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

[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