Publishers Now Using HTML5 to Create Books for Kindle Fire

We're pleased to announce a wide range of new features and enhancements - including HTML5 support - coming in Kindle Format 8 (KF8). KF8 is the next generation file format for Kindle books - replacing Mobi 7. As showcased on Kindle Fire, KF8 enables publishers to create great-looking books in categories that require rich formatting and design such as children's picture books, comics & graphic novels, technical & engineering books and cookbooks. Kindle Format 8 replaces the Mobi format and adds over 150 new formatting capabilities, including fixed layouts, nested tables, callouts, sidebars and Scalable Vector Graphics, opening up more opportunities to create Kindle books that readers will love.

Kindle Format 8 books have already been created by a number of publishers, some of which were on display at the Kindle Fire launch. In the coming months, we will roll out KF8 to our latest generation Kindle e-ink devices as well as our free Kindle reading apps. Stay tuned for more information regarding the upcoming releases of Kindle Publisher Tool enhancements and new Kindle Publisher Guidelines that will help publishers use these new capabilities.

More information about the new capabilities in Kindle Format 8 is located at http://www.amazon.com/KindleFormat.

Sincerely,

The Kindle Team

Will Kindle Keyboard (K3) continue to support .mobi files?

Am I going to need to upgrade my kindle or will these still work on the K3?

Are CSS3 Media Queries supported in KF8?

I've red something about "Kindle Text Pop up". Is it made by using JavaScript? Is JavaScript supported by KF8?
As MathML is a part of HTML5, is it supported by KF8?

KF8's extension is still ".mobi"?

Hopefully the devices will be backwards compatible. I expect they will be, else there's going to be a lot of converting going on.

I wonder if Amazon and Barnes & Noble have broken Federal law by creating two classes of publishers: those who get several months of lead time using a new display language (making KF8 books), and others who struggle in the weeds trying to make a decent book with the old tools? In dead tree book distribution, there are restraints forcing all players to treat all players of a certain class equally.

Will Kindle support EPUB3 across the new devices?

Would KF8 supports <audio> and <video> tags?

I have a Kindle DX Graphite. By "our latest generation Kindle e-ink devices" do you mean only the new Kindles without keyboard, or is also the KDXG going to get an update supporting the new format?

[Deleted by the author on Oct 22, 2011 5:46:44 AM PDT]

Please. What law is this? This sort of situation is completely normal in almost every software sector, and e-books are just software.

Keep in mind, not all publishers are going to care about the new format and tools until they've been thoroughly tested by those who can afford the cost of being early adopters. It's no different than launching a major hardware add-on to an existing game console. When Microsoft developed the Kinect for the Xbox 360, only a small number of third party companies could afford to get involved in the pre-release development efforts. Smaller companies were fine with waiting for it to be a shipping product with a substantial installed base and mature tools.

Compared to EPUB, the tools for the existing Kindle format are severely lacking. Amazon really needs to recruit some third party support for this. If the next generation of Microsoft Word could export directly to Kindle, that would be a huge win. (The Atlantis Word Processor is worth buying just because it will save directly to EPUB.)

I want .odt support.

I have 5 books created in InDesign. How do I convert InDesign to K8 format?

Also, does K8 support HTML5 <video> and <audio> tags. By book use both to teach British pronunciation. TOday I use PDFs but would really like to do kindel.

I have a mock-up here http://www.speakmoreclearly.com/mobile.html

I've had a devil of a time trying to publish a children's book heavy with illustrations. I'd like to get it finished before Kindle Fire is out (next week?) Atlantis looks like a perfect tool for that. It does mention the Kindle previewer, but does it really support Mobi?

"Atlantis looks like a perfect tool for that. It does mention the Kindle previewer, but does it really support Mobi?"

Perhaps they refer to the Kindle Previewer capability to convert (using KindleGen) ePub books on the fly?

Well, my KFire is showing up tomorrow but I guess I can't really use it because Amazon hasn't released the KF8 support yet. Bummed! This makes no sense!

James,

I don't understand your comment about Amazon not releasing KF8 support for the Fire! According to the Kindle Publishing Team announcement, the Fire already has KF8 support as part of its operating system. It will be released later for all the other Kindle models. What makes you think it doesn't have it?

Amazon might support KF8, but the publishing guidelines and the latest Kindle Gen app haven't been released. I signed up to be notified when the KF8 guidelines were published. I assumed they would be released before the Amazon Fire. But my Amazon Fire came today and I still don't have the detailed specs.

I am an HTML5 and webkit developer and I am as bummed as James A.

Casey,

Ok, so you and James are HTML5 developers! That explains a lot. Thanks for clarifying that! I hope Amazon releases the guidelines soon.

I should have paid more attention to the Forum Header!

Will there still be a 50 MB book size limit?

So the Fire has come and gone (release & arrival) and I can deduce from other forums/chats that I view that commercial publishers (bigger than indies) already know all about Kindle 8.

All I know is some of the HTML 5 and CSS 3 new elements that will be supported. I depend on KindleGen to assemble assorted files and to produce the .MOBI To some degree I depend on the Kindle Previewer program to pre-view the finished product.

Neither of these essential programs for self-publishers is up to date. I have more books to go - should I wait for the tools or proceed as usual?

I myself am waiting for the new releases to be unveiled... Since December is around the corner, it should be soon...

I agree. Is KF8 coming out soon? Holiday sales are right around the corner.