Reading Downloaded PDFs on the Kindle

The Kindle 3 does support reading PDF’s naively, but their are a few problems with the build in reader. The build in PDF reader does not treat PDF files like the normal book formats. Instead of interpreting the file as text and images, It treats the whole page as an image. This means that you do not have control over the font size, and you can not use the text to voice feature. If the font size is too small (as in most cases) then you have to “zoom in” on the page, then scroll left to right. It is almost unusable in this manor.

To get around these limitations, there are a few tools available. The one that I have been using is called Mobipocket Creator. Mobipocket Creator Publisher Edition (free) allows you to open several file formats such as PDF and Word Docs, then save them in several e-Book formats. Simply  run the application, under the “Import from Existing File” header, select Adobe PDF. After selecting the file, click the build button. This will make several e-Book formats in a “My Publications” Folder.

The next step is getting the e-Book onto your Kindle. You can copy the file over using the USB cable provided, or via email. To email yourself a book, you first need to log into your Amazon account,  and approve your email address to send content to your kindle. To do this, go to amazon.com, select “Your Account”, then under the “Digital Content” header look for a link titled “Manage Your Kindle”. On this screen you can add your email addresses. Once your email addresses are on the approved list, you can email your kindle the e-Book as an attachment. The file format Mobipocket creates that is compatible with the kindle is the PRC file.

If you have the 3G Kindle, you actually have 2 email addresses available, (name)@kindle.com and (name)@free.kindle.com. The @kindle.com email address will use wifi if available, but if not available it, will download the attachment via 3G incurring charges at Amazon. If you use @free.kindle.com , this will force the Kindle to wait for wifi to become available bypassing any bandwidth fees.

Reading Web Content on the Kindle

The second way that I use the Kindle is for reading web content like Blogs and other online articles. For this task, I use Instapaper. Instapaper is a very useful free service. Once you create an account, it gives you a bookmarklet that allows you to save an article for reading later. When you click this bookmark on a website, it takes the content from that site (without user comments and advertisements!) and sends it to your instapaper account.

You can then have instapaper send these saved web articles to your kindle daily. I find it very useful. When I see an article that I am interested in reading in my RSS reader, I can just click read it later, and continue with what I’m working on. The next day I will have that content on my kindle wireless allowing my to read it whenever I have the time. To setup the delivery you will need to add the instapaper to the list of approved email addresses.

The only other thing to note about instapaper, is it can not tell when you read an article, so you will need to log into your instapaper account from time to time and archive the articles that you have read. Otherwise it will re-download those articles every day.