How to... send pdfs to your kindle or tablet

You can use the Kindle Scribe’s stylus for making handwritten notes on your PDFs

Tablets aren’t always the best devices for reading. That’s particularly true late at night when the glow of their backlit screens can interfere with sleep patterns. But there is an alternative. Amazon’s Kindle e-readers are very effective not only when reading ebooks, but PDFs too – and they even have built-in note-taking tools.

If you’ve bought a Kindle Scribe (£410 from www.snipca.com/45113, pictured), you can use its stylus – called the Premium Pen – to make handwritten notes. And, if you don’t, you can attach typed notes to sections of text using a regular Kindle’s built-in keyboard.

This issue, we’ll show you how to transfer PDFs to your Kindle, as well as to an iPad and Android tablet. Once there, you can read them in comfort and add notes where required.

1 Send PDFs to a Kindle

Make sure Documents is selected so your Kindle can show PDFs you transfer

www.amazon.co.uk/sendtokindle and log into your Amazon account. Now, either drag and drop the PDFs you want to send to your Kindle into the grey box, or click ‘Add your files’ and select them using the File Explorer window.
When you’ve added all the PDFs you want to send to your Kindle, decide whether you want to add them to your Library, in which case they can be downloaded on any device registered to your account, or sent to a specific Kindle. Amazon’s default is to add them to your Library but, for the purposes of this exercise, click the slider to disable this feature ( 1 in our screenshot above), then select the Kindle you want to use from the list that appears below 2 . Now click Send.

There are three options: to connect your Kindle to your computer and drag the files across; to send them by email; or to upload them using the improved ‘Send to Kindle’ service. We’ll explain how to use all three.

Whichever method you use to send the file, make sure your Kindle has a live Wi-Fi connection and isn’t set to only show ebooks, because this would exclude your PDF, which counts as a document. To do this using a Paperwhite, tap the three lines beneath the search box, and make sure that Documents is selected (see screenshot left).

Drag and drop

Connect your Kindle to your PC using a USB cable, then open File Explorer in Windows. Your Kindle will now appear in the File Explorer sidebar. Click it, then open the Documents folder and drag your file across from your PC. Right-click your Kindle in the sidebar and click Eject on the