Kindle: Wikipedia Look-up

If you've had a Kindle for a while, you've probably discovered and used the great dictionary look up feature. If you haven't, open up your Kindle and give it a try.

For the dictionary, use your 5-way to scroll to a word in a book (not words like "the" or "of". They won't work). When you've reached a word, look at the bottom of screen to see a definition. If you need to expand that definition, click the More arrow to be taken to the dictionary.  (At any time, you can click BACK to return to your page.)

Now.... reaching Wiki...


From where you are in the dictionary, check the bottom of the screen again. Now you'll see your word and on the right it's says "Search dictionary."

Use the 5-way to that Search and keep clicking right... you'll have the choice to change dictionary to "my items", Google and Wikipedia. Scroll to one of them and click.

Valentine Kindle Gifting!

It's never to late to shop! So you might have missed the mailing deadline for Valentines Day, but not the e-gifting deadline!  If your loved one loves books, you can e-gift them a Kindle book! And they don't even need to own a Kindle to receive and read it. They can read on one of the many Kindle apps available for PC, Mac, Android and iPhones as well as iPod Touch.

Kindle: Sending & Viewing other documents

Last week I posted about sending and viewing PDFs on Kindle. Part of that article was also about converting PDFs to Kindle's regular .azw format, with some detailed instructions. But PDF is not all you can convert. You can convert documents of all kinds: unprotected Microsoft Word, PDF, HTML, TXT, RTF, PRC and MOBI files (some ebooks I've bought elsewhere are in all these formats), as well as images in JPEG, GIF, PNG and BMP formats.

To convert documents, email them to your Kindle email address (found on your Manage your Kindle page) and they'll be sent wirelessly to your Kindle. To do it for free, email them to your free address (name@free.kindle.com) and it will be emailed back to you in the new format. You can then transfer it to your device via USB.
For more details, see the previous post.

Viewing page numbers, Kindle

If you downloaded the Kindle 3 update manually, you may be wondering how to see the new page numbers. Not all books have it, but to check, click Menu when you are reading a book. At the bottom it will give you page number and total pages, such as Page 15 of 390.

At this point I am assuming they are basing it in the hardcover editions but I am not totally sure. I'll try to find out.

Kindle Software Update Version 3.1 -- Early Preview Release

 Amazon have announced a fairly dramatic Kindle update to the latest generation Kindle!  Much excitement surrounds the edition of page numbers to many Kindle books. Until now, we've only been able to see "locations" instead of page numbers. Personally I don't mind this: I use the progress bar at bottom of the page (and on the home page) to determine how much of a book I have read and how much I have left. 
However, this opens up Kindle in situations like reading clubs and especially in the classroom and writing book reports. Being able to refer to and look up page numbers will be very beneficial to many!

From the Kindle 3 Update page:

• Public Notes -- This feature lets Kindle users choose to make their book notes and highlights available for others to see. Any Kindle user -- including authors, their fans, book reviewers, professors and passionate readers everywhere -- can opt-in to share their thoughts on book passages and ideas with friends, family members, colleagues, and the greater Kindle community of people who love to read. This is a new way for readers to share their excitement and knowledge about books and get more from the books they read. To review and turn on Public Notes in your own books, view the Public Notes of people you follow, track your reading activities, see Popular Highlights and your annotations, and view your full library of books, go to https://kindle.amazon.com. Learn more.
  
• Real Page Numbers -- Our customers have told us they want real page numbers that match the page numbers in print books so they can easily reference and cite passages, and read alongside others in a book club or class. We've already added real page numbers to tens of thousands of Kindle books, including the top 100 bestselling books in the Kindle Store that have matching print editions and thousands more of the most popular books. Page numbers will also be available on our free "Buy Once, Read Everywhere" Kindle apps in the coming months. If a Kindle book includes page numbers, press the Menu key in an open Kindle book to display page numbers. Learn more.
  
• Before You Go ... -- When you reach the end of the book, you can immediately rate the book, share a message about the book with your social network, get personalized recommendations for what to read next, and see more books by the same author. Learn more.
  
• New Newspaper and Magazine Layout -- We're introducing a new and improved layout for newspapers and magazines. This new layout gives you a quick snapshot of the news and helps you decide what you want to read first. Learn more.

To get instructions for the early release, see Download instructions

Sending and Viewing PDFs on Kindle

Some time ago, Amazon introduced native PDF reading to Kindle; that is, the ability to read PDFs on the Kindle device. There are pros and cons to viewing PDF files on Kindle though, and it's not always the best option. A big downside for some is that in PDF format, you can't use the Kindle's built in features of changing font size, using text to speech or the dictionary look-up feature. On the other hand, you get to read the document in it's original format. That can be tricky - large pages showing on a small screen can be hard to read. You can scroll and enlarge images (using the 5-way), but it's not ideal.

Kindle app on the iPod Touch

Unlike me, my husband doesn't sit and read for hours at a time. He does read magazines and a lot of reference books, but usually for learning rather than for fun. So until now, he has resisted downloading the Kindle app for his iPod Touch/ iPhone, saying he just wouldn't use it.

It so happened that a few days ago he needed to do some reading but was awfully tired, so I let him borrow my Kindle to try the text-to-speech (TTS) option. We are reading a chapter a week of The Story in a Bible group, and he was behind on his reading, so he plugged in his headphones, lay back in his recliner and listened as the Kindle read it to him.