Amazon Kindle discussion
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New user questions
What happens if I try to copy a book on to my K3 that I already have on it? I believe it overwrites the previous copy. If you are using your PC to drag files over, it will give you the standard overwrite warning and ask if you wish to proceed.
Is there an easy way to skip to the almost end of a book?
If the book has an active table of contents, you can skip around that way. Otherwise you can use the Menu> Go To ...
What do I do with an ebook with the epub format. Will that go on to the Kindle just as it is?
The Kindle will not read the epub format. There are converters that can transfer the epub to either .mobi or .azw (I think the Kindle will also read .doc and .txt). Or you can transfer .pdf files, but readability is/can be an issue. I prefer to convert .pdf files.
If the file has DRM (digital rights management), it's anywhere between a terms of service violation to outright illegal to strip it to convert the file.
There are enough free (good) ebooks out there, that you shouldn't have to rely on pirated content.
stormhawk wrote: If the book has an active table of contents, you can skip around that way. Otherwise you can use the Menu> Go To ...."
Go to what? or where? a certain percentage? I don't quite get that Kindle books don't have page numbers just the percentage scroll. Can you specify the Kindle to go to like the 80% mark?
As far as the epub book I actually bought it and had a choice of formats in order to download it. I guess I chose the wrong one. My choices are HTML, Microsoft Reader, Palm DOC/iSolo, Adobe Acrobat, Rocket, Epub Which of those should I pick for the Kindle
Thanks for your help.
Menu>Go To>Location. When the book is open and you hit menu the current and total locations will be shown at the bottom of the screen. If you want to skip 10% of the book, take 10% of the total and add it to the current, then enter that as your Go To location.
if those are the only choices, then take the Palm one, I think. That should be a .prc file, I'm pretty sure I have some .prc files on my Kindle.
thanks so much for the info on the go to. Yes prc files work. I have some also. I didn't know that Palm = prc though. I'll see if the website lets me download it again in the palm format without charge.I just redownladed it the book by clicking on Palm and it is a .pdb file? Is that Kindle friendly?
Not sure. From my days as a Palm Pilot owner, I remember .prc and .pdb being equivalent, but I don't know how Kindle manages it.
Mod
If they offer .HTML, get that and you can send it to Amazon to be converted to .AZW for free.
I thought there was a charge for Amazone to convert a file Ralph. Here are the choices HTML, Microsoft Reader, Palm DOC/iSolo, Adobe Acrobat, Rocket, Epub
If you send the file to @free.kindle.com you will not be charged for the conversion or download, but it will ONLY download when the WiFi is active.
that did the trick. It seems to work fine, but I suspect there will be a charge of some kind for them sending it to my Kindle and free if I downloaded it. I seem to have read that somewhere. We will see. Thanks to you both.
Sheila, what stormhawk said is correct: if you send a file to [your Kindle email address]@free.kindle.com instead of just @kindle.com, it will convert and send it for free. It will not download to your Kindle unless your Kindle is connect to wifi. That's all in the Kindle user's manual (though I did find it a little confusing, because sometimes the manual seems to assume you're always connected to wifi and sometimes it seems to assume you're not connected by default).
I haven't seen any kind of email from Amazon saying there is a charge so I gues all is well. I was just confused because I know it said something about a nominal charge for converting and sending the file but free if you dl yourself. Anyways it worked and now I know to use HTML when confronted with the choices of formats I was given. Thank you all for being so helpful to a Kindle newbie.
Ok need help here, just received my Kindle today....There are some books that downloaded themselves automatically with the latest update of the Kindle App for Mac. I've synched and synched but these 3 books (Aesop's Fables, Pride & Prejudice and Treasure Island) will not go onto the Kindle device.
Any help?
Can you actually transfer FROM Mac to Kindle?
Mod
There are some books that downloaded themselves automatically with the latest update of the Kindle App for Mac. I've synched and synched but th..."
Have you checked the archive? I don't think the Kindles will download any previously purchased items to your new device unless you tell it to by downloading them from the archive.
Ahhh. I wonder if I archive them and then re-download them...let me try now, will report back.
Hmm, only have the option 'delete this book' from the Mac screen. Is that the same as archiving?The books I had already purchased were in the archives earlier so I had to 're-download' them to the Kindle.
Turns out that the books must have been 'sent' to the Mac App by the Divine Intervention because they are not Amazon downloads and that's why they won't synch. I manually dragged them and dropped them from the folder they were saved in within the Mac (under Kindle App files) and now they are on my Kindle device.Happy! :-)
Those starter books are all freebies, so you can download them from the amazon catalog if you want them on your Kindle.
Thanks for letting me know, I didn't realise that there's a 'Free' section on the Amazon Kindle store!They seem to be the same editions from my Mac App, it must be some quirk by which they didn't count as 'acquired' from the store, but now I know!
Here I go again. I did know how to download books from Smashswords but now I am getting so confused. I was saving them in what I thought was mobi format but they don't come up that way in my saved folder. I have ended up downloading as PDFs and then sending to my free kindle email addy with subject Convert.I know I was doing it right before. Why can't I download it in a Kindle format anymore? What I am doing wrong.
Karen, it's been a while since I did this, but if I recall, here's the way I did it. On Smashwords, when you buy the book, the chart comes up and you click on Kindle (.mobi) or something like that. When I click on Download, the box comes up asking if I want to Open or Save. I Save it to my desktop. Hook up the Kindle via USB then drag the file to it.
got it. You are all so helpful. Krista sent me help too. I think I was saving it to the wrong file or something. Also I guess I have to have the totally connected,and then to download, leave the usb cable in but remove the connection to the Kindle. thanks again.
I have a question, not from a newbie, but from an oldie but goodie:
I have the first Kindle. Is there any way I can see page numbers, or even percentages, in it? I hate not knowing where I am in really long books... am I half way through? am I almost done? Should I keep going cuz there's only a few more pages?
Help.
I have the first Kindle. Is there any way I can see page numbers, or even percentages, in it? I hate not knowing where I am in really long books... am I half way through? am I almost done? Should I keep going cuz there's only a few more pages?
Help.
Maggie, I've never seen the Kindle 1 so don't know about that. If you don't get an answer here, try Kindleboards.com since they are mostly all Kindle owners and I know some people there have the original Kindle.
Maggie wrote: "I have a question, not from a newbie, but from an oldie but goodie:I have the first Kindle. Is there any way I can see page numbers, or even percentages, in it? I hate not knowing where I am i..."
I don't know anything about Kindle 1 (I have a K3) but have you tried pressing the menu button while in a book? That has my percentages and locations show up...
Yup, menu does not give me what I need. Dang! The first one may not have had this information available. Maybe I'll go to Amazon and try their Kindle chats.
I have a Kindle 1. No, it is not possible to see page numbers or percentages. That didn't come in until later versions. I can usually tell fairly well by the progress bar at the bottom of the screen. It's not a bar, really, but a line of dots. The darker dots show how much you've read.
You've also got the "locations" on the status bar at the bottom. For books that have lots of extra stuff at the end (notes, index, etc.), I often go to the table of contents then the first of the extra stuff to find the location of the last actual text. Then I can calculate approximately how much I've read.
I've just started reading Magicians and that has no page numbers, but does have a % as you said. I don't really mind which but I do like to have some idea of how far I am through a book seeing as you can't 'see'.
Ok another question for you guys. The books that do NOT have page numbers, is it true that, the only way to go back to reference something is to flip back page by page? & lose my spot?
No. The best way to go back to a spot is to bookmark it when you're there. Then later on, when you want to go back to it, go to the Menu, press Go to > Bookmark > select the appropriate bookmark. Then to go back to where you left off reading, simply press the Back button. If you forgot to bookmark the first spot, you can guess at the location then us Go to > Location. You may have to try several different locations before you find it, which means you have to hit Back multiple times to get back to your reading spot.
Thanks I give it a try I wish all books had page numbers. It's not something I planned to go back to, but I wanted to go back to near the beginning of the book to check something.
It's not too hard to guess a location. Figure out how many locations there are to a screen for the text size you use (for me, for example, it's approximately 6 per screen of full text). Then if you think it was maybe 20 screens after the beginning, multiply that times the per screen locations (for me: 20 x 6 = 120), and that's the location you want to go to.
Sadly, a lot harder than scanning back in an actual book.
Nate wrote: "Ok another question for you guys. The books that do NOT have page numbers, is it true that, the only way to go back to reference something is to flip back page by page? & lose my spot?"If you are concerned about losing your spot, bookmark it. But I think the easiest way to find something is to do a search. I'll search the characters involved or else an event - say "wedding". Then I can easily scan the search results and at least come close to what I'm looking for. I think its much easier than scanning in a paper book.
Think I'll give it a go and see, the search sounds easier as I wouldn't know necessarily that I'd want to bookmark something until later when an incident seemed more important.
Lahni, so that is what the search button is for? I really thought it was like if you know from table of contents what you want, that you can go there instead of going back to the table of contents and clicking the link. You know how there are so many things we can do via computer and get the same results going a different way. I thought it was the same thing. This is great. Do you think it will also work for e-books people have given us that we got from Smashwords?
I bought a pdf book yesterday, saved it to my documents and put it on kindle via Calibre. It is way too small to read! I'm guessing that I could email it as an attachment to @freekindle.co.uk. Do I put my name at the front, name of my kindle and do I have a kindle email if I haven't set one up? Thanks.
You should already have a Kindle email set up. Go to Amazon.com, Manage Your Kindle, and there's a place there where it tells what your Kindle email address is.But my experience with PDF's is they don't work very well, hate PDF files on Kindle!
Patricia... me too. Even when I have them converted they are just annoying! *LOL*Helen, a very dear person on this list walked me through this and it is a real help. When you send it to your freekindle addy be sure to leave the message blank and in the subject type CONVERT and it will convert the file to a MOBI file for Kindle. It comes out much easier to read. It doesn't have some of the nice little features that an Amazon or even a Smashwords book has but the typeset is large enough to read.
Lahni,I did the search as you recommended and it worked well. Does anyone know when how by looking at the little dots under the title you can estimate how many pages the book would be in paper. I just read one book that seemed to go on and on only to discover later that in print it's close to 400 pages long.
Karen, I don't know that there's an easy way to tell how many pages, by the little dots under the title. I do know if there's only a few dots, it's a short book, dots all the way across means a long book....I know, not much help! The dots get darker as you read the book too so for instance if half the dots are darker, you are about half way through the book.
I did the math on that once, because the K1 doesn't indicate page numbers, and GR didn't use to have percentage read for ebook editions, so I was always having to calculate my page-progress. I vaguely, very vaguely remember that it worked out to around 12 or 13 pages per dot on the home screen.
I found my post ... it's 15 pages per dot. "On the home page, more dots means more locations. Each dot represents about 150 locations, which translates to about 15 pages rounding up to the nearest 5 (it was 13 and some decimal, but you're looking for a rough estimate), if my math is right."
As I went to bed last night and started thinking instead of sleeping (a new hobby!) I thought 'I bet the kindle group will know a way round this'. Too true. Thanks people, it's not perfect (credits and first page are together) but I will definitely be able to read it - hurray.
Thanks Patricia and StormHawk. I appreciate it. I just want to get an approximation so that I know when I start a book approximately how long it might take me. This last book was close to 400 pages long and I thought I was just reading slowly but no, it was a long book. *LOL* And approximation is great! I know fewer dots is fewer pages but this way I can get a fair idea of how long it will take me. I read a paper book yesterday in the one day, and I began to think maybe the Kindle is slowing me down, but it's not. Helen, I got the best help from here, but I am not so good at passing it on. Remember I'm going on 3 weeks owning the Kindle so still have a lot to learn
It is good to have access to a wide knowledge base isn't it.
Karen, feel free to ask away. I love talking about my Kindle!!
Karen, another thing you can do is look at the book on Amazon, under Product Details it will tell you how many KB the book is and how many pages the print copy has.
I love mine too, it was so wierd discovering my friend had one too.
What happens if I try to copy a book on to my K3 that I already have on it?
Is there an easy way to skip to the almost end of a book. I know a lot of times if I am reading a regular book I'll read a couple of 100 pages and then skip to maybe the last 50. Is there a way to do that on the Kindle?
What do I do with an ebook with the epub format. Will that go on to the Kindle just as it is?
Thanks