# Help me not to sell my kindle!



## Hicham (Mar 15, 2011)

Hello Guys,

Could you pls tell me how to enjoy my kindle 3 3G+WIFI ? I had it only one month ago and Actually I am having a bad time with it, and I am thinking really to sell it, should I? Or may be I wait till Amazon takes a step and develop this device. Most of the books out there arent supported by Kindle and I have troubles with finding azw. ebooks, and when I send pdf files to Amazon to convert them for me, then the whole book is messed out, in each line words are all over the place, sometimes you can find lines with lots of blanks, and headlines sometimes are in bold characters other times not, all this makes my reading process awful.
I need your advice here, anything to try before I sell my kindle.
Thanks lots to all of you.


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## arshield (Nov 17, 2008)

Try using Calibre to do the conversions instead of Amazon.  I have had better luck with some files.

You can also use .mobi, .prc and .txt formats.  They are all natively read by kindle.


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## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

Hicham said:


> ........ Most of the books out there arent supported by Kindle and I have troubles with finding azw. ebooks ........


All the ebooks sold by Amazon (and there are some 650,000 of them) are compatible with the Kindle, even the free ones. Can you really not find something there that you want to read?


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## gpamelac (Apr 10, 2011)

Start with the amazon kindle store since those books are for the kindle.

http://dailycheapreads.com/ is another site to check out.


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## kdawna (Feb 16, 2009)

thanks  gpamelac that is a nice site.


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

If your e-book reader needs include reading a lot of books that are not already formatted as MOBI/PRC/AZW and/or you do not plan to purchase many e-books from Amazon, then the Kindle may not be for you, as that is what it is optimized for.


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## Hicham (Mar 15, 2011)

NogDog said:


> If your e-book reader needs include reading a lot of books that are not already formatted as MOBI/PRC/AZW and/or you do not plan to purchase many e-books from Amazon, then the Kindle may not be for you, as that is what it is optimized for.


Hi NogDog,

You are so right, actually I am doing a linguistics Master and I cant find lots of books out there for me, I also do not intend to buy books from amazon, its too costly for a student like me. I just want free stuff with good quality but this seems to me a miracle as with kindle, I am thinking to sell it and get a sony since its support more formats that are plentiful over the net.
Thanks lots and I have one question for you: Do you know why I get really bad quality ebooks when I send them to amazon to be convert to from .pdf into .azw?


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## Hicham (Mar 15, 2011)

arshield said:


> Try using Calibre to do the conversions instead of Amazon. I have had better luck with some files.
> 
> You can also use .mobi, .prc and .txt formats. They are all natively read by kindle.


I already did, but the result wasnt that good.


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## Hicham (Mar 15, 2011)

Linjeakel said:


> All the ebooks books sold by Amazon (and there are some 650,000 of them) are compatible with the Kindle, even the free ones. Can you really not find something there that you want to read?


Yeah, but most of the 650.000 piece out there cost money and I do not want to pay, if I pay then I better would buy a real book, as a student I got the kindle to save money and keep away from the large textbooks we need to have in college. 
Thanks


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Sadly, I think your pre-purchase research wasn't thorough enough.  I have to agree with Nog. . . .it sounds like you want something like a Tablet rather than Kindle.  But resale value of Kindles is pretty good, so you can probably recoup almost all your money -- and then look at what alternatives might be available keeping your most essential requirements in mind.  Good Luck!


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## labread (Jan 26, 2011)

Have you searched for all the free books on Amazon? Sure, they are not the current bestsellers, but there are enough there to keep me reading the rest of my life. I've been reading classics and sending web content to my kindle for more enjoyable reading than on my laptop. All free. Check out these links that are elsewhere on this site. http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,1136.0.html


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## Elk (Oct 4, 2010)

Hicham said:


> Do you know why I get really bad quality ebooks when I send them to amazon to be convert to from .pdf into .azw?


PDF is, in essence, a picture. Thus, the converters cannot readily translate it into flowable text. The best results occur when the original PDF is a single column of text and was originally generated directly from text and not OCR'd.

The best way to read a PDF is on a bigger screen. I know, not much of a solution.


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## palaran (Dec 29, 2010)

Elk said:


> The best way to read a PDF is on a bigger screen. I know, not much of a solution.


No, but an accurate reflection on the fact that .pdf is a whole page format. It simply is not going to convert well onto a much smaller screen, especially if there are diagrams/tables with predefined sizes.


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## Hicham (Mar 15, 2011)

Ann in Arlington said:


> Sadly, I think your pre-purchase research wasn't thorough enough. I have to agree with Nog. . . .it sounds like you want something like a Tablet rather than Kindle. But resale value of Kindles is pretty good, so you can probably recoup almost all your money -- and then look at what alternatives might be available keeping your most essential requirements in mind. Good Luck!


Hi Ann, Thanks. I agree that I didnt research lots before I got my Kindle. Though I have all these troubles I will still try to find a way out and keep my kindle. I read somewhere that I can have better quality ebooks when I convert them 1st to HTML and then to Mobi, I will try this and see. Till then take care.


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## Hicham (Mar 15, 2011)

labread said:


> Have you searched for all the free books on Amazon? Sure, they are not the current bestsellers, but there are enough there to keep me reading the rest of my life. I've been reading classics and sending web content to my kindle for more enjoyable reading than on my laptop. All free. Check out these links that are elsewhere on this site. http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,1136.0.html


Many thanks for the good link. Thats nice of you.


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## Hicham (Mar 15, 2011)

palaran said:


> No, but an accurate reflection on the fact that .pdf is a whole page format. It simply is not going to convert well onto a much smaller screen, especially if there are diagrams/tables with predefined sizes.


And if I convert pdf to html and then to mobi, would it work? I read somewhere it works better.


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## Elk (Oct 4, 2010)

Hicham said:


> And if I convert pdf to html and then to mobi, would it work? I read somewhere it works better.


Unfortunately, this will not resolve the sizing issue nor the fact that PDF is a graphics format.

BTW, many converters already convert to HTML internally as an intermediate step. Thus, you may not notice any difference if you "preconvert" to HTML.

Have you tried Calibre, as previously suggested?


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## Hicham (Mar 15, 2011)

Elk said:


> Unfortunately, this will not resolve the sizing issue nor the fact that PDF is a graphics format.
> 
> BTW, many converters already convert to HTML internally as an intermediate step. Thus, you may not notice any difference if you "preconvert" to HTML.
> 
> Have you tried Calibre, as previously suggested?


yes I did, its the one I am using. But may be the settings I am using arent that fine, do you have any good ones to help get a better result? Thanks.


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## Elk (Oct 4, 2010)

I never found anything that works well.

I wish I could be of more help.


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## SusanCassidy (Nov 9, 2008)

Almost all of the books available in ePub format are also available in .mobi format, usable on Kindle, so if you aren't going to buy books, Kindle is about the same as Sony for availability.

You do know that there are lots of sites with free books compatible with Kindle?  mobileread.com, manybooks.net, feedbooks.com, gutenberg.org, webscription.net, etc.


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## sylviebi (Apr 15, 2011)

Hi,

Pdf to any format is usually not so good. I have found that of all the formats to convert from, pdf is the worst (and to any format). The pds files were pretty much designed to not be converted. Like a picture.

When it is the only source I've got, I open the pdf up using acrobat writing software than copy and paste the text only to microsoft word. Then I fix up all the hard page returns using find and replace and such (which I have created a macro for)... Then I save it as a txt file and then from there I am able to use calibre to create a lit or epub file. It looks awesome. I don't know how it would like on a kindle cause I don't have mine yet. But since it is pretty much just a straight forward text file by the time I finish with it, I think it would have the same results on the kindle. Currently I read my books on the laptop using microsoft reader lit and on my dsi xl using the application msreader epub. If I don't do these steps and just go from pdf to lit or epub it looks awefull.

Try looking for a different format. Maybe you'd have better luck that way.

I hope this helps,
Sylvie
Sleepless in Ontario (until I get my Kindle)


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## Hicham (Mar 15, 2011)

sylviebi said:


> Hi,
> 
> Pdf to any format is usually not so good. I have found that of all the formats to convert from, pdf is the worst (and to any format). The pds files were pretty much designed to not be converted. Like a picture.
> 
> ...


Hi Sylvie, thanks. That helped lots, thats nice of you. Greetings from Germany and try to sleep till the kindle is there


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## Hicham (Mar 15, 2011)

SusanCassidy said:


> Almost all of the books available in ePub format are also available in .mobi format, usable on Kindle, so if you aren't going to buy books, Kindle is about the same as Sony for availability.
> 
> You do know that there are lots of sites with free books compatible with Kindle? mobileread.com, manybooks.net, feedbooks.com, gutenberg.org, webscription.net, etc.


Hi, I think you are right. I might keep my kindle but not using it for my college studies, just keep it for casual reading and thats all. These sites are great, didnt know some of them. I have a question: Does kindle 2 support pdf files natively? I have kindle 3 3g+wifi.
Thanks


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Hicham said:


> Does kindle 2 support pdf files natively?


Kinda sorta if you have the latest software. The problem is that most PDF files are formatted to display well on a standard letter size sheet -- and the Kindle screen (except for the larger DX) is really too small for it to work well. Now, if you have a PDF formatted to work on, say, a half size sheet, that might work just fine.


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## odvdveer (Jan 30, 2011)

I found it best to put pdf as pdf on the kindle and turn the image 90 degrees to landscape


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## Hicham (Mar 15, 2011)

odvdveer said:


> I found it best to put pdf as pdf on the kindle and turn the image 90 degrees to landscape


Great Idea,it works good for me too, thanks.


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