# Efficient Collections on Kindle Touch



## annoporci (Oct 11, 2012)

I'm new to this. I have a Kindle Touch, latest firmware 5.1.2. No jailbreak, No registration. I have Kindle PC.

I'm just looking at a simple system, for instance filing stuff into categories like: 1. Articles, 2. Novels, 3. Other

I have hundreds of pdf articles (for work, I find it a lot more pleasant to read on the Kindle than on a laptop or tablet and its saves paper) and a small number of books (for leisure).

I don't want to spend a lot of time doing this. I know how to do it from the Kindle Touch menu, but that's a supposedly fun thing I don't want to do again. Rather, I would like to do this from the PC (Windows, Linux, Mac, name your solution I'm flexible). I currently manage everything from the PC and copy-paste into the Kindle folders. (the Kindle Touch menus are not terribly intuitive, esp. when you need to type on "menu" several times to access different layers of menu complexity)

I have found solutions, but it appears that they will not work on "Kindle Touch", because the *Touch* manages collections differently. It sounds from these discussions that the way the Touch manages collections is centralized and secretive, and that's bad news. 

I'll jailbreak if I have to. I'll register if I have to. But I'd much rather not.

There may not be a way, but I thought I'd ask just in case.

Thanks for your tips!

I'll give you my newbie tip: Upgrade your firmware. On the Kindle Touch, you CAN read pdf without any conversion. The only pain is you have to set the contrast to high for every pdf you read (it won't remember your preference).


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## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

If you were talking about Amazon books and you prefer to make and manage your collections on your PC, then I would say the best thing would be to do it in Kindle for PC and register that app and your Kindle device to the same account. You would then be able to import your collections onto your Touch - go to archived items then press menu - import collections. All the books on your device would slot themselves into the appropriate collection.

This definitely works for Amazon books and books sent to your Kindle via Amazon, but I'm not sure about other documents. So far as I know there isn't a shortcut way of doing that.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

I'm not sure whether the collections feature will work at all since you seem to be saying that your device is not registered with Amazon.

Prior to the collections feature, the work around most discussed was putting a note on each title that was unique. . . .something with an odd letter at the beginning so it wasn't an ordinary word and use those notes to categorize your items. So you'd have zmystery and xromance or yresearch. You can search on those words and only books where you've put that note will appear.

I am not certain this still works.

There is also a 3rd party app called kindlean: http://kindlean.com/ Supposed to let you figure out all your collections and then easily put them on your Kindle. It didn't work well for me so after trying it once I never bothered again. There have been several updates since then, though, so maybe it's better now.


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## annoporci (Oct 11, 2012)

thanks for your replies,

Linjeakel:
> registering,
I'm a bit reluctant because I dislike the idea that amazon (or anyone else for that matter) will infiltrate my electronic life: what they did when they remotely deleted electronic copies of Orwell's 1984, to me, puts them in the same bag as Big Brother, the guys that want to control your life... 1984: supreme irony! Ironic in so many ways because the copyright had expired in some countries and so there'd have been people who were not even violating the law of their land by having a copy in their kindle... Also, I did not like the experience of having the Kindle PC suddenly expire (just on the day my internet connection was down), I don't get a good feeling about this company amazon... (I bought the Kindle because I read it was the best, not because I thought it was sold by the best company)

If I can't find another way I'll register, because it's currently difficult to manage hundreds of pdfs without collections.

Ann:
> http://kindlean.com/ 
thanks, I came across quite a few of these third-party apps but I'd missed this one. The website says it'll work for Kindle Touch, so kindletouch wood...

If I have any success, I'll get back to you.

On a related topic, something I didn't talk about above but is related to collections and organizing books. The first day I got the Kindle I spent hours downloading free books from amazon, but I have currently quarantined them out of my kindle because they have names like B000JMLPBC_EBOK, "coded names" instead of intuitive names like
"Potter, Beatrix - The Tale of Johnny Town-Mouse", and that's incompatible with my practice of copy-pasting books from my PC to my Kindle. So my bonus question: Is there a way to rename the files automatically? (is that what people use calibre for?)

Thanks guys!


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## annoporci (Oct 11, 2012)

sadly Kindlean will only work by connecting to the Kindle itself and won't work with Kindle PC, so that rules it out for me.

The way I work is I have several computers, at home, at work, I add and remove articles from wherever I happen to be, back up everything on a flash drive the size of my pinkie, and once in a while copy a whole batch into my Kindle. I don't carry the Kindle around with me at all times. Besides I worry that Kindlean may accidentally mess things up, so I want to test it on a PC first. 

Note: the freeware version is limited to 100 items (not too bad, though I suppose that most Kindle owners have more items than that).


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## annoporci (Oct 11, 2012)

Jailbreak+Plug-In, has anyone tried?

I have found 2 ways that are described as doing what I'm after: efficiently manage collections from a PC before importing them into the Kindle Touch. Both methods require jailbreak.

Collections Manager version 2:
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=186305

Calibre Kindle Collections Plug-in Hooks:
http://mobility.forumsee.com/a/m/s/p12-8546-053964--calibre-kindle-collections-plug-hooks.html


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

There are probably people using those here; we have a large enough membership that there's always someone.  However, truthfully, far more people who have done it are probably hanging out at Mobileread, so you should probably post your question there, too.  Their membership tends to be more of the tinkerers....


Betsy


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## annoporci (Oct 11, 2012)

Thanks Betsy, that's useful to know, I'm still searching for an efficient method...


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## gdae23 (Apr 30, 2009)

> On a related topic, something I didn't talk about above but is related to collections and organizing books. The first day I got the Kindle I spent hours downloading free books from amazon, but I have currently quarantined them out of my kindle because they have names like B000JMLPBC_EBOK, "coded names" instead of intuitive names like
> "Potter, Beatrix - The Tale of Johnny Town-Mouse", and that's incompatible with my practice of copy-pasting books from my PC to my Kindle. So my bonus question: Is there a way to rename the files automatically? (is that what people use calibre for?)


I've done this using "Send to Kindle", but I think you would probably need to register your Kindle to use that. Now if I want a free book (from any source) I download it to my computer first. (The books are considered "personal documents" in this context.) Then a box pops up which lets you change the title, author, etc. info. Once I've got it set the way I want, I send it to the Kindle. One plus, for multiple Kindle owners, is that you can check off boxes to send the item to multiple devices at the same time, instead of having to do each one separately.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/sendtokindle/pc


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## annoporci (Oct 11, 2012)

thanks a lot gdae23, that's useful to know.

At this time I have several hundreds of those amazon free books with coded names, so I don't think I can muster the energy to rename them one by one, but I will use your tip in the future if I download more from amazon.

However, I don't download from amazon anymore, because I have pretty much everything I want from the English language section, and it won't let me download in other languages, even if the books are free (I'm registered as being in the United States, so I get a handful of Spanish books but no French, Italian, etc.).


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## SusanCassidy (Nov 9, 2008)

The coded names are only done using Kindle for PC.  The names are usually the title when downloaded for a Kindle.


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## HappyGuy (Nov 3, 2008)

annoporci, check out Calibre. It's a free library management program that will let you change the metadata for the file. When you add a book from Amazon the name gets changed from the arcane Amazon code to it's proper title. Also, there is a categories plug-in that allows you to set a book's category in Calibre then upload the book into the category on the Kindle. You can also add custom data to the library database, such as Date Read, genre, whatever.


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