Publish H&M PDF and RTF to Kindle!

[Tim Green]

Amazon has just released a free utility that makes it possible to publish your H&M PDF and RTF files directly to an Amazon Kindle. This means that in addition to ePub eBooks for Apple iBooks and other devices, you can also easily distribute your H&M projects to users who want to view them on their Amazon Kindle or the Kindle app on devices like the iPad, iPhone, Android phones and Android tablets.

The user just needs to download the "Send to Kindle" printer driver and install it and activate it with their Kindle ID. Then they just need to right-click on a compatible document in the Windows Explorer and select "Send to Kindle" to load it onto their selected Kindle device or app. You can also send to Kindle from the H&M Print Manual dialog and from the Print dialog in programs like Adobe Reader or Word.

[Malcolm Jacobson]

Interesting utility, but it requires the publisher and client to already own a Kindle. I hope they release a general purpose publishing utility at some stage.

[Tim Green]

Hi John,

Interesting utility, but it requires the publisher and client to already own a Kindle.

I think the market for Kindle books for people who don't own a Kindle or one of the Kindle apps is rather limited...

[David Makulec]

Tim --

Can you confirm that Kindle documents created with this Amazon utility/driver are, in fact, readable on someone *else's* Kindle?

As I interpret Amazon's online instructions, the intent is for the Kindle owner/Kindle App user to have a new means of conveying personal documents to his/her own Kindle/Kindle apps.

Nothing is stated directly about the end-result being a distributable file that could be read on a third party's Kindle or Kindle app.

[Tim Green]

Hi David,

The whole point of this is that the user puts the PDF on their own Kindle, nobody else does it for them. Step 1: You distribute the PDF to them. Step 2: They right-click on the PDF in Windows Explorer and select "Send to Kindle". That's it. The customer does have to have the Send to Kindle driver installed, of course.

[David Makulec]

Tim --

OK, clear enough.

But, to my mind, that's not "publishing" to Kindle.

That's publishing to RTF or PDF as before, after which each individual recipient of the H&M-published file has the individual option of individually converting that file for his/her own individual Kindle/Kindle app using Amazon's tool.

As a Kindle fan, I think that's a nice option to have.

But it's an extra step for each and every individual Help client/recipient.

A true "publish to Kindle" capability would eliminate that step for all clients/recipients of the H&M-published Help.

(FWIW, sending RTF or PDF to Kindle has been an option for Kindle users for a long time. This utility/driver simply makes it more convenient.)

[Tim Green]

Hi David,

Whatever, it's free and useful so I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth. According to Amazon's blurbs on this, PDF support in the Kindle apps on iPad, Android etc. has only just been introduced, although it was available on the hardware Kindle before. As far as I can see, it's considerably more useful on Android tablets and the iPad because of the faster scrolling and larger screen.

[Dwimble]

I've never tried this driver, but I have converted a few PDFs before for my Kindle using the other method where you email the file to Amazon. If the results of that method are in any way indicative of the results you will get from the local driver, then I wouldn't be too excited about it. The results I've seen are hit and miss at best. Others might call them absolutely awful. In any case, they weren't anywhere near good enough for me to consider distributing them with one of our products. It would be great if they were.

[Tim Green]

Hi Michael,

Give it a try -- I tried quite a complex HM project and it looked pretty good, at least on the iPad Kindle app because of the nice big screen. I've heard that the hardware Kindle with the eInk display and the small screen is pretty awful for PDF, however, which makes sense. I know an engineer who got himself the big Kindle DX for PDFs originally and then switched to an iPad, because the small Kindle eInk screen just didn't handle it very well. I think it also depends on your layouts -- mostly text would be OK, layouts with tables and images requiring horizontal scrolling are a pain on eInk generally.