How to supercharge your Kindle experience, and turn reading into the best bookworm buddy.
We live in an exciting era filled with complexity and diversity. Never before has humanity been faced with so many ways to spend its free time. We have diverse social media networks, online newspapers, blogs on every topic you could think of, and later on, streaming services started dominating our lives.
However, even though we have access to so many distractions, people still find time to read books, getting various benefits out of it.
4 benefits of reading and why it’s important
- reading improves our memory and creativity
- we are cutting stress and anxieties
- our knowledge and vocabulary becomes richer
- we feel more positive and less depressed
With the ongoing developments in technology, now we can read a book on every device, but the most popular ones still remain a physical book and the classical Kindle. With over 90 million e-readers out there, Kindle is constantly taking over the world of literature.
But what pushes so many readers to prefer electronic over hard copy books and how can you make the most out of your Kindle app experience?
Kindle books vs Physical books
Why is reading on Kindle better than reading a physical book?
If you enjoy reading, you need a new Kindle e-reader.
It is an incredibly convenient & practical reading experience and the functionality got better and better in recent years. More importantly, once you have one, you will find yourself reading more often. At least, this is what I have found out. This pencil-thick device will help you read whatever you want when you want – it is literally like having all your books or manuals with you all the time.
Whether you are on the move, in public transportation, on a beach, or at home after a hard day, the Kindle store always has something for you to read.
The library you find on Kindle Store has more books than you could hope to read in a lifetime – about 4 million at last count, with one new title, added every five-minute. Reading can’t get any more accessible than that.
We are already using streaming services for music and movies, so why not embrace “streaming” a book on-demand? And with an Amazon account, you can get access to any book on the market, newspapers, magazines, and audiobooks in just a few minutes and clicks.
After purchase, the book can be easily and instantly transferred between all your devices – that means that even if you start using a different device for reading, you can pick up right where you left off. How cool is that?
But let’s forget for a second the fact that you have access to thousands of documents on a device no thicker than a chocolate bar. Forget that the books are cheaper than buying physical ones. Forget the long battery life, large storage capacity, and solidly built format.
Forget that the Kindle Paperwhite just became waterproof so you can enjoy your book in the bath.
How to use Kindle app functionalities and turn reading into a pleasure?
Some readers don’t look past the standard features, so here are some amazing tips to boost your Kindle app experience.
First, let’s talk about its unique & practical design.
Kindle is using an e-ink display that consists of millions of black or white pigmented capsules that provides a reading experience similar to printed books. Although the display offers a high contrast that is adaptable for different lighting conditions, this does not influence your power consumption.
That means that the E-Ink screen is readable in the sun, unlike many other phone or tablet screens and it can run for weeks, with no lag and without using too much of its battery life.
The light can be turned incredibly low so it can be soft on the eyes – especially if you are a night reader and don’t want to use lamps that might be disruptive to your partner or people near you on planes or public transportation.
Also, it doesn’t stimulate artificial blue light like phones or tablets are prone to do and could affect your sleep and cause damage to your retinal cells and vision.
PRO tip: Turn your Kindle into landscape mode to feel like you are holding a book.
Kindle books & productivity apps
Kindle is not only your reading buddy but also your study partner.
Need to mark a text and retain knowledge far after you finished reading?
You have Kindle Highlights to save your day and help you remember what you read.
Highlighting snippets from what you read or important keywords, dates, and so on, would help you reflect on the subject. Also, you can come back to it later, and easily review your highlighted parts.
If you want to pick your favorite non-fiction book from the latest bestsellers, you might want to learn and remember some of the most practical advice. This way, you can enhance the power of Kindle with productivity tools. Tools (like Snippet) help you bookmark and import your Kindle highlights under the same place, and make it easier to organize them the way you want.
8 ways you can use Kindle and productivity tools
- Organize highlights in dedicated folders
- Stash under the same place highlights from different places (Kindle, PDF, web)
- Add tags to simplify search on a single topic
- Edit & make personal annotations
- Share essential information with friends and colleagues
- Export your highlights into different formats
- Share your snippets with your favorite apps
- Create a banner with a quote and share it on your social media channels
Are you sick of stashing piles of research papers and never finding what you want when you want?
You might consider scanning the files and send them as PDFs directly into Kindle or Snippet. Both tools let you easily highlight information and have them organized so that you remember more out of what you study.
How to improve Kindle highlights with your own notes?
While Highlights draw attention to a specific section of the text, notes enable you to add your own text to specific passages (just like you did in the margins of printed books in the good ol’ days) so you can share your knowledge with others and maybe inspire someone new.
To view your notes and highlights:
- Tap anywhere at the top of your screen to display the toolbar
- Press Menu then View Notes & Marks
You can also view them on your computer by signing in in your Kindle account and clicking Your Highlights link.
Would you share knowledge and findings with friends and colleagues?
You can share all your notes and highlights with your friends on social media and also see other readers’ thoughts, concepts, and theories on interesting passages.
To share on Twitter or Facebook you first need to link your Kindle with your social media account:
- Go to the Setting Menu then click Reading Options
- Click Social Networks. When the new screen appears associate your accounts with your Kindle
Then, when your accounts are linked:
- Slide your fingers across the text you want to share
- Tap the Share button
- You can even add personal thoughts and ideas in the text box that will appear
- Press Share
Now that you have all your valuable Kindle notes and highlights, you can use a storage place for your valuable information so you can easily find it later on – even years later.
Use Snippet to collect, organize, review and share your favorite book passages with all friends. You can access your snippets at any time and put them to good use. No longer will a quote be lost in time!
Additionally, in your Kindle, you can find “Popular Highlight” with passages and notes that other readers have highlighted or written. These passages will be underlined.
This is a cool trick where you can discover important parts of texts that might have skipped your eyes – and even read what other people are thinking about as they highlighted, added, or shared Notes.
Going on a book trip, but without leaving your couch.
Use the most-highlighted passages and most-highlighted book features when you are looking for a new book to read.
Yep, just like going into a book store and looking for your next book, but without having to get dressed and leave your home or waiting for a courier to drop it at your door.
Furthermore, that book doesn’t end up forgotten in a corner of your house, but rather in your account, in your personal collection of “Hmm, I’ll definitely read this next”. Amazon even offers deals and recommendations every day.
How to turn your Kindle into an audiobook. Wait, what?
For those of you caught up in a reading, but with hands stuck driving or doing other things – you might find a solution now. So that you know what happens next with your favorite character, have your Kindle read the text aloud to you.
Is it possible to transform your Kindle into Audible?
With the Text-to-speech feature, the device will read your book or document through headphones or built-in speakers. You just need to follow these steps:
- Press the Home button to enter your book library
- By using the 5way controller navigate to the document you want to read
- Press the center of your controller to open your book. (For Kindle Touch, bring up the menu by tapping the top of the screen)
- Tap the TEXT key (marked “Aa”) then press the 5way controller and underline the Turn On option for the Text-to-speech feature. Your device will start reading aloud your document through the speakers or headphones (make sure they are plugged in)
- If you want to pause just press the Spacebar. (For Kindle Touch press pe play/pause button). Same button if you want to resume the reading.
- If you want to stop the reading, tap the Shift and Sym keys simultaneously. (for Kindle Touch, tap anywhere at the top of your screen and press the Off button for the Text-to-Speech feature)
You can even change the reading voice from male to female (and vice-versa) 😊
- Make sure the text-to-speech feature is “ON”
- Press the Text button (“Aa”) while your Kindle is reading aloud
- Scroll to “female/male” and click on it
- The voice will change to your desired gender
Convert your document before sending it to your Kindle app
The Send-to-Kindle feature allows you to email books to your device. And although Kindle is compatible with a lot of file formats, only 2 of them allow you to have access to WhisperSync or font features.
But there is a solution. If you write “convert” as your subject line when you email your document to your Send-to-Kindle address, Amazon will automatically convert your file and add it to the library.
So, this is how you turn your personal documents into Kindle format.
Sure, for the book puritans out there the Kindle might not be perfect, but the technological advantages outweigh the “smell” of fresh ink on new books. It’s one of those delightful gifts that promise to entertain and ignite a new passion for reading.
For example, you can enable Word Wise and Multiple-Choice Hints and your device will show hints and definitions over difficult words.
Improve your vocabulary with WordWise & Kindle Flashcards
1. Kindle WordWise
WordWise is another functionality released by Amazon inside the Kindle app to help you learn while you read.
Tap on the top side of the screen, select WordWise from the top options in the right. This way, Kindle will display the meaning of less-known words at the top of them. If you dislike that too much content is displayed you can adjust how many hints Amazon-Kindle can show you on the page.
2. Kindle vocabulary builder
Understanding the meaning of the words you read is one step, and memorizing what you read is another thing.
Fortunately enough, we can test our language and learn new words by building flashcards. Activate this functionally by going to the options button on the top, and then select Vocabulary Builder.
Export Kindle highlights and notes to PC
As easily as you can send books to your Kindle you can also export all your highlights and notes to a PC. You can use our tool as a (web extension) & import all your valuable highlights and notes from your Kindle books, in a few seconds and without any cable needed.
Download Snippet
You can go further and transform all information into Word, Text, Excel, and PDF documents that can be easily shared via email.
Disadvantages of highlighting on a piece of paper
Highlighting on a piece of paper has a huge disadvantage.
You can’t erase your highlights.
And many of us tend to highlight more than that’s the case. So, rereading a material and cleaning through your highlights help you study more efficiently. At the same time, important information can be lost if you don’t highlight it on time. If you want to use or revisit the information from the books you read, you need to have a good system in place.
When you are reading a book on your Kindle, you can highlight text the same way you can with a physical book.
But unlike having to search page by page afterward on your Kindle and look for your highlighted passage, Snippet collects them into one place, accessible at any time.
How to highlight on Kindle?
How to highlight text on Kindle Paperwhite
- Put your finger down on the first word of text you want to copy and drag it until the last word you want to be highlighted.
- When you take the finger off the screen, a pop-up box will appear. (If you want to select text across multiple pages, just move your finger to the bottom right edge of your screen.)
- Click the first icon to highlight text.
How to highlight text on Kindle Fire
- Put your finger and hold the first word of text until a pair of handles are displayed on either side of that word.
- Then drag the handles left or right to select your passage.
- Press Highlight.
How to highlight text on a standard Kindle
- Position the cursor at the beginning of your desired content you want to highlight then press the 5way controller.
- Position the cursor at the end of the passage (if you want to highlight text across multiple pages press the Next Page button).
- Then press the 5way controller once more to highlight your text.
How to highlight text via Kindle app on your MacBook
- Head over to your browser & download the Kindle app for MacBook
- Log in with your Amazon-Kindle account in the app
- Open your favorite book from your library
- Go over the paragraph or the word you want to highlight, select it, and highlight with one of the 4 colors available
How to highlight text via the Kindle app on your Android/iOS device or iPad?
- Look for the Kindle app on your home screen, select it, and open it on your mobile device
- If you don’t have the app installed, open a web browser or local store on your Android or iPhone device, and install the app before going to the next step
- Log in with your Amazon-Kindle account in the app
- Open your favorite book from your Kindle homepage
- Go over the paragraph or the word you want to highlight, select it, and highlight with one of the 4 colors available
How easy is that?
With your finger and a few clicks, you can save key concepts, theories, quotes and every little bit of text you want in just a few seconds. And you can do it with every eBook you read.
Where to find your Kindle highlights?
All your lines, quotes, motivational gems, excerpts are automatically synced and stored in your profile on all your devices (or on the Cloud) for you to email, share, post, or reflect later on. When you want to find your highlighted text, just go to your personal Kindle Page and click on Your Highlights at the top of the screen.
This will show you all the texts you’ve highlighted over time, in chronological order, with the latest book at the top.
If you are looking for a specific book, click on the Your Books icon (top of the screen) and you will see your library in alphabetical order. When you click on the specific book you want, another page will open with the book and on the right, you will have (with blue text) the number of highlighted passages. Click the blue text and you will see them all.
Keep in mind that there are restrictions too.
“For some books the publisher allows only a limited percentage of a book to be “clipped” and stored separately from the main body of the book, as normally happens when you add a highlight. If you exceed this limit then you will see fewer highlights on this website than you actually marked on your Kindle. Popular Highlights are not counted towards this clipping limit.”
According to Amazon
Every book has a different limit of passages and the restriction is there because of copyright laws. So, when you highlight, do it wisely!
Choose the only relevant text.
PRO Tip: If you don’t want to get confused about the location of your highlighted passages, make sure to capture specific details as well, such as a chapter or sub-headers names, and organize your highlights efficiently.
Reading books on a Kindle is an absolute delight, and its sleek design, impressive battery life, lighting adaptability, and large storage capacity make it a convenient and easy experience.
Reading is such an important part of life and having full access to all the valuable lessons, insights, quotes, and studies from books will improve your overall experience.
Header over to this Amazon “notebook” link, and get access to all your Kindle notes & highlights.
FAQ
How to import your Kindle highlights in Goodreads?
All bookworms have a profile on Goodreads and track their book reading.
If you are a bookworm with both a Goodreads profile & Kindle device, you should know that Kindle empowers you to connect these two. You can then import all your highlights into Goodreads, filter through them, and decide what to showcase on your profile.
Here is a short helping guide from Goodreads to help you import everything quickly.
How to extend the battery life of your Kindle?
Kindle usually has a battery life longer than your mobile phone.
However, there are other Kindle secrets to conserve its battery life.
- You can turn Wi-fi on for example, only when you decide to shop for a new book or import something over Goodreads. Otherwise, keep it offline. 🙂
- Either trick is to keep your Kindle running on airplane mode so that all the unnecessary activity goes off.
Is Kindle Unlimited worth $9.99/month?
The single wish that book worms have is to own more and more books. Tell me, am I wrong? 🙂
Amazon spotted this dirty pleasure of us and released Kindle Unlimited, a sort of Netflix for books where we can read as much as we can. For those of you that manage to read many books at a time or end the year with thousands of books read, I recommend trying this.
You pay less than spending all your income over the local library.
Did you know you can take a screenshot on your Kindle?
Just pick your Kindle device and tap on the top left and bottom right of the screen simultaneously, and see if I am right or wrong.
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So, what other Kindle secrets are you using? Tell us in the comment section.