# How to import books from Gutenberg onto your Kindle?



## bookferret (Dec 25, 2009)

I have been playing with my Kindle for a few months now and am very happy. However there are some limitations on books I am interested and I can find them via Project Gutenberg. How would I transfer them onto my kindle. I understand that I download them to my pc and can transfer them via usb cable but what file format do I have to choose. The Gutenberg FAQ is a bit vague - seems that different formats may work but many are experimental or unstable. Obviously I don't want to cause problems for my Kindle so I hope some experts here can provide clear first hand advice


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## sherylb (Oct 27, 2008)

Usually the books available from Project Gutenberg can also be found for free on other sites more user friendly for downloading to the Kindle.
Have you tried manybooks.net or feedbooks.com to see if your book is on one of these sites?
I have not tried to use any of the "experimental" formats from PG so I can not speak to that, however I have used PG at work. I pick a book out and go to their plain text, no compression (no zip) main site. This brings the book up on the screen. I then copy the book and paste it into Word where I can read it at my leisure. If you save it as a .doc you can send it or transfer it to your Kindle.


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## pidgeon92 (Oct 27, 2008)

The file types you want to look for are .mobi and .prc. When you transfer them to your Kindle, make sure you put the in the My Documents folder of your Kindle.


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## bookferret (Dec 25, 2009)

thanks guys - do I need to do anything to the ...mobi files before transferring them to the kindle?  I am a bit confused about converters and for which extensions I need to mess with the file first?


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## 911jason (Aug 17, 2009)

You don't need to do anything to a .mobi or .prc file, just transfer it to your Kindle and put it in the DOCUMENTS folder.


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## bookferret (Dec 25, 2009)

Excellent and thanks everyone


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## cybergeezer (Jun 29, 2009)

You can get Project Gutenberg books directly on your Kindle without downloading to your computer.

From your Experimental, Basic Web option click on the "Enter URL" and type the following at the text entry prompt:

"www.freekindlebooks.org/MagicCatalog/magiccatalog.html" and submit it. This downloads "The Magic Catalog of Project Gutenberg E-Books (Mobi Edition) directly to your Kindle where it will appear on your book list on your Home page. (Thanks to James Adcock for this application).

To use it click on the downloaded title on your Kindle then "Use your Kindle's Search Feature to find your favorite Author and/or Title. Click to go to that page. Click again on the Author: Title listing and your chosen E-Book will automagically download directly from the Project Gutenberg website to your Kindle..." (James Adcock's instructions.)

(You will see this message

"You are about to download a file to your Kindle.

Once the download is complete, the file will appear in your Home screen. Are you sure you want to proceed?"

Click on the OK button.

This application has been around for about a year, I believe, and works fine for me (I have a Kindle 1) but it should not make any difference on a Kindle 2 (I'm "clicking" my little roller button and you will be clicking your 5 way controller).

Having said all that I personally prefer to get direct downloads from Feedbooks.com (with it's Kindle Download Guide that downloads to your home page) because using search on my K1 is pretty slow. Feedbooks just uses an A-Z list of authors and titles so you navigate to the letter and within that to what you may be looking for.

Since I have a K1 I load all these free books from non-Amazon sources to my SD card so if, as recently happened, my Kindle died and was replaced I would still have all my free books. If you have a K2 you may want to backup these freebies to your computer or an external drive.

Good luck.


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## blazfglori (Feb 18, 2010)

Also, if you have the Calibre program installed, you can download the books to your computer and them put them into there and transfer them to your Kindle.
It adds an extra step, but the Calibre program is wonderful for keeping all your non-Amazon books organized.
You can also reformat files using Calibre into a format that works with your Kindle, if the format that you've downloaded won't work.


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## HappyGuy (Nov 3, 2008)

I second the Calibre suggestion. Much easier than trying to download directly to your K. Also, once it's in Calibre you have it until you delete it for Calibre, so you don't have to store ALL of your library on the K at one time.

Here's the URL, in case you want it.

http://calibre-ebook.com/download


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## marianneg (Nov 4, 2008)

If .mobi/.prc is not available for the book you want (that format is relatively new to PG), then .txt will also work fine on the Kindle, without conversion, but with no formatting, of course.


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## bookferret (Dec 25, 2009)

Wow - great advice    I just read up about calibre and that looks like the way to go. I watched the demo and am quite impressed what you can do with it.


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## barsoom (Apr 12, 2010)

I just spent several weeks going through Gutenberg and pulling out whatever caught my interest.  Usually I downloaded the HTML zip files or sometimes just the plain text or sometimes both.  Generally what I do is import the document into OpenOffice.org, reformat it to look good and then export it as a PDF.  I plug my Kindle into my PC and copy the book to it.

This process is, of course, slower than just downloading a .mobi file but it's become something of a hobby by itself plus I get a book that looks good as well.


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## svsilentsun (Nov 24, 2009)

cybergeezer said:


> You can get Project Gutenberg books directly on your Kindle without downloading to your computer.


I've been downloading from PG for awhile like this but last week one of the files was apparently corrupted because my Kindle went wacko. Froze up a number of times. Called CS and was told to delete the suspect files. Seems to have worked. Someone else commented that they heard about someone else having the same problem on a Kindle podcast.

I think I'll just make notes of which books I'd like to download while browsing the catalog, then do it from my computer from now on.


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