so I was given a Kindle

[ritaxis]

I was given a Kindle by someone who was given it and it didn't serve their purpose. Can I load it without dealing with Amazon? If I have pdfs on my computer, for example, can I put them on the Kindle? How? the manual that comes with it doesn't seem to deal with actually putting things on to the device.

Comments

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

You can. You do need an amazon account though, and then you can make stuff to blahblah@kindle.com and it'll appear on the Kindle.

[ellarien]

You can easily 'sideload' files by plugging the Kindle in to your computer and dragging them to it as if it was a USB drive -- they have to go in the 'Documents' folder on the device. This does work with PDF, but not very well because it just scales the whole page to fit the screen, which results in tiny print, and the scaling option doesn't appear to work on mine.

[redbird]

A free program called calibre will convert books from one format to another, including the formats the Kindle likes; you can then use this drag and drop approach. You can get it from calibre-ebook.com

[al-zorra.livejournal.com]

I'll be interested in how that works out.

The pdfs I wished to read on my attempt at using an e-reader turned into a disaster. There just wasn't enough works on the screen at one time to make it worthwhile, among many other drawbacks. Too much time spent swiping, sweeping and swooping and hardly any time reading, and certainly no time absorbing information. These pdfs are all historical docs, and so on, which may be the reason.

As I have zip interest in the fiction that seems written as e-books to be read on e-reader, sent the damned thing back.

[carbonel]

You can load files on the Kindle without dealing with Amazon, though I think you have to create an account on Amazon first. On the other hand, if you're not giving Amazon any money, I'm not sure there's any need to be entirely forthcoming with Amazon about your data.

Note that even when I buy books legitimately from Amazon, I load them into Calibre, where I've installed the relevant plug-ins to break the copy protection. Calibre is also brilliant at converting formats. The non-DRM'd Kindle format is .mobi, and Calibre converts ePub (which is another common standard) to .mobi pretty much seamlessly.

Calibre used to be fairly tricky to set up, but the software keeps getting updates, and generally these are improvements.

[carbonel]

I forgot to mention...

While most Kindle versions theoretically support the PDF format, PDFs on the Kindle don't work terribly well. The screen is just too small. The format that works best is, as I mentioned, .mobi.

[erikagillian.livejournal.com]

You used to be able to get books with the webbrowser but I haven't tried that in a while, and I still have a keyboard kindle. I think you can at least download from guttenberg.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

I couldn't find the directions to the web browser in the manual. My kindle has a keyboard.

[erikagillian.livejournal.com]

Menu key, under Experimental.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

thank you!

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

You can download from Project Gutenberg in Kindle format. Any unlocked Kindle format books can also be copied to the device via USB. (You might try Book View Cafe.) If you want current major-publisher books, you have to do business with Amazon, though.

Small-format PDF files can be read on the device, but larger ones need the large-screen version.

The free Calibre software can convert most web pages to Kindle format.