Question about KindleGen.

[david_macrae]

Scrivener uses KindleGen when compiling to mobi. I noticed KindleGen has not been updated since 2014 and appears to be a 32 bit unix executable. I was wondering if the software engineers here have heard anything from amazon about if and when they plan on updating it?

[KB]

I'm afraid not, no. If Amazon do phase it out, I expect you'll simply need to use ePub instead (you can already upload ePubs via KDP).

All the best,
Keith

[Silverdragon]

David, I share your concern regarding KindleGen. FWIW, I've already had success uploading an epub 3 to Amazon, using the "optimize for Kindle conversion" option. I was able to use Kindle Previewer with the epub, and use the output from previewer to check how my book worked with the iOS and Mac Kindle apps. My uploaded book looks fine in "Look Inside" as well.

screenshot_2019-02-12_14_21_29.jpg (119.63 KiB) Viewed 7542 times

[david_macrae]

Thanks,

I will try that, but I also think I might just freeze my mac like a production machine without anymore updates (at least for a while). I have every working exactly the way I want it to.

i can't imagine they will leave it though. I noticed they finally updated the kindle for mac app to 64 bit.

[david_macrae]

There actually is a 64 bit version it is distributed with kindle previewer 3

the location is here: /Applications/Kindle\ Previewer\ 3.app/Contents/MacOS/lib/fc/bin/kindlegen

when i ran a file command on it the result was: Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64

Amazon probably just never got around to updating the download link page

[Silverdragon]

Good grief! Thanks for that link!

[david_macrae]

You're welcome.

I should add that I went in the application folder and control clicked on the kindle previewer 3 app then clicked on show package contents and browsed to the file location so I could copy it and move it somewhere else to use with Scrivener.

[Hydester]

Hi

Thanks for this

Have located the 64bit version of kindlegen and simply overwritten the 32bit one in the folder KindleGen_Mac_i386_v2_9

Should this do the trick?

Seems to work, but was wondering if I needed to do anything else.

With thanks in anticipation

Stephen

[david_macrae]

I would just put it in the same location and then inside Scrivener point it to the new file. The name of the executables are different and it could be confusing to rename the 64 bit executable . The i386 designation is for 32 bit programs while x86_64 represents 64 bit. That being said it will work either way.

[Hydester]

Perfect. Many thanks for your help.

Best wishes

Stephen
______________________

[KB]

There actually is a 64 bit version it is distributed with kindle previewer 3

the location is here: /Applications/Kindle\ Previewer\ 3.app/Contents/MacOS/lib/fc/bin/kindlegen

when i ran a file command on it the result was: Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64

Amazon probably just never got around to updating the download link page

This is a great find, and I've used it for the next update - I've made it so that if you have Kindle Previewer installed, Scrivener looks for KindleGen inside that, and only requires a separate installation of KindleGen if it cannot be found (or cannot be used for some reason) inside Kindle Previewer. Thanks!

[bakari45]

Hi, I’m new to Scrivener compiling. The link in Scrivener to the Kindle Gen file page is not there any more. I see the link above in other posts, but that’s not taking me to place to download the file. Can someone help find what I need to install in order to output to a Kindle document in Scrivener. Really appreciate the help. Thanks.

[JoRo]

https://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html? ... 1000765211

Slàinte mhòr.

[Fjunillon]

whaou, you save me a lot of time, great discover, easy to do ! thanks a lot David & KB

[norse2]

I upgraded to Catalina (Mac Os 10.15) without giving a thought to KindleGen and ran into this error message:

"KindleGen failed to generate a .mobi file at the expected location."

Several searches on the error message failed to give me a solution. Then I just searched on KindleGen and found your solution, Installing Kindle Previewer 3 did the trick. Thank you for the solution. Hopefully with the error message posted here others will find it faster than I did.