If you have own a Kindle e-reader—perhaps a brand new model like the Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition or the Kindle Colorsoft—and you’ll know that these devices are surprisingly simple in terms of their interface and controls. The focus is on the text and whatever you might be reading.
Behind the simple and friendly interface however, the Kindle has more features and tricks than you might expect. Sure, these e-readers won’t compete with iPads for functionality, but there’s a lot you can do with them—from customizing reading to getting content outside of ebooks on the screen.
1. Look at the Words
Don’t be bothered by unfamiliar words you come across while reading. You can find definitions of anything on the screen by simply pressing and holding the word. When a definition appears, you can swipe left to see if there is a Wikipedia entry for the word, then swipe left again to have the word translated into another language.
2. Send Web Documents to Your Kindle
You can also use your Kindle to catch up on your online reading, by sending web articles to the device. Perhaps the easiest option is the official Kindle extension for Google Chrome—as long as you want to send articles from a desktop web browser. Once you’re signed in to your Amazon account, article transfers only take a few clicks.
The Kindle extension is fast and free, but it doesn’t always get web page formatting right, and it doesn’t work on mobile devices. Instapaper does a better job with its Kindle sync service, but you need a $6 per month premium plan to access it. Push to Kindle is great too, but a $3-a-month subscription is required to post more than 10 articles per month.
3. Take a screenshot
You can take screenshots from the Kindle, if you want to show off your library or share an excerpt from a book on social media, for example. Just tap the two opposite corners, right in the corner. The screen flashes, and the screengrab is saved. Connect your Kindle to the computer with a USB cable, and you’ll find all your screenshots saved in their own dedicated folder.
4. Organize Your Ebooks into Collections
As you add more ebooks (and web articles) to your library, it can start to feel overwhelming—and organizing it for your next read becomes more difficult. You can reduce this to some extent by creating clusters. These are folders in which articles are organized, either by genre, author, or how quickly you want to read them.
To get started, on the Kindle home page tap the three dots at the top right, then Create a Collection. Give your collection a name, and mark it as a favorite if you want (which makes it stand out more on different screens). You can then choose to sort the Library page by collection—just tap the sort icon, the three horizontal lines in the top right.