Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2022 October 17

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October 17

Kindle e-book pages rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise and unreadable. How do I fix this?

I am an undergraduate student. Today I bought an e-book for a primary sources textbook I need for one of my classes called Roman Civilization: Selected Readings, Vol. 1: The Republic and the Augustan Age. I am using the Kindle app on my MacBook Air to read it and quickly found that all the pages in the book are rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise and so they are unreadable. I already submitted a report to Amazon about this issue. However, I need this book for my midterm coming in less than two weeks and the paperback version is much more expensive.

How long does Amazon normally take to fix this type of formatting issue? Is there another way to fix this and rotate the pages? StellarHalo (talk) 07:33, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Did you check to make sure "orientation lock" is set to off in the app? Click on Aa, then Layout, then scroll to the bottom and make sure the button is set to off (greyed out). Should fix it. Viriditas (talk) 07:39, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

@Viriditas In the Kindle app, I click on Aa but there is no Layout button to click. It only allow me to adjust Font, Font size, Alignment, Line spacing, Page width, Brightness, and Color mode. StellarHalo (talk) 07:58, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

I’m on iOS, and I was able to duplicate your exact problem by having that button on rather than off. It’s exactly what you describe. However, the button isn’t easy to find on iOS, and it’s buried beneath the layout screen. I suspect that you might have similar settings buried in the app. Play around with scrolling up and down, that’s how I found the buried setting below where I thought the screen ended. It’s really poor design. In any case, does Kindle give you the option of using other apps? On iPads and iPhones you have several choices besides Kindle. Have you considered downloading it to another device? Viriditas (talk) 08:04, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

You may have success with Okular, for which I think you will need to download this .dmg file. I don't really know if this will work, as I have never tried Okular, OSX, nor ever paid for an e-book, but I thought I'd suggest it since it's free and looks alright. Found via EPUB#Software. We also have comparison of iOS e-reader software but I guess that's not relevant to your MacBook Air, unless it runs those phone-type apps, maybe it does.  Card Zero  (talk) 03:40, 18 October 2022 (UTC)