17 Jan

Kindle Helpful Hints

General Helpful Hints

To use the upper case letters you don’t have to hold Shift: you can just press Shift, then the letter
Number without pressing SYM: Alt+ [the upper key row, Q (1) to P (0)]. Like with the upper case, you don’t have to hold ALT
Refresh the screen: Alt+G

Make a .GIF screenshot (saved into “document” folder): ALT+SHIFT+G or ALT+SHIFT+H

Show the time: press MENU. You can see the time in the upper status line
Show free space: press MENU on the screen Home, Settings, Experimental

Go quickly to Kindle Store: ALT+HOME

Repeated scanning of Kindle internal folders for new books, music, photos: ALT+Z

Show the serial number and the bar code: ALT+SHIFT+. (dot)

Special commands from the Settings screen:

Change the provider’s 3G: dial 311 (ALT+EQQ)
Kindle serial number, etc.: dial 411 (ALT+RQQ)
3G modem data: dial 611 (ALT+YQQ)
Wi-Fi modem data: 711 (ALT+UQQ)

Home Screen:

The dot length under the book is proportional to its size. Bold dots on this line show the part of the book you’ve read.
Go quickly to a certain Home screen page: [page number] then Enter
Quick search by author or title: [first letter] then Enter

Collections

Sort books by collections: choose the line above the very first book with the joystick (the name is Showing All x Items...), press Right and choose Collections
Adding/deleting several books at a time into/from the collection: choose the collection with the joystick, press Right, then Add/Remove Items. You can use the middle of the joystick to add or delete books from the collection in the list of all the books.
For easy sorting of the collections you can use symbols at the beginning of their names. This way similar collections will stick together instead of in the alphabetical order. For example: #Fiction, @Feynman, (Current_reading), (Someday_reading). You can also use letters instead of symbols for the same effect: 111Fiction, 112Non_fiction .
Reading
Create/delete bookmark: ALT+B
To move between chapters, bookmarks, notes and highlighted passages (marked by dots on the progress bar at the bottom): press Right-Left on the joystick.
Highlight a passage located on several pages: go to the beginning of the passage using the joystick, press the centre, press Next Page, press the centre of the joystick.
All the notes and highlighted passages are saved in the Kindle root folder in My Clippings.txt.
Zoom into a picture: place the cursor at the illustration, use the joystick (the cursor will change to a magnifying glass with the “+” sign), press the centre of the joystick. The Kindle will show the illustration in the landscape mode. To go back press Back.
Move the frame in PDF-viewing: SHIFT+[the direction on the joystick].
Delete several bookmarks, notes, highlighted passages:

Press MENU and choose View My Notes & Marks
Choose the items to be deleted with the joystick.
Press DEL
Repeat for the next bookmark, note, highlighted passage.

Search

Copy the text in the search field (for example, for Internet search)

Press the centre of the joystick at the beginning of the word (text) you want to copy.
Instead of pressing the middle of the joystick for highlighting the word, press SPACE.
The highlighted word (text) is now in the search field which you can edit
Press Down and Right to choose the search area

Delete the whole text from the search line: ALT+DEL
If your search requests starts with a symbol (the SYM key is only active at the same time as the search line), to activate the search line you need to:

On the Home screen: press DEL or ENTER.
On the other screens: press SPACE and delete it.

If you type DATE or TIME in the search field on the Home screen, the top result will be the current date. If you press the centre of the joystick, you’ll see full information about the time.
Special commands for the search field:

@dict [word] – default word search in the dictionary
@store [word] – search in amazon.com
@author [author] – search in amazon.com by author
@url – open the browser
@url [address] – go to the requested address in the browser
@web [word] – search in the Internet by the key word
@wiki [word] or @wikipedia [word] – search in Wikipedia by the key word
@help – shows a list of available commands

Reset

Reset indication: when the Kindle is resetting it shows a picture of a boy reading under a tree.
Ordinary reset: if the Kindle is charging, just disconnect it from the charger/computer.
Soft reset (the keys and the screen still work): HOME – MENU – SETTINGS – MENU – RESTART
Hard Reset (the Kindle doesn’t respond to any commands): move and hold the Start button for 30 seconds, then wait about a minute or two.

Music

The files must be of the MP3 file type and stored in the “music” folder in the Kindle root folder.
Play/pause: ALT+SPACEBAR
Next track: ALT+F
The files are played in the order in which they were copied to the Kindle
To make audiofiles appear in the main menu (you can make a collection out of them to create an album) copy them to the “audible” folder.

Photo albums

To add and view photos:

Connect the Kindle to a computer
Create a “pictures” folder in the Kindle root folder.
Inside the “Pictures” folder create the album folder (for example, Family). You can create several folders.
Copy photos into it (.JPG, .GIF, .PNG file types). The recommended size is 800x600.
Disconnect the Kindle from the computer
Refresh the book list on the Home screen by pressing ALT+Z .
The photo album should be listed as a new book
When watching the photos you can press the MENU button to see more picture viewing options
You can add photos not only into sub-folders of the Pictures folder but also by copying the .ZIP archive with your photos into the “documents” folder. The album will also appear in the book list.
Hot keys for picture-viewing:

Picture real size – C
Full-screen view – F
Zoom In – Q
Zoom Out – W
Turn – R
Reset current zooming – E

Games

- Minesweeper: ALT+SHIFT+M on the Home screen. For different levels press MENU

Tick-Tack-Toe: press G in the Minesweeper.

Text-to-Speech:

Start/pause: SHIFT+SYM. To start from a certain point first choose this point with the joystick, then press SHIFT +SYM.
Pause/continue: SPACE

Browser

To open saved html-pages in the offline mode;

Create a separate folder (for example “webpages”) in the Kindle root folder.
Type in file:///mnt/us/webpages/mypage.html in the address line (mypage.html is the page, /mnt/us is the storage that appears when you connect the Kindle to a computer).
Conversion
When sending a PDF file to your Kindle via Amazon mail you can do it not directly (by default) but ordering conversion. To do it you must send the PDF to the private address @free.kindle.com mentioning “convert” as the Subject. The file will be sent to the Kindle as an azw so that you’ll be able to see all the text, all the links will be working, all the dot-matrix pictures will be there (unlike in the usual reflow). When watching the azw you can choose the font size like in any other book.