Kindle PDF tips
By Joe Wikert, a VP in the Professional/Trade division of John Wiley & Sons
PDF is typically considered a 4-letter world in the land of Kindle.
When my Kindle arrived awhile back, I remember thinking about converting all the PDFs I print/read throughout the day and loading them on the device instead.
But when I tried to use Amazon’s free service to convert a PDF, I was greeted by a short reply saying PDFs aren’t supported.
In fact, if you search for "PDF" in Amazon’s Kindle User’s Guide (version 1.1), you’ll find the only occurrence of the phrase is when the guide tells you about itself.
You can’t read a PDF on the Kindle, you can’t convert a PDF for a Kindle, but Amazon tells you how to use the Kindle via a PDF file. Ironic, no?
Eureka! PDF conversion succeeds in test
Perhaps, however, something has recently changed. I remember reading a blog post a couple of days ago about how to use Amazon’s service to convert PDFs for the Kindle. I immediately thought, "No, this person obviously never tried it…it doesn’t work!" I got curious, though, and e-mailed a small PDF to my Kindle address.
Sure enough, a couple of minutes later, there it was on my device! No error message. No rejection. Very cool. Now that I see it actually works
I’ve been sending myself all sorts of simple PDFs for conversion (I don’t know about more complex PDFs). This is way better than printing them out or trying to read them on my computer. If you’ve got a bunch of PDFs to convert, just zip them together and send them as one file; Amazon’s service will split them up and deliver them individually to your Kindle.
Zip your way to savings
By the way, I also recall reading about two different ways to convert files for the Kindle. One method would cost 10 cents per conversion and would all take place wirelessly. I talked with Amazon’s customer support and they said they decided to not charge for this service after all, at least not for now.
So all you need to do is e-mail your files to yourname@kindle.com (where "yourname" matches the account ID for your Kindle service registration) and you can start enjoying free wireless conversion services too! Let’s just hope Amazon doesn’t rethink that 10 cents per conversion fee.
Moderator’s note: Another way to deal with PDFs for the Kindle is to use the Mobipocket Desktop program. The Kindle can read non-DRMed Mobi. Joe has mentioned trying the Mobi Ceator program, but even Desktop will work in most cases for simple conversions, including from nonencrypted PDF books. Usually works great with Wowio’s free PDFed books. - D.R.
July 19th, 2008 at 10:07 am
These PDFs are basically like text files, but with type styling? I mean, no ToC or interior links?
July 19th, 2008 at 11:53 am
Large PDF files apparently get rejected. Files with columns get interleaved and thus rendered unreadable. Some tables get trashed as well. However, it is worth a try, if it doesn’t work, just delete the file. My experience is about 90% of my PDFs are acceptable, if not perfect.
July 19th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
A friend of mine has been trying this with PDF programming books. He finds the conversion too buggy to be useful - in programming, spaces and text layout can sometimes be important. Also, the inability to have a working TOC and internal links makes the texts hard to use. We tried the Mobipocket Creator route also and had the same problems.
For building a library of technical publications there doesn’t seem to be a good solution yet, but for general reading Amazon conversion, or Mobipocket Creator, can do an adequate job.
July 19th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Stanza, for the Mac will convert anything to just about anything. It is the OS X equivalent of the Rosetta Stone. Still in beta, as far as I know, but work perfectly for me. I may even have to buy it…
July 20th, 2008 at 10:24 am
[...] Kindle PDF tips - TeleRead [...]
July 20th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
I think Stanza might wake up one day with vistors from Apple at the doorstep. Or busting in the door. (For those who don’t know, Apple didn;t create the iTunes app. They acquired it from someone else and it morphed into iTunes.)
July 20th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
[...] Kindle PDF tips | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home - “You can?t read a PDF on the Kindle, you can?t convert a PDF for a Kindle, but Amazon tells you how to use the Kindle via a PDF file. Ironic, no?” Guest post by Joe Wikert [...]
July 23rd, 2008 at 1:20 am
How ridiculous.
No sale for me until this thing has seamless, complete support for the pdf format.
Crippleware don’t cut it.
August 3rd, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Jim,
The problem isn’t “crippleware”. PDF is poorly suited to reading on anything but a full-size pc screen. The problem is that it’s format is frozen. PDF was designed to mimic the appearance of the printed page. Most PDFs do not organize their internal data into intelligent structures that relate to the data. They just list the content in the order that a printer would print it. Even paragraphs and columns are tpically just a bunch of single lines.
Ebooks have smaller screens and need to be able to reflow the text to fit the screen. Plain HMTL is a more appropriate format for this.
Amazon and Mobipocket will both convert PDFs that consist mainly of text arranged in a single column. Graphics are maintained.
If Adobe could improve PDF so that it actually maintained some of the original document’s structure it might be possible to convert more complex documents. Until then, the more complex PDFs will remain frozen.