliers on the Kindle and charts were badly formatted. Worse yet, there were footnotes that were not marked in the text, but as a asterisked list at the end. You had to click on the footnote and have the Kindle switch back to the text to figure out the context.

With a fiction title I bought two days ago, one character is referenced 10 times as “#8217;”. I have emailed Amazon about this, but don’t know if this is some kind of hardware glitch on the Kindle 1, or bad preparation of the document by the publisher, but it is definitely annoying.

By: WL

WL — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 02:42:20 +0000

I just bought a Kindle 2 after playing with a friend’s Kindle (1). I agree that the footnote problem is pretty major for non-fiction, as well as some fiction– Try reading Colbert’s _I am America (And So can you!)_ and you’ll miss out on some funny commentary. Also in that same book, I found the side/margin notes placed somewhat randomly within the text, though I was able to figure out what they were in relation to.

Lastly, both this book and another Kindle book I just read had typos that I can only assume are not in the print-published versions. This is a bit annoying.

Still, I do think it’s a great device and it has helped me keep a steady stream of books at my fingertips, since I’m a fairly ravenous reader. I also love the non-glare screen, electric paper, and font-size control.

Even if the battery eventually dies or I want to upgrade to the inevitable lighter, color model that has more memory and a better cursor control, I feel pretty confident that I will get my money’s worth out of this device.