KindleToday points us to a New York Times article with a tip on How to Move Your Own Documents to Kindle. By "Your Own" they mean reports or memos you've created yourself with Microsoft Word.
What they describe is well presented. I'd explained some of this in a previous Kindleworld blog article, and since I included links in it, I'll include some of that here, with slight re-wording. See the NYT article for other details, including other formats that will work for this.
For your own WORD Docs and even for more complex pages from the Web (multi-column, for example), you can Highlight text you want, Copy it, open up Microsoft WORD, Paste the copied section to a new blank document, and Save the file.
Just make sure your margins will work with the Kindle screen in portrait orientation if you intend to read it in vertical mode, or make sure they work with the Kindle screen in the wider view offered by the Kindle's Landscape mode. This will all depend on the font size you decide to use. Use narrower margins to be on the safe side so that you don't need to experiment as much.
The saved WORD Doc file can then be sent to [you]@kindle.com, etc., and Amazon will send it back, converted for the Kindle. That's just one of many ways to do it.
Be sure to set up a [you]@kindle.com address first, of course. This is done at your Amazon "Manage Your Kindle" page near the top at the left. Here's a guide for using that management page.
You can then email these new Doc files to [you]@kindle.com (direct to your Kindle). Amazon charges 15c per megabyte per file, rounded up, to send one of your personal documents (non-Amazon books) direct to your Kindle, after a conversion by Amazon if needed.
You can instead email items to [you]@free.kindle.com -- at no cost, as implied -- and then use the usb cable to move the converted files to your Kindle or Kindle DX.
(Other alternatives are to do it yourself, converting the file with MobiPocket Reader or saving the Doc file to HTML in WORD and converting it through Calibre, though these would take more time. But you'd have some control over the layout.)
This is one of my favorite Kindle capabilities, as I often look up places I'm visiting on a weekend and then I send the info and even things like boat schedules to my Kindle. This came in handy when I wanted to take a different boat back from Angel Island after deciding to stay there longer than first intended. I turned on the Kindle's 3G wireless while at the Angel Island store, googled the Tiburon ferry and got the boat schedule and directions to the ferry from where I was.
Also, I had earlier copied Yahoo map driving directions from home to the ferry site and back, and did put those on the Kindle also.
When I got back, I made an intro page of the trip for friends in simple webpage format and then while using a browser to view it, I highlighted and copied it to a narrow-column DOC file and put it on the Kindle as a memento.
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Check often: Temporarily-free recently published Kindle books
Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources. Top 100 free bestsellers. Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published free books, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.
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I use a different method. I take my document (either a Wordperfect document or a photocopy of something or a printout of a webpage) scan it into a pdf and then load it in by USB. With the new pan and zoom feature, it is very easy to read on my Kindle and preserves images like maps. (If you have pdf writer on your computer, you can directly convert a Word or Wordperfect document to pdf without printing and scanning.)
ReplyDeleteI'm leaving for Europe next week, and I will do this with my tickets, hotel reservations, and pages from travel books on the places I am going (London and Venice). I will also get a Rick Steves guide on my Kindle, as well as quite a few novels set in Venice (I posted a request for recommendations on the kindle forum page).
I read recently that the bar code scanners can read your boarding pass (pdf) on your kindle after doing the above. Anyway, it is an excellent backup for hard copies (which you should have) Probably also your passport picture and info.
Rick Askenase
Rick,
ReplyDeleteIf a WORD doc, I really don't like making images of text, not to mention I want to be able to do Kindle-style searches of text, both for load time and clarity -- I like using images in the docs and with Doc files images come out slightly better than with the PDFs, which tend to apply a bit of compression (most important with maps).
When I went to Egypt and Jordan, I put a large brochure on in both Doc and original PDF versions. Kept both of them for what each did better. The Doc version let me make the fonts more readable and everything I wanted (multi column) on one page because I actually don't like to pan and zoom that much even while loving that the capabitility is there if I need it.
Also, 80% of Kindle users don't have the pan and zoom feature you received yet, it'll take a few more weeks. In my blog entry, I referenced CutePDF again which is free and extremely simple to use and gives good results relative to some other free ones I tried. I have Adobe's full PDF Acrobat in a Premium suite so can do more when I want but haven't had to.
Now with boarding passes, I did love that and wrote about the posting on that from the forum, at http://bit.ly/kipadinfo. The clerk who helped him just put the Kindle screen under the scanner and it worked, but from my experience not all clerks are that flexible or helpful.
Great to have copies as you will of your tickets, hotel reservations, itineraries on the Kindle. Fantastic idea. I did xerox ours so each person would have one in case, and that came in handy, but it would have been better to have them on the Kindle.
Like you, I got a bunch of travel books for the Kindle, especially one from a person who lives over there and gave extra good tips from the viewpoint of one who knows, and very good diagrams of things we'd be seeing.
Great idea re the passport picture and info.
I carry a xerox of the passport always, in case that gets lost. That will be accepted for confirmation when you've lost one. While we can't print from the Kindle, at least you can hook it up to a computer/laptop and print from that. VERY good idea.
It's hard to be bored waiting anywhere these days, no? I sometimes don't like it when they let me know it's my turn and my waiting time is over :-) However, my 2.7" Samsung netbook w/ a great screen and keyboard came into play well too when we had 10-hour waiting times between flights! There is just so much book reading that I can take, and I loved being able to do the web so easily.
Have a super trip. I hope to read about it when you get back.
I have a K2 original model and use NeoOffice on my MacBook. I can save files in ODT, TXT, RTF and PDF. I usually use ODT and just load that file onto calibre and it converts when I send it to the Kindle. Checklists and things like that I save in TXT format because it stays in TXT and I can edit it when plugged into USB directly. An example of this is a list of books in a serial. As I read them I mark them read with an * so I know which ones I have read and which ones come next.
ReplyDeleteAl,
ReplyDeleteGood info on the auto-conversion by Calibre. It's such a great piece of software.
I'm with you on that TXT format as I do add to my notes too. I even add to the My Clippings file by inserting notes and editing them ON the Kindle. My ToDo and Safeway lists are in there and I really should make separate files for them! Using Search or Find on it gets me to all the ToDo places if they're not together.
Great idea re the '*' to keep track of which books you've read in a series.
Thanks to Rick and you for these added ideas.
I should incorporate them in an update later.
I have known one tool, which blinded me. It worked out my old troubles for seconds and may help in any issue as I know - microsoft word recovery tool.
ReplyDeleteAlex,
ReplyDelete"which blinded me" -- ? Out of awe? or ?
Is it not true though that ebooks aren't raw Word 200 or whatever but have been converted to PDF, etc so the actual question is, "Does PDF work on Kindle, etc"?
ReplyDeleteSheila, Kindle books are their *own* format. PDF is another format and are often made from material first done in Word, but, yes, existing PDFs (or ones you create) will work on the various Kindles...
DeleteWell, this is a regular method. But why not use send to Kindle client? That is more feasible because we don't have to check the email address any more.
ReplyDeleteCheck this page for more details.
http://www.epubor.com/how-to-send-documents-to-kindle-wirelessly.html
Ada, You didn't use any time to look up any other methods recommended here as you were mainly doing PR and have some nice examples. My own favorite by far for this kind of thing (and all the good reasons given for that by others) will be seen in a look at article results for sendtoreader (I avoid PDF results on e-Ink readers when I can.)
DeleteHi, Andrys
DeleteThank you for your kindness to not remove my comment. I just checked the suggested link and it does contain a lot of useful info. But I just noticed it wrapped up in words and I personally think more screenshots and step-by-step details will make it more understandable.
Ada, you're totally correct there. I tend to leave it to the original source (SendtoReader in this case) to present it well and I try to report what other customers find, aspects they like or not. I've really been impressed by what the SendtoReader does. But, as in the installation of a workaround flash player or of non-Amazon apps I'll try a more step-by-step approach but definitely without enough screen shots.
DeleteTime between this and my other projects (non Kindle) is a consideration. I do prefer your approach in showing your product though.
I want to do the opposite. Send a document from Kindle to my computer.
ReplyDeleteIt depends on what kind of Kindle you have. If you have a Kindle on which you can use an e-mail program, you can just mail an attachment to your computer by sending it to email on your computer.
DeleteThis is easily done on any Kindle Fire. Now, if you have an e-Ink Kindle Reader, this works only with the Kindle 2 and Kindle 3, as they have free web browsing on it -- but on these, the web browsing is more like a crawl, as it's very slow and sort of awkward. Also, adding an attachment is possible but you have to tell the email program where to find the file, and that can be iffy on the old Kindle e-readers.