Using Amazon's Send to Kindle to transfer ebooks and documents to Kindle

Amazon has just released the Send to Kindle app for Macintosh. It already exists for PCs. This is an app that facilitates getting documents in various formats—Word (.doc and .docx), text (.txt), RTF (.rtf), images (.jpeg, .gif, .png, .bmp) and PDF (.pdf)—to your Kindle.

Once you've downloaded and installed Send to Kindle, you can activate the app in several different ways. First, you can right-click a document in the Finder and choose the Send to Kindle option near the bottom of the menu.



You can choose Send to Kindle from the Printer menu in any program that has one (here's Word):



Finally, you can click the Send to Kindle icon on the dock or drag a document to the Send to Kindle icon directly.



Whichever method you choose, you'll see the Send to Kindle's window in which you can specify a new title for the document and choose which Kindle you want to send the document to. You will also specify whether you want to use free Wifi or incur extra charges by using Amazon's Whispernet service.



If you check "Archive document in your Kindle Library" (which is on by default), your document will be available in the Kindle cloud, and thus to all of your Kindle devices. You can even deselect a device and send your document only to the cloud.

Format

Notice at the bottom of the window that you'll be advised about which format your document will be converted to. If you right-click or drag and drop, Send to Kindle will convert Word, text, and RTF to Kindle format, and preliminary testing seems to indicate that it uses the same KindleGen algorithms that are used by Kindle Previewer and KDP. If you right-click or drag and drop a PDF file, you'll have the option (in the aptly named Options panel) to convert the PDF to Kindle format. I tested some simple documents, and it seemed to work quite well.



If you use the print option, it will always send the document as a PDF, and the PDF cannot be converted to Kindle format. Note that the PDF document will be much larger than the Kindle version.



All in all, the Send to Kindle app looks like a useful tool for getting documents into your Kindle. The Send to Kindle documentation has a few more details.

Returns in EPUB

We have these crazy complicated tools that can do amazing things for us but they have gotten so complicated that it's sometimes hard to take advantage of even their most basic power. Case in point: returns.

So, here's the rule: At the end of a paragraph, use a single return. Then adjust the style for the paragraph so that it has the correct amount of spacing after it.

The most important advantage is that you gain flexibility. If you decide you want more or less space after each paragraph, all you have to do is adjust the style, not delete or add additional returns. And while a return will always give you a set amount of space, you may want to add half, twice, or three times that much space.

This is particularly important when exporting to EPUB. If you add extra space by adding returns in InDesign or Word, those returns will disappear in your ebook. This is because HTML (which EPUB is based on) treats white space in its own special way.

Let's look at an example. You're laying out The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and you've decided to start your paragraphs flush left, without indents. Therefore, you want space between each paragraph so that readers can see where one paragraph starts and the next one begins.

You add two returns after each paragraph to add this space in InDesign (or Word).



You export your book as usual, and notice that the code reflects the extra return:



But when you open your book in your ereader, the space disappears:



What happened? White space in HTML is collapsed. Three spaces are converted to one. Two paragraph returns are converted to one. And an empty paragraph, like the one shown in the code, is simply ignored. You could hack the code to make the ereader pay attention, but a much more sane solution is to adjust the spacing around the paragraph.

There are two strategies. The first, which I highly recommend, is to return to InDesign, remove all the extra returns, and then specify a value for Space After in the Paragraph Styles Option box:



The amount you put in the Space After determines the amount of space that will be added to every paragraph marked with this style. Don't like it? Change it once in this box, and all your paragraphs will be updated at once.



When you re-export to EPUB, the Space After is properly applied to the CSS of the affected paragraph(s):



And we no longer have the extra paragraph in the HTML code:



But best of all, now we have space where we wanted it in the ebook on the ereader:



And the second solution? I didn't forget. If you've already got your InDesign or Word document set up, you could theoretically ignore the extra p elements that will be generated and just adjust your CSS by hand, by adding a margin-bottom value to the paragraphs in question. It's not the best solution, but sometimes, you've only got so many hours in the day and the OCD well in check :)

Finally, I don't know why they spelled tranquility with so many l's!