I’m trying out Scrivener 3 and want to compile for Kindle KF8/Mobi Ebook (presumable the better choce over plain mobi). I downloaded KindleGen and opened Terminal as instructed in Read Me. I moved KGen to the cursor in Terminal and pressed Return. Various lines of code came up ending with Johns-MacBook-Pro:~ john$
So all seems fine. But when I go to Compile and use Choose, KindleGen does not appear in Application. Is there a further step I need to do in Terminal, for instance?
I’ve been using Scrivener 2 and KindleGen without a problem.
To answer my own question: I had KindleGen on my Desktop but not place in Applications. Once I moved it there I could compile! Hope this helps others in the Duh category.
I wouldn’t automatically say it is better. It really depends on what you are looking for:
If you like roughly how things worked in Scrivener 2 and just wished for a few improvements—then do give the regular compile type a try. It has had a number of things improved with it after all, but importantly it will use a more familiar way of working in Scrivener. If you just want a Word-like “make it so” approach without the risk of having to learn the guts of what makes an eBook tick, the other option might be better.
KF8 and ePub 3 use an entirely different system for converting your work to HTML and CSS. The result of this is much cleaner code and a semantic approach to element usage. For those that are at home in HTML and CSS and have always wanted to dig a little deeper into what Scrivener produces, I think these will be welcome additions. But you very likely will need to get your hands dirty with these details if you intend to go beyond the basics, and you will also need to learn how Scrivener’s style system works, since it is a semantic workflow. You’ll start noticing differences right from the get go, when you go to format a Section Layout (aka Formatting pane from v2) and are faced with the message that this is handled by CSS, not WYSIWYG style settings.
A bit of a digression, but I figured it worth clearing that up.
As to KindleGen, it sounds like you are following the instructions in their readme, which probably don’t include any setup instructions for Scrivener. You need to tell Scrivener where you put the kindlegen program, in the compiler. If you don’t see a prompt to do so when you compile, it might already be set up. You can double-check that it is using the right one by clicking on the gear tab in compile overview and clicking the Reset KindleGen Location button. That will ask for confirmation, and in the confirmation text it will print what the software is currently using.