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Image Guidelines - Reflowable

These guidelines apply to reflowable fiction and nonfiction books, but aren't applicable to image-intensive fixed-layout children's books and fixed-layout graphic novels, manga, and comics. See cover image guidelines.


Contents


Image Guidelines

For a rich reading experience, provide the best available version of the images in your Kindle eBooks, using these guidelines:

  • Images that are pictorial in nature (e.g., Photographs, historical images) should not be blurry, smudged, or unclear to the point that it distracts the reader from the narrative. We recommend these type of images occupy at least 60% width of the screen for high quality reading on smaller devices.
  • Images with text containing letters, numbers, or symbols should be legible and readable (e.g., Graphs, technical diagrams or Maps). We recommend these type of images occupy at least 80% width of the screen for high quality reading on smaller devices.
  • Computer-generated visuals are best represented as Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) however, SVG tags can lead to errors. We recommend removing SVG tags and using the image tag in HTML for images.
  • Do not render text as images. If text can be separated from the surrounding art, it shouldn't be an image. Instead, it should be HTML.
  • Figure caption, table, and title image should be in HTML. You can find details on tables in the reflowable table’s section Table Guidelines - Reflowable.
  • For accessibility, all images must have text in the alt attribute in the HTML tag. For decorative images, set alt = “” or role = “presentation” in the image tag so that it can be ignored by assistive technology.
  • For the best user experience across Kindle devices and applications, use color images whenever possible and relevant.


Technical Details

In this section, we provide definitions, HTML samples and examples as guidance to create high-quality Kindle eBooks:

  1. Image Types
    1. Block Images: A block image always starts on a new line. We expect the majority of images in Kindle eBooks to be block images. Example of a block image, along with HTML below:

      Example of block image

      HTML:

      <p> Lorem ipsum dolor ….</p>

      <img src="img.jpg" alt="A view of Canyonlands national park">

      <p>Lorem ipsum dolor ….</p>

      CSS:

      <style>

      img { display: block;

      width: 100%;

      object-fit: contain;

      }

      </style>

    2. Float images: Float images are positioned left or right of the text in a container.

      HTML:

      <img src="Earthworm.jpg" alt="Image illustrating a cross section of an Earthworm">

      CSS:

      <style>

      img {

      float: left;

      width: 20%;

      object-fit: contain;

      }

      </style>

    3. Inline images: An inline element does not start on a new line and renders in the same line as the text. Set the height of inline images in “EM” units so that it displays and scales proportional to surrounding text content. Provide inline images in lossless format where possible.

      Example of inline image

      HTML:

      <p>

      Yes <img src='checkbox.png' alt='Check Box'/> No <img src='checkbox.png' alt='Check Box'/> Lorem ipsum dolor..

      </p>

      CSS:

      <style>

      img { height: 1em;

      vertical-align: bottom;

      object-fit: contain;

      }

      </style>

    4. Book cover images: Cover images should always have a full-page layout and be at least 1200 pixels in width or height.
  2. Quality of images
    1. Blurry and Smudged images: Amazon will flag eBooks containing blurry images with content quality warning on the eBook Amazon detail page. Example of a blurry image:

      Example of blurry image

    2. Illegible text in images: Images with text containing letters, numbers, or symbols, should be legible. If there are images with illegible text, a content quality warning will appear on the eBook Amazon detail page. Example of an illegible image:

      Example of illegible image

    3. Images with captions: Please use figure blocks for images with captions and ensure that you do not raster the caption with the image. It is best to have caption in text and not image format. Example of image with caption:

      Example of captioned image

      HTML:

      <figure>

      <img src="img.jpg" alt=" Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua."/>

      <figcaption>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod </figcaption>

      </figure>

      CSS:

      <style>

      figure {width: 100%; }

      img { display: block;

      width: 100%;

      object-fit: contain;

      }

      figcaption { margin: 0.5em 0 0 0; text-align: center; text-indent: 0; }

      </style>

  3. Accessibility: For accessibility, all images must have text in the alt attribute in the HTML tag. For decorative images, set alt = “” or role = “presentation” in the image tag so that it can be ignored by assistive technology. Alt text should be short, concise and specific. Alt text should provide a description of the image and it’s meaning in context as appropriate. For linked images, provide the purpose of the link rather than description of the image in alt text.

    HTML:

    <img src="img.jpg" alt="A Bald Eagle perched in a tree in its native habitat">

    HTML for decorative:

    <img src="DecorativeImg.jpg" role="presentation" alt=”> OR <imgsrc="DecorativeImg.jpg" alt=””> OR <img src="DecorativeImg.jpg" role="presentation">

  4. Supported input formats: Kindle devices and reading applications do not support TIFF, multi-frame GIFs, or images with transparent areas. When images are provided with transparent backgrounds, we convert the transparent background to white.
  5. Color profile or Color space: Use sRGB color profile for all your images. Kindle does not support CMYK color space. When images are provided in CMYK color space, Kindle will automatically convert the images to sRGB color space.


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