No, your Kindle is not only for reading Amazon books. Although the platform has it very well assembled so that you can live only on its structured and extensive library, the truth is that you can also put other external books in your electronic reader. And today we are going to show you how it is done.
Amazon Kindle, the quintessential e-reader
We have said it many times but we never tire of repeating it: the Kindle is undoubtedly the quintessential ebook reader . It is true that there are alternatives to the Amazon electronic book , but the company of Jeff Bezos has known how to sell its product like no other, making it the brand that comes to mind first when you think of buying a device of this type.
With the passage of time, the Kindle have also been perfected. From the first generation to the current one, there are many generations in which the team has been lightening its body, simplifying its design and improving the quality of its screen or its battery, while also adding complementary functions of all kinds ( from different screen settings to features like Vocabulary Review ).
Such is the popularity of the device, that if you have one to read e-books right now, chances are that it is precisely a Kindle. And if so, our guide today interests you a lot, since we explain how to put books that do not come directly from Amazon .
Kindle Supported Formats
The first thing you have to be clear about before you start to pass books as possessed is that there are different formats for documents and electronic books (yes, just like for photos, there is the JPG, the TIFF or the BMP, to name just three of them ).
When it comes to talking about ebooks for the Kindle, there is a good list of formats compatible with the device:
- KFX: Amazon’s proprietary format. It is the most recent developed by the company (native) for their Kindle.
- AZW3: Also known as Kindle Format 8 (KF8). Another more proprietary format from Amazon.
- AZW: same as above but for older Kindle generations.
- MOBI: an open standard format. It was bought by Amazon so the Kindle can read it without problem as long as it does not have DRM protection.
- PDF: Your Kindle also reads PDF. The problem is that it is a format that does not always “lay out” well on the screen of the Kindle. If you have an alternative, we recommend avoiding it when reading books.
- PRC: This is an eBook format created by Mobipocket that is also compatible with the Amazon reader.
- Other formats : The well-known TXT, DOC, DOCX, JPEG, GIF, PNG and BMP formats are also compatible with your Kindle.
And what about ePUB?
It is likely that in the previous list you were looking for the famous ePUB format. It will probably sound familiar to you because it is a very popular format in which you will find many electronic books when it comes to downloading them.
Well, Kindle is not compatible with this format. This is one of the reasons that leads the owners of this device to find ways to convert their ePub books to a format compatible with the computer. And how is this done? Well, with tools like the free Caliber.
How to convert books to a Kindle-compatible format
When it comes to transferring documents to a Kindle-compatible format, Caliber is possibly the most popular and widely used program out there. The reason? That it is quite simple to use (despite having a thousand options, don’t be scared) and above all that it is 100% free.
You just have to go to its official website, search for the program (suitable for both Mac and Windows and Linux), download and install it. Once ready and ready on your computer, you’re ready to convert and put “incompatible” books on your Kindle in a matter of a few clicks.
The most likely situation is that you have downloaded a book in ePUB format and now you want to put it on your Kindle, so we are going from this assumption to explain the steps to follow :
- Connect your Kindle to your laptop or PC and open Caliber.
- You will see that the program automatically detects your Kindle at startup. It is important that you do so to proceed with the transfer.
- Import the EPUB book you have into Caliber by pressing the “Add books” button (the green book with the +). You can also drag it directly from the folder you have to the main screen.
- Right-click on the book you want to transfer to your Kindle. A menu of options will open.
- Find “Send to device” and then choose “Send to main memory” .
- Caliber will convert the default ebook to MOBI (a format supported by the Kindle) and it will appear on your device in seconds.
That easy. It is also choosing the specific output format you want for your Kindle. In this case, when selecting Send to the device, choose “Send specific format to” and then “Main memory”. The different formats to which you can convert the file will appear before passing it to the reader. Touch the one you want and click accept. The book will also be sent to the Kindle in the desired format.
