Why do Kindle books look so bad with mathematical formulas?
That is the question that started the long ongoing thread on the Amazon Customer Discussion forum. The answer is inside this book. The author of technical books decided to find the answer and show other Kindle math book authors ways to avoid the minefields of Kindle Format 8 and MOBI formatting and create equations and formulas that look good on any Kindle reader. This book contains the detailed information and codes authors wish had been included in the Amazon Kindle Publishing Guidelines.
What's covered?
The book starts with a detailed analysis of the causes of equation formatting problems. The fundamental problem is due to Kindle providing no support for math equations. But there's more to it than that. The author shows how so many different screen sizes and workflows suggested in Kindle guidelines contribute to the formatting problems. Detailed solutions involving bitmaps and SVG are presented for equations, figures and tables. The book also describes ways to introduce interactive math elements into a Kindle book.
Overview of solutions
Detailed step-by-step methods are presented starting with using bitmap equations. The Holder Image Method is introduced and used to show how to prepare equations that will auto-size on any Kindle device or app screen size. Methods are also presented to make equations readable on white, sepia, and black backgrounds. Bitmap solutions work for Kindle readers that use Kindle Format 8 (Kindle Fire and other Android tablets) and Kindle readers that use the MOBI format.
Methods are presented that show how to prepare SVG equations and use them to resize equations as the book's font size is changed. This method only works for Kindle readers that use Kindle Format 8. Methods are presented that show how to use media query to create fallback static images for Kindle readers that only use the MOBI format
A chapter is devoted to ways to create interactive math books using the latest technologies of MathML, HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript.
