Whilst beginning to study A334, I picked up a really useful tip from a fellow student, which is going to be useful when working with different types of resources.
I quite like reading PDF files on my Kindle Scribe, since this way I can highlight bits of text, and scribble some notes on the PDF with my digital pencil. I can then refer back to my scribbled-on PDF when I try to compose my essay.
My tutor directed me to a resource called Introducing Renaissance Rhetoric which looks to be really useful. To send it to my Kindle, I saved it as a PDF with the aim of emailing it to my Kindle account, for transfer to my device. When doing this, I tried one more step, which was to email the document whilst putting the word ‘Convert’ into the subject line of the email.
The effect of the convert instruction is that it appears to convert the PDF into a native Kindle format, so the text can be easily displayed at different levels of magnification. The PDF, in turn, looks a bit like what an ePub file looks like when it is displayed. It isn’t perfect; bits of the table of contents is a bit messed up, and some of the indentation and formatting disappears, but the conversion algorithm must adopt some simplifications to make the text reflow work.
I’ll be curious to see how ‘convert’ deals with more complicated PDF files, i.e. IEEE articles that are presented in two columns and have loads of images and graphs. My guess it that it works best with simpler articles.
To summarise, converting a Word file to a PDF, and then issuing a convert instruction in the subject line is a great way to send Word resources to your Kindle, so you can read it off line. I’ve had a look around to try to find any Amazon documentation about this feature. I haven’t found any yet. It you find a link to any documents, please do share by leaving a comment.
Acknowledgements are duly made to a fellow A334 student who shared the 'Convert' tip in the A334 module forum.
Studying with the Kindle continued…
Over the last few years, I’ve written a number of blog about studying using a Kindle device and using ePub files
Whilst beginning to study A334, I picked up a really useful tip from a fellow student, which is going to be useful when working with different types of resources.
I quite like reading PDF files on my Kindle Scribe, since this way I can highlight bits of text, and scribble some notes on the PDF with my digital pencil. I can then refer back to my scribbled-on PDF when I try to compose my essay.
My tutor directed me to a resource called Introducing Renaissance Rhetoric which looks to be really useful. To send it to my Kindle, I saved it as a PDF with the aim of emailing it to my Kindle account, for transfer to my device. When doing this, I tried one more step, which was to email the document whilst putting the word ‘Convert’ into the subject line of the email.
The effect of the convert instruction is that it appears to convert the PDF into a native Kindle format, so the text can be easily displayed at different levels of magnification. The PDF, in turn, looks a bit like what an ePub file looks like when it is displayed. It isn’t perfect; bits of the table of contents is a bit messed up, and some of the indentation and formatting disappears, but the conversion algorithm must adopt some simplifications to make the text reflow work.
I’ll be curious to see how ‘convert’ deals with more complicated PDF files, i.e. IEEE articles that are presented in two columns and have loads of images and graphs. My guess it that it works best with simpler articles.
To summarise, converting a Word file to a PDF, and then issuing a convert instruction in the subject line is a great way to send Word resources to your Kindle, so you can read it off line. I’ve had a look around to try to find any Amazon documentation about this feature. I haven’t found any yet. It you find a link to any documents, please do share by leaving a comment.
Acknowledgements are duly made to a fellow A334 student who shared the 'Convert' tip in the A334 module forum.