# Struggling to transfer clippings to PC



## wazdakka (Apr 5, 2009)

I’m having all sorts of trouble transferring highlights from my K2 onto my PC.  I have been reading a book in which I highlighted several passages, and wanted to move them to my PC for use there.  When I cabled up the Kindle and transferred the MyClippings file, I noted that the clippings were out of order, and that there was a bunk of junk that I didn’t want any more.  

By "out of order," I mean that they were added to the end of the text file as I added new highlights, rather than being inserted in location-defined order.  And the junk I didn’t want was from highlights that I had previously deleted.  I didn't know how to make multi-page highlights at first, so created a lot of 2-part highlights.  Once I figured out the multi-page highlight, I deleted all of the pairs, and created a single highlight for each.

Anyway, I deleted MyClippings.txt, thinking that the entire file would be regenerated.  I then went through the bookmarks and highlights on the K and deleted the ones that I didn’t care about anymore.  I made a new highlight to cause MyClippings.txt to regenerate.  I expected MyClippings.txt to contain all of my highlights now, and have them in order, but it only had the one new highlight that I just made.  Now what do I do if I want a highlight from before I deleted the text file?  

The highlighting supports seems to be poorly implemented.  Is there anyway to regenerate MyClippings.txt so that it contains all clippings/marks/highlights from of my books?

In a related matter, I find that establishing the connection from the K to the PC is sort of hit-or-miss.  I plug in the cable, and the charging light on the K always lights up, but it takes 3-4 tries for the PC to notice it.  Anyone else see this behavior?


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## marianneg (Nov 4, 2008)

wazdakka said:


> By "out of order," I mean that they were added to the end of the text file as I added new highlights, rather than being inserted in location-defined order. And the junk I didn't want was from highlights that I had previously deleted. I didn't know how to make multi-page highlights at first, so created a lot of 2-part highlights. Once I figured out the multi-page highlight, I deleted all of the pairs, and created a single highlight for each.


Yes. It's a computer, and it obviously can't read your mind and only copy what you intended to do.



wazdakka said:


> Now what do I do if I want a highlight from before I deleted the text file?
> 
> The highlighting supports seems to be poorly implemented. Is there anyway to regenerate MyClippings.txt so that it contains all clippings/marks/highlights from of my books?


The only thing that comes to mind is to combine the old and new files and just edit it to be what you want. I don't think that this is a poor implementation because of this, but I'd rather have too much information than too little. I think you might agree, though, if you accidentally deleted something and wanted it back  Basically, the clippings file is a convenience to help you with things like citations, not a word processor.



wazdakka said:


> In a related matter, I find that establishing the connection from the K to the PC is sort of hit-or-miss. I plug in the cable, and the charging light on the K always lights up, but it takes 3-4 tries for the PC to notice it. Anyone else see this behavior?


Dunno about this one, but is it possible that you're just being impatient and not waiting long enough?


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

wazdacca, I'm going to move this to Tips and Tricks. . . betcha one of our members has played with this function of the Kindle and can give you some ideas. . . .


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## jmeaders (Jan 8, 2009)

Perhaps this will help you:

http://kindle.amazon.com

Notes/underlines for each book are shown next to each title (and are in order for each inside). This will work for all Amazon content. Now if you have books you've loaded yourself, you'll have to move the clippings.txt file over and probably still have your issue.


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## wazdakka (Apr 5, 2009)

jmeaders,

The kindle.amazon.com site would be exactly what I want if I had all of the highlights in my book.  Perhaps the site is not fully functional yet, but it only has my first three highlights on it for the book.  Once they get that site working correctly, it will be perfect for using the Kindle as a research/studying tool.

I still wonder if there is anyway to regenerate MyClippings.txt so that it contains all clippings/marks/highlights from all of my books that are on the device?  It sounds like a lot of folks have deleted their MyClippings.txt from time to time, so it seems like regenerating the entire file is something that a lot of people would want to do.


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## durphy (Nov 5, 2008)

jmeaders said:


> Perhaps this will help you:
> 
> http://kindle.amazon.com
> 
> Notes/underlines for each book are shown next to each title (and are in order for each inside). This will work for all Amazon content. Now if you have books you've loaded yourself, you'll have to move the clippings.txt file over and probably still have your issue.


Oh my gosh! I love this site. It's exactly what I needed. I have over 32 pages of highlights and notes and I was struggling to find particular ones.

Big thanks to the Amazon Gods.


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## artsandhistoryfan (Feb 7, 2009)

If you move your 'My Clippings' file over to the computer to edit, you can copy the edited one back to the Kindle.

Or just copy the Kindle one to the pc and edit that copy and leave your existing one on the Kindle, to keep accumulating things.

But if you can't stand the way things are out of order on the 'My Clippings' file, you might want to try this utility that I describe on my site.

http://kindleworld.blogspot.com/2009/06/word-macro-for-myclippings-file.html


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Great info here, I didn't know about the kindle.amazon.com site, thanks!  And I'm going to try the macro artsandhistoryfan!

Wish the kindle.amazon.com site let us sort by the "content" column so we could easily find all the files we have clippings for.    I have 8 pages of content at 50 items per page, and I'm sooo lazy.  

Betsy


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## artsandhistoryfan (Feb 7, 2009)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Great info here, I didn't know about the kindle.amazon.com site, thanks! And I'm going to try the macro artsandhistoryfan!
> 
> Wish the kindle.amazon.com site let us sort by the "content" column so we could easily find all the files we have clippings for.  I have 8 pages of content at 50 items per page, and I'm sooo lazy.
> 
> Betsy


Betsy, let us know how the macro goes for you.

Yah, it seems a no-brainer to have a 'sort by Content is not zero/nil' !


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## wazdakka (Apr 5, 2009)

I ended up calling CS about my problems with the kindle.amazon.com page (posted on this thread a month or so ago).  I was unable to view more than 3 clippings per book, and it cut off any clipping over a certain size.  Basically made the website useless for me.  I spent about 45 min on the phone with someone who was not particularly helpful, but in the end she said she would refer the case to the next level and I expected the whole thing to stop right there.  Much to my surprise, I got an email a few days later saying that their techs found some problems with the website, and that they were rollling out a patch that Friday.  Sure enough, after that I was able to see all of my clippings, and none were cut off.  A happy ending.


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