Contents

• Large Tables
• Create Simple HTML Tables
• Split Tables as Needed
• Table Features with Enhanced Typesetting

Large Tables

Amazon recommends using HTML <table> layouts for tabular content and not rendering tables as images.

A table rendered as an image cannot be paginated because the entire image is displayed on one screen. Tables displayed as images cannot be read by customers using assistive technology. If the table is rendered using HTML <table> tags, pagination is available and the content of the table can be made available to screen readers and refreshable braille displays. Readers will also be able to navigate through the cells in the table. If the table is significantly wider than the screen and forces panning, it creates a poor user experience.

For the best user experience, tables should not contain whole paragraphs of text or large pictures in a cell.

Tables containing more than 1,800 cells and 20,000 characters are not supported. Single columns of HTML text provide the best reading experience for customers using a variety of font sizes. Amazon recommends creating tables with less than 100 rows and 10 columns.

If the table must be rendered as an image, follow our Image Guidelines and split tables as needed.

Create Simple HTML Tables

Use the <table> tags to create simple tables with standard rows and columns that can be displayed on Kindle devices and applications. KF8 has support for nested tables and merged cells, but Amazon recommends that publishers use this judiciously and only when necessary. Enhanced Typesetting does not support nested tables.

Colspan and rowspan attributes should be less than or equal to the total number of columns or rows (as appropriate) in the table.

Avoid negative margins in the table content for better readability. Enhanced Typesetting does not support negative margins.

Split Tables as Needed

There are times when it may be necessary to format a table as an image, but the image is still too large to be legible on one Kindle screen. In this case, it is a good idea to split the image. The following example is a guideline to use when splitting a two-page table. This logic can be extended for multiple-page table images.

Example: Split the image in half horizontally 60% of the way down the image, then split the header, copy it to the bottom half of the image, and stitch these into a new image. The final two images should then be the same size, with table headers.

Revise the source image, not the converted GIF; otherwise, the image will be converted into GIF format twice, which might result in lower quality.

Table Features with Enhanced Typesetting

If an eBook has Enhanced Typesetting enabled, an enhanced Table Viewer experience will be enabled for readers on tables with more than three columns by double-tapping on the table. Table features with Enhanced Typesetting include:

• Customers do not experience any data loss when reading tables. Text in tables is redistributed if it does not fit on the page and is not cropped on the screen edges.
• Enhanced Typesetting avoids excessive wrapping of text by using additional white space on the page to redistribute column widths based on the screen size. Minimum padding between rows and columns is always maintained to preserve proportional row and column boundaries for any font size or device type.
• Customers can navigate through multipage tables with the additional context of a continuation indicator.
• Customers can interact with a table that may have spanned multiple pages in a single view inside the Enhanced Typesetting viewer with panning, zooming, text highlights, and text lookup available.

Best practices for utilizing Enhanced Typesetting with tables:

• Use a table structure of <thead>, <tbody>, <tfoot>.
• Do not add empty columns to provide extra padding.
• Use inline images instead of block images.
• Tables containing more than 1,800 cells and 20,000 characters are not supported in Enhanced Typesetting. For Enhanced Typesetting, split the table into smaller tables(s).
• Enhanced Typesetting does not currently support the use of floats in tables. We recommend using a media query to specify a replacement for Kindle using the CSS ::first-letter Selector.
• Enhanced Typesetting does not currently support <caption-side: bottom>. Content styled with <caption-side: bottom> will be positioned at the top of the table like <caption-side:top>.
• Check whether your book supports Enhanced Typesetting with Kindle Previewer.

Example:

Enhanced Typesetting will utilize the space on the page to avoid wrapping text and display a clear readable table.

• Check tables for formatting errors, such as forced line breaks.
• Check for typos, extra spaces, single words spit across multiple cells.
• Ensure table cells are not cutting off text or images.
• Ensure table rows and columns are clearly differentiated, not cut-off or running together.