Question about KindleGen.

KB · February 12, 2019, 9:30pm

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 · February 12, 2019, 10:31pm

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.

david_macrae · February 13, 2019, 3:52pm

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 · February 14, 2019, 1:38pm

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 · February 14, 2019, 5:45pm

Good grief! Thanks for that link!

david_macrae · February 14, 2019, 6:08pm

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 · February 21, 2019, 7:14pm

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 · February 23, 2019, 2:14pm

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 · February 26, 2019, 8:43am

Perfect. Many thanks for your help.

Best wishes

Stephen

KB · May 1, 2019, 4:00pm

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 · May 2, 2019, 11:32pm

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 · May 3, 2019, 6:45am

amazon.com/gp/feature.html? … 1000765211

Slàinte mhòr.

Fjunillon · October 15, 2019, 4:08am

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

norse2 · November 2, 2019, 7:01pm

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.

marlacparker · November 19, 2019, 4:50am

Thank you David & KB!!

Installed Kindle Previewer 3.35 from Amazon and now Scrivener is able to output mobi again on Catalina.

scottfrenz · February 27, 2020, 12:42am

Thank you! Installed Kindle Previewer 3.35 from Amazon as well and worked perfectly.

myeo · August 31, 2020, 6:23pm

Thanks this post has been really helpful. I’ve downloaded the kindle previewer and opened the application package and copied this to the Kindlegen folder but Scrivener says that that it ‘does not seem to be a valid KindleGen file’. I’m lost as to what to do. I can’t see any 64 option to point Scrivener to, but I’m not very IT savvy. Any ideas would be much appreciated.

Thanks

kewms · August 31, 2020, 9:20pm

Make sure you have the latest version of Mac Scrivener, and just install Kindle Previewer. You don’t need to explicitly pull the KindleGen file out of it.

Katherine

myeo · September 2, 2020, 5:50am

Thank you. My version is quite old. Do you know if the project templates can be copied across if I buy the latest version on the app store?
Thanks

kewms · September 2, 2020, 4:28pm

So much has changed that I wouldn’t try copying project templates directly.

Instead, I’d suggest using your current version of Scrivener to create a new project from the template you want to transfer. Open that project in Scrivener 3, edit as necessary, then use Scrivener 3’s Save as Template command to create a new template.

I’d recommend taking a look at our upgrade guide for Scrivener 2 users, as Scrivener 3 has some very significant changes. You can find it here:
literatureandlatte.com/scri … date-guide

Katherine