How ePub came to Kindle-land (a Fairy Tale)

Once upon a time, a humble bookseller named Bezos had a compelling dream: "Every book ever printed, in any language, available to read in under sixty seconds."

With these words still echoing in his head upon awakening, he looked around. There were some people reading books on their desktop and laptop computers. A few on their Palm Pilots and Pocket PCs and Symbian phones. There were seemingly dozens of digital formats, but limited availability of professionally produced content. This type of reading was an unpleasant and inconvenient and dangerous activity, undertaken only by People of the Fringe, willing to withstand the rigors of mobile, digital reading without complaint or concern for their deteriorating eyesight, due to the constant eyestrain caused by reading miniscule text on low-resolution, backlit computer displays. Bezos cried out to the skies in despair: how could he ever realize his wonderful vision? He was, after all, just one man. (Well, okay: a very rich and powerful man, with billions of shareholder dollars at his disposal.)

So he looked around some more. There was a new, magic, low-energy reflective display called 'e-ink', that had a paper-like look to it. Even ordinary people could stare at it for hours and hours and hours without the slightest discomfort. There was even a new device designed to utilize the Magic Screen for the specific purpose of reading digital text, confusingly called 'Sony Reader' (the device itself could not actually read anything, it was up to the user to do the reading). He also learned that Sony didn't understand publishing, or marketing, or people who read books, or even where books come from, and that this was just another piece of electronics to them. "They don't understand," Bezos thought. "I guess I'm just going to have to make one of those things myself somehow."

He looked further, and wider, to the shores of Europe, and finally, to Paris. There he met Monsieur Mobipocket (an unusual French name to be sure), who had developed a Reading System that worked on many mobile devices, coupled with a small but vibrant internet bookstore, with a number of participating publishers. For, it is true, the Reading System included the semblance of protection from the ravages of Digital Piracy, as demanded by said publishers. The System used its very own Format, adopted from ideas that had taken shape as the Open eBook Standard. They named the Format 'Mobi'. Mobi was very small, and very quick, and could render formatted text on the smallest devices using but the puniest of computing resources. But these devices were the same devices that only People of the Fringe could understand or tolerate. Bezos liked what he saw, but something was missing.

Following his meeting with M. Mobipocket, Bezos' mind reeled with possibilities. What if...? Yes, what if you had a Magic Screen device, added the wireless connectivity of a mobile phone, and combined it with M. Mobipocket's System? He did some quick calculations on a napkin at what had become his favorite café in Paris, "Le Kindle", withdrew a tiny portion of the money which his Investors had given him, and set immediately to work.

He rushed back, cash in hand, to buy M. Mobipocket's System. Their catalog provided the nucleus of a new, rapidly expanding one, as publishers got even more content in quickly with the help of Bezos' ebook-fabricating dwarves. He had some of his elves design a Sony Reader clone with a Magic Screen, but with a keyboard, for he knew readers would want to add their own notes to the books they love, and the touch screen technology of the time would have reduced the Magical properties of the Magic Screen to almost nothing. Some other elves adapted the System for wireless delivery.

Finally it was finished. He named it 'Kindle', priced it just below Sony Reader's price. Homely as it was, it quickly became a best seller and it was time to refine and improve the System further. The elves added TTS, a web browser, and fairy dust. An update added PDF support, with it, Adobe's Reader Mobile SDK. And sharper fonts. Always the fonts must get sharper.

"Wait. Isn't that the very same Adobe RMSDK that enables rendering of ePub files, and support for DRM that allows sharing of content among the reading systems that license it?" you ask. Why yes indeed. We were just about to introduce Mobi's younger sister, ePub, and you'll come to understand everything about this.

ePub, like most younger siblings, learned by example and improved on it. She refined Mobi's more primitive formatting. Adobe had known her since she was born, and incorporated her into their expanding digital publishing business. Soon they partnered with Sony and developed a mobile reader SDK to rule them all, combining the new digital document standard, ePub, with Adobe's old digital document standard, PDF, so that anyone could create a reading system quickly with all of the basic functionality required. Combined with Adobe Content Server, it comprised a secure ebook delivery system like that which M. Mobipocket had pioneered.

Even as pleased as Bezos was with Kindle, he recognized the importance of PDF to many readers, and while Mobi was proving its worth, in the back of his mind, Bezos understood that support of standards like ePub was important, and that one day, he would want Kindle to work with her as well. But there was so much to do, and it was all so exciting! and so very Profitable! So he licensed the Adobe RMSDK, had the elves implement the basic PDF support that was required, and moved on to other things.

There was a larger screen Kindle. Then a new Kindle with an even more Magical Screen, wi-fi capability that provided a lower cost option with wireless capability, Collections, social networking features, even sharper fonts, basic support for Cyrillic, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean script, and even Real Page Numbers! Kindle apps for Android, iOS, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Windows, and Mac, all in perfect synchrony! A more affordable, Kindle with Special Offers! Library borrowing capability was announced. Was there anything more to be done?

It was at this point that the ePub3 specification was released. ePub was all Grown Up! All the ebook designers wanted to work with her, and explore her many fine qualities and capabilities. Mobi was still functioning well, but his time was nearing an end. Reading Systems, including Kindle, were gaining more power, and no longer required or even appreciated his elegance and efficiency. Even Bezos was smitten with ePub. It was time to bring her on board.

He began talking with his elves and marketing fairies and business wizards. "How can we make this happen? How can we help Mobi have a well-deserved retirement? How can we make ePub happy here?"

The elves spoke first. "We already have the Adobe RMSDK. We didn't dare tell you before, but we already have a beta version of the firmware modification that will allow the current Kindle models, and even the penultimate generation models, to render ePub handily and seamlessly. We can continue to make Mobi files for the Kindles and Kindle apps that can't read ePub. A large portion of the source we get is already in ePub format, and we've been setting these aside just in case and have tested everything on our development servers. We're really smart, in case you didn't notice." If only they paid us accordingly, they mumbled under their breath.

The business wizards interjected. "That's going to be expensive! MAYBE we can update the current models, but not anything before that! And there's no way we're going to license the Adobe server and pay them transaction fees! Jobs saw right through that scam!"

The elves responded. "Well as to that, there's really no technical issue. We can handle multiple formats, and deliver the appropriate format to the appropriate reading system, we created all of them and know their capabilities. We'll use the existing device IDs to generate the encryption keys to apply DRM to the ePub content, as per the specification. We don't need the Adobe server for any of this, we're only selling these to Kindle customers."

The marketing fairies could no longer contain themselves. "We want everyone to be a customer! We want to sell ebooks to anyone no matter what reading system they are using! They will come to appreciate the advantages of becoming Kindle customers as well, with all of the exclusive content and services we offer, and we'll need to let them take the ebook content they already own with them, or they'll never switch to us. We have got to support Adobe DRM."

The wizards hemmed and hawed. "Well, I can see your point. We can always use more customers, and we won't actually be giving non-Kindle customers the services they would have as Kindle customers. We can probably afford to pay Adobe a little something for that side of the business. But what about the rest?"

One of the elves, who was something of a smart-ass, spoke up. "You do realize that in the Kobo reading system, Adobe only gets paid for licensing fees of the RMSDK that is used on their reading devices to allow side-loading of 3rd party DRM content—it is not licensed for their reading apps, which use a non-Adobe ePub rendering system—and Adobe DRM is applied by Kobo's Adobe Content Server only when someone requests to download an ePub file for reading on a non-Kobo reading system? You do realize that's really all we would be doing? Anybody can see that, can't they?"

Bezos weighed in. "Okay, enough of the attitude, Elvis, but that makes it pretty clear. How soon can we do this? I want to be first out the door with an ePub3 implementation. Work out the arrangements with Adobe, have Legal go over things to see what we need to tie up with publishers and get them to give us their ePub files ASAP—that is, the ones we don't already have because they were to darn lazy to convert them themselves. It's time to join IPDF and get ePub to like us! To like us a lot!"

And so it came to pass. And everyone lived happily ever after. And every book ever printed, and even those never previously printed, in every language, was ready to read in under sixty seconds. (*)

THE END

(*) With a fast internet connection. When they don't have embedded audio and video. Statement assumes people still read and write.

Kindle does Libraries!

Amazon recently announced that they had completed a partnership with leading library vendor, Overdrive, to offer titles in Kindle format through Overdrive's many public library customers. Even as confident as I had been that such a deal would take place at some point this year, I found myself surprised and thrilled to learn that it was indeed moving forward.

As a denizen of many a Kindle discussion forum, I've witness many a thread complaining that they could not borrow ebooks from the public libraries that their taxes support, despite Amazon's dominating market share (in the U.S.A. at least) in ebook sales and in dedicated ereading devices. The usual discussion ran as follows:
"Why doesn't Amazon make it possible to borrow books from the library like Sony and Barnes and Noble do?"
"Because their priority is selling books. If you could borrow a book, why would you buy one from them?"
"The selection at libraries is lousy, and the wait lists are long. You aren't missing anything."
"The publishers don't want to give Amazon more market share and leverage than they already enjoy. They want to make sure ePub remains a counterbalance."
"Overdrive has decided Adobe ePub is all they need. They don't want Yet Another Format."
"You idiot. You knew what you were getting when you purchased a Kindle, and it didn't include the capability to borrow ebooks from your library. Get over it already. Go buy a Nook and leave us alone."

I tried to argue to the contrary:
Given the inherent scarcity of content borrowed from libraries, Amazon would much rather the borrowing took place on a Kindle than on a competing device, because any ebook purchasing a Kindle owner does will most likely be with Amazon rather than a competitor.
Libraries know that most of their patrons have Kindles and want to borrow ebooks to read on them.
Overdrive wants to be the company that libraries turn to for fulfilling demand for ebooks. If Amazon were to partner with one of their competitors, it could seriously disrupt their business. But if they partner with Amazon, when none of their competitors do, they become even more indispensible.
Furthermore, Overdrive has already has demonstrated that they have the technical ability to deliver Kindle format. They have been distributing Mobipocket format for much longer than Adobe ePub, Amazon owns Mobipocket, and the format and DRM system is virtually identical.
Publishers can't afford to ignore Amazon customers or the potential library market. They make significant amounts of money on library sales, and when libraries cannot fulfill demand, it drives purchases in the end. They may not always like dealing with Amazon, but they have no choice when Amazon sells so many of their books.

And so it has transpired.

I was concerned that any such agreement would force libraries into taking sides in the ebook format war, and have to purchase the same titles twice. However apparently that's not the case: Overdrive can offer the same title in any available format for the same price. Publishers get paid the same regardless of format. Patrons get to choose the one they want. Adobe and Amazon split the DRM licensing revenue, depending on the relative popularity of their respective solutions.

Needless to say, demand for library ebooks, already skyrocketing, is going to spike when Kindle format comes on line. But there's no holding back the tide: library patrons have a right to expect their library to deliver media in all popular formats, and while ePub is popular, Kindle format is currently even more popular.

I'm very curious about how this will be implemented. Interestingly no software updates of Kindle or Kindle apps will be required: this capability has long been demonstrated (since Kindle 1) by a simple hack of Mobipocket ebooks to make them readable on Kindle without stripping DRM, and such books expire at the end of the lending period.

However, the server side of things will need to change. To borrow a Mobipocket ebook, you have to supply a 'PID' (device identifier). The Kindle platform involves PID's as well, but there is no way for the average user to discover what it is for any given Kindle or Kindle app. So I suspect that after choosing a book to borrow on the library's Overdrive site, patrons will be redirected to an Amazon site to authenticate with their Amazon credentials, choose the device to prepare bits for, and the delivery method (download to computer or use 'whispernet'). I think the entire fulfillment back-end will be Amazon-hosted, not Overdrive-hosted. All that Overdrive's site will need are the ASIN's (Amazon item id) for the titles it offers, so that it can supply this when redirecting to the Amazon site.

With the addition of library borrowing, Amazon has erased one of the last feature advantages competitors had. While the lack of this feature didn't seem to impede Amazon's success, it no longer represents a consideration for those contemplating a purchase decision.

A k3 web browser enhancement I'd like to see: Save To Kindle

The K3's WebKit browser is a very useful complement to Kindle's core reading functionality. While not as nimble or functional as many other mobile browsers, it's great for reading a broad range of web content. One feature that makes it particularly pleasant is 'Article Mode', which strips out complex layout and styling and lets you focus on the main content of an article.

To take Article Mode to the next level, I'd like to see a 'Save To Kindle' menu option when viewing in Article mode. This would save the contents as an HTML file to Kindle's 'documents' folder for off line reading. This would enable the ability to resize text, annotate, sharing to Twitter/FB, and use Text To Speech, while retaining the article's hyperlinks. The article could also be later copied to a computer and imported to a word processing document for re-use.

Kindle can read simple HTML files directly without conversion, if the file is given a '.txt' extension. The HTML code represented by the contents viewed in article mode qualifies as 'simple'. At most, href values that jump to other locations within the same web page (many articles have a sort of TOC of links to sub topics) would need to be sanitized so that they jump to the location in the current item instead of launching the web browser.

This would be a low-cost, high-return enhancement that many Kindle users would come to appreciate.

Inside the new Kindle 'page numbers' feature

The new prerelease software for the Kindle 3 (v 3.1) has a feature called 'Real Page Numbers':

Real Page Numbers -- Our customers have told us they want real page numbers that match the page numbers in print books so they can easily reference and cite passages, and read alongside others in a book club or class. We've already added real page numbers to tens of thousands of Kindle books, including the top 100 bestselling books in the Kindle Store that have matching print editions and thousands more of the most popular books. Page numbers will also be available on our free "Buy Once, Read Everywhere" Kindle apps in the coming months. If a Kindle book includes page numbers, press the Menu key in an open Kindle book to display page numbers.
[For a more complete description on Amazon.com, click here.]

Page numbering corresponds to a specific print edition, as identified by the print edition's ISBN number.

I was curious about the implementation, so I downloaded "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" from my Amazon Archive and had a look.

I noticed that there is now a sidecar file with ".apnx" file extension. Hmm, could this have something to do with page numbers? As in 'Amazon Page Number indeX'?

Indeed, viewing the file in a hex viewer confirms this suspicion:

At the top, you can see a string table/dictionary at the top (this one is for 'The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest'):

{"contentGuid" : "78a941d9", "asin" : "B0031YJFCQ", "codeType" : "EBOK", "fileRevisionId" : "1"} - {"pageMap" : "(1, a, 1), "asin" : "030726999X"}

So we see both the Amazon ASIN and print edition ISBN here.

This is followed by an array of 16 byte values which appear to represent a sequence of numbers arranged in ascending order. I'm guessing that each of these defines an offset to the position that corresponds to the start of a given physical page number. The number of 16 byte values seems to be very close to the number of page numbers in the book (there are a few additional rows of bytes that precede the presumed 'page map' as such, and may have some special significance).

In the book I looked at, material before page "1" does not display a page number (such as i, ii, iii, iv etc.). (Wonder if that's a limitation of Amazon's page mapping scheme, or just what they did for this particular book?) I'd also note that the last page number (in this case '563') was applied to content that almost certainly spreads over more than one physical page, and indeed, is assigned to material not in the physical book. In this case, the ebook edition puts the copyright page at the end, as well as a cover image, these should not have been labeled as being page '563'. Okay, so it is not perfect, at least in this case.

Presumably this scheme also works with Topaz format books, a requirement Amazon would need to take on, and it's something they can do after material is submitted to them for publishing.

It's not clear how self-published books can get page numbers, since 'locations' don't exist until you bake the .azw file. Hopefully Amazon will clarify this for its KDP ('Kindle Direct Publishing') users.

I noticed that there are also two other file extensions associated with Kindle Store books now (not just those with page numbers):
.ea - this is an xml file that contains the data for the 'Customers who bought this book also bought' and 'More by this author' lists that now show up after the last page of the book, including ASIN so it can jump to the title's Kindle Store page.
.phl - is an XML file that identifies a position offset of popular highlights in the book, and the frequency number for each. That's probably been there for awhile, since the popular highlights feature was introduced for K2/DX.

I was curious as to when these files show up or are updated, so I turned off wireless, connected to my computer and deleted all three. Page numbers went away, the .ea lists went away (leaving only the 'tweet' and 'rate' links), and the popular highlights went away - as expected. Then I did 'Sync and Check for Items'. Still nothing. Finally, I removed the book and added it again. Everything's back!




So to take advantage of the new 'real pages' feature, it appears you must remove the item and download it again.




I trust this has been as educational for you as it has been for me!

'Send to Kindle' extension for Chrome browser

I've often wanted a simple way to send a web page to my Kindle for off-line reading. Many people like InstaPaper for this, but it requires signing up for an account, and does more than I need it to. 

'Send to Kindle' runs only on the Chrome browser, so you can stop reading unless you are willing to switch. I use a Mac most of the time, and had been more or less lazily running Safari, which has certainly improved quite a bit over the last year or two, but is not without its quirks (well what would a browser be without quirks?). I also use Firefox, but mostly in a development and testing context (Selenium, Firebug, ePub viewer etc.), not for everyday browsing. I'm a minimalist when it comes to plug-ins, also, so while Firefox probably has the largest selection of any browser, that's not high on my requirements. 

It didn't take much for me to switch over to Chrome, which I've been playing with for a number of months, and have been very impressed with. It seems faster and more robust, is at the forefront of HTML5 adoption, and I like the simplicity, the integrated search+address bar, built in translation, and security features (and many more features that I've yet to explore). Since it is a WebKit-based browser like Safari, I felt more confident that the web sites I typically visit would continue to work as well as they did in Safari.

So once I discovered what 'Send to Kindle' could do for me, I was ready to switch to Chrome.

Once you have installed Chrome, installing Send To Kindle is simple:

- choose 'Extensions' from the Window menu

- click 'Get more extensions...' link

- search for 'Kindle'; 'Send to Kindle' should be listed. (there are at least 2 other Chrome extensions that appear to do the same thing; I reserve the right to prefer one of those once I've had a chance to try them!)

- click to install - a box with a checkmark should appear next to the address bar

- right click on the icon and select Options

- follow the instructions to complete configuration (includes adding 'kindle@klip.me' to your Kindle's 'approved email' list, specifying the Kindle email address to send to, etc.

- now when you want to send a web page to Kindle, click on the Send2Kindle icon (you can configure '1-click', otherwise you'll see a preview before clicking on 'Send')

If your Kindle is listening on Whispernet, it will soon receive a azw-format rendering of the web page.

The extension is under active development. I sent a couple of suggestions; one was already implemented, and the developer will implement the other in the next iteration.


UPDATE (10Feb2010): Another option for Chrome users is 'Later On Kindle'. It's very similar to 'Send To Kindle', but adds the option of sending a PDF that you're viewing in the browser to your Kindle (with an option to attempt 'convert' to azw). It seems to be a little more agressive in terms of cleaning up web page formatting, which may or may not be to your liking. I'd like to see it include the originating URL as a link in the resulting ebook, so it is easier to go back and look at images, etc. that get stripped out.


UPDATE (16Feb2010): 'Send To Kindle' has been updated and the two issues I had have been fixed. Still, I would install both extensions, as each offers features the other lacks.


It would be really nice if this function were added to Kindle's web browser for any page that can be viewed in Article Mode. Instead of needing to send it wirelessly, they could just save the HTML to the documents folder as a .txt file (assuming they cannot 'cook' an .azw file on the fly). Kindle renders such HTML with basic formatting.

UPDATE (20Feb2010): 'Send To Kindle' is also under development as an extension for Safari and Firefox, with plans to support images and deal better with 'formatted text.' At this point I'm using Later On Kindle only to send PDFs.

Making the most of Kindle's PDF features

Kindle 3 improves on the PDF support of previous Kindle models by adding the ability to open password-protected PDFs, annotation, highlighting, dictionary lookup, and the ability to adjust the ‘contrast’ level to improve visibility of photos and readability of text. However, Kindle PDF viewing on a 6” screen is always going to involve compromise, and how useable and sufficient it is depends on large part on the characteristics of the PDF in question, and how well your eyes can handle small text.

PDF is a print-oriented format. It is designed to provide a high level of verisimilitude and device-independence when it comes to printing and display on computer screens. As part of its design, each page has information that defines the size of the ‘page’ when it is printed out at ‘100%’. Printer drivers and viewing systems may scale the page up or down to fit a given piece of paper or screen size, but the scaling factor is entirely dependent on the relative size of the page and screen. Ideally, a screen used for display is at least as large as the page size, so that it can be displayed at the size the designer intended.

Since many PDFs that we find for download are formatted for Letter/A4-sized paper, or perhaps reproduce a physical book that is 9”x7”, the only way to display a full page is to scale the image down. For some eyes, that makes the text too small to read comfortably. Displaying a page in landscape mode allows the scaling factor to be less severe, but displays only about 40% of the page at a time, and will still be less than 100% of the original size in general. 

Of course PDF page size may be very large (A5/E size for example). These are just too large to be viewed on a Kindle due to memory and performance requirements.

Increase the Contrast Level

I have found that small type often becomes more readable if you bump the contrast level to the ‘darker’ setting. This setting is saved on a per-document basis, so when opening a PDF for the first time, try this out to see if it helps.

'default' Contrast

'darker' Contrast

Cropping helps a bit

Kindle auto-crops margin whitespace in fit-to-page (portrait) and fit-to-width (landscape) zoom modes, partially remediating the size mismatch. But many PDF documents have headers and footers that display a chapter or section title, and page numbers, thus allowing fit-to-page zoom to make the text slightly larger. Given that this information is quite often redundant, distracting, or unnecessary (Kindle displays the PDF page labels in the reading progress bar), better use of Kindle’s limited screen ‘real estate’ can be achieved by cropping the margins, headers and footers. This can achieve another reduction in the size mismatch; in some cases quite significantly. It will also improve the efficiency of the other zoom modes (100%, 150%, 200%, 300%) since these don’t crop whitespace. Sometimes even a relatively small improvement can be significant.

Finally, cropping can be a useful preliminary for conversion to a reflowable format such as .mobi or .epub, when the conversion program does not otherwise filter these out of the resulting text stream. (I will cover the perils of PDF file conversion in a future article.)

Before cropping

After cropping

Before cropping

After cropping

PDF cropping tools

There are a number of free and commercial tools that can crop PDFs to improve the small-screen reading experience:

• Briss (search mobileread.com forums for ‘briss’) - Java/cross platform application. Can create multiple crops on the same page (e.g. to deal with 2-column PDFs)
• PDF Scissors - uses ‘Java web start’ technology and internet connection, and requires Java run-time
• OS X Preview app  (comes with Mac OS X)
• Adobe Acrobat (powerful, but expensive unless you already need it for some other purpose)

Note that some PDFs are designed with asymmetric margin space, corresponding to a ‘binding edge.’ Thus the margins may be different for ‘left’ and ‘right’ hand pages. For purposes of Kindle display it is usually not necessary to establish different cropping boundaries for left and right pages, just use boundaries that trim as much whitespace as you can without clipping off anything on either side. Kindle will trim the rest of the white space as it displays each page in fit-to-screen or fit-to-width zoom modes.

PDF improvements Amazon should consider

Most ereaders provide at least a basic level of PDF viewing support, and Kindle’s is by no means the best in its class. Some of the features I’d like to see Amazon copy to bring it to parity are:

• PDF reflow - PDF Reflow attempts to detect a text stream on each page and allows the user to select a larger text size to make it more readable. However, whether a given PDF file lends itself to reflow is very much a case-by-case question. Ideally, the PDF reading order of the text elements is properly delineated, and accessibility tagging applied (these steps are also critical for successful conversion to a reflowable format). Since it is very difficult (if not impractical) to automate tagging, tagging must be done manually, and the vast majority of PDFs are created without it. Still, it is ‘worth a try’ because it does work adequately in many cases, and most other readers support it.
• PDF link support - PDF links provide a convenient way to jump to the location of Table of Contents entries, to referenced footnotes, endnotes, or web sites. Kindle does not support this functionality, which is a critical navigation tool for technical documents of many kinds. Lacking this feature, many PDFs are far more difficult to navigate than they would otherwise be. 
• PDF compatible annotations - annotations made to PDF files can only be interpreted by Kindle devices. Since annotated PDF files are often important or convenient for participating in workflows, it would be better if annotations were stored in the PDF file’s annotation layer, instead of in a proprietary sidecar file. The contents of a PDF’s annotation layer is displayed on Kindle, however there is no way to view - much less edit - the text inside a ‘sticky note’ or one attached to a highlight. Again, it would be useful to at least be able to view these on Kindle (for example, by clicking on them with the 5way controller).
• 4-panel zoom mode. Many academic and technical papers use a 2-column format. On a small screen like Kindle’s, these would be best viewed by dividing the page into quadrants with a little overlap between top and bottom quadrants, and displaying them in the order upper-left, lower-left, upper-right, lower-right. Sony Reader has this mode.
• finer-grained control over zoom level. The preset zoom levels are often not ‘just right’ for the material being viewed. It would be nice to be able to adjust zoom level in finer increments, e.g 10% or even 1%.

Read ePub files online with your Kindle using Ibis Reader

The improved WebKit-based browser of Kindle 3 (“latest generation”) has made many web sites accessible that were not accessible using the xxxx-based browser of previous-generation Kindles. 

A case in point is Ibis-Reader, a reading system that allows online ePub viewing using most web browsers, or offline viewing using HTML5 web applications on iOS or Android. A (free) Ibis Reader account includes a virtual ‘bookshelf’ where you can upload ePub books, and stores your reading position in each.

Setup for reading on Kindle is mostly straightforward:

• go to ibisreader.com and sign up for a free user account (computer browser recommended)
• get DRM-free ePub content (e.g., ibisreader.com, epubbooks.com, feedbooks.com, gutenberg.org, smashwords.com, books.google.com, etc.). By design and philosophy, Ibis Reader does not support viewing of ePub files protected with DRM (digital rights management).
• login on ibisreader.com and upload your .ePub content.
• choose one of your books and launch it to view at ibisreader.com.
• one of the options at the top of the viewing pane is ‘no distractions’ - select this.
• along the right margin of the viewing pane is a light-colored line. This is used to adjust the width of the text column by dragging it right and left. Unfortunately, there is currently no way to make this adjustment when viewing on Kindle (there’s no way to ‘drag’ with the 5-way controller), so you need to make the adjustment with a a computer browser; this adjustment will be become the default for subsequent browser sessions. Kindle’s screen is 600 pixels wide, so  you’ll want to set the width of the browser window to about 600 pixels, and then drag the margin adjustment line to the left until the horizontal scroll bar (if any) disappears. It might take some trial and error to optimize this setting, unless you have a way to measure the width precisely. I would recommend a little ‘slack’; the margin setting seems to push out a bit when you change the text size, and it may take experimentation to discover the text size that works best for you.
• on your Kindle, launch the web browser, go to ibisreader.com, login, and click on ‘My Books’.
• Bookmark this URL to simplify future access.
• choose one of the books, click the ‘read’ link, and choose ‘no distractions’ (upper right corner of viewing region) if that is available. If the browser displays a horizontal scroll bar, it is because the margin setting is too ‘wide’. Exit reading mode on your Kindle (e.g. go to the Bookmark saved previously), go back to your computer’s browser and adjust it there until it has a width that works well on your Kindle.
• Kindle’s next and previous page buttons map to ‘page down’ and ‘page up’, to scroll the text to the next reading position. ‘n’ advances to the next section/chapter, while ‘p’ goes to the previous section/chapter. Clicking the ‘Back to site’ link at the top of the page displays links for  the book’s Table of Contents in a pane on the left.
• Enjoy the world of ePub on your Kindle!