How To Use Your Kindle Content on a Windows PC

Matthew December 30, 2016

You might have heard of the Amazon e-reader devices that open e-books. However, you don’t really need to shell out for an e-reader to open e-books. Firstly, you can add the Kindle app to an Android tablet or iPad. Now you can also add Amazon Kindle software to Windows and open e-books in your desktop or laptop instead. This is how you can use Kindle on Windows PC.

How To Use Your Kindle Content on a Windows PC

Kindle for PC is freeware software you can add to your desktop by opening this page. Click the Download button there to save the Kindle installer. Then click the installer to add the software to Windows. A Register Kindle for PC window opens with the software. Enter the required details into that window to sign in to your Amazon account.

Then you can open e-books in the Kindle software. You can configure Kindle for PC to be your default e-book program from your Manage Your Content and Devices Amazon page shown in the snapshot directly below. Click the Your Devices tab and then select Kindle for PC listed there. Click the Set as default device option to configure Kindle for PC as your default device. Then e-books will download to the Kindle Windows software when you order them from Amazon.

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Kindle for PC’s Library displays e-books with thumbnail cover images as in the shot directly below. Alternatively, you can switch to e-book list view by clicking the Show items in list button. Press the Show items as tiles button to switch back to the cover thumbnails. You can delete any e-book from the Library by right-clicking it and selecting Delete.

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Double-click an e-book in the Library to open it as below. You can flick through the pages by moving the cursor to the left and right of window and clicking the arrows. Drag the scroll bar at the bottom of the program’s window to scroll through the e-book. Or you can also press the left and right arrow keys to navigate the pages.

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The program has a horizontal and vertical toolbar that include various options. Pressing the View Full Screen button on horizontal toolbar switches to a full-screen mode for the e-book. The Show text in multiple columns button divides the pages into two columns. Click the Go to button to jump straight to specific locations in the e-book. You can also select a Bookmark this page option at the top right of the toolbar to save pages to Notebook.

The Change your font size, color mode, and more option is the primary customization button on the horizontal toolbar. Selecting that opens the window in the shot directly below. There you can select an alternative Georgia font. Press the Color mode buttons to choose between three alternative page background colors.

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You can create notes and add highlights in the e-book by selecting text with cursor and then right-clicking to open the toolbar below. There you can then choose to highlight the selected text with four colors. Press the Add Note button there to open a note text box.

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The Notebook sidebar includes all saved notes, bookmarked pages and highlighted text snippets. Click Notebook on the vertical toolbar to open the sidebar shown directly below. Then you can click a bookmark there to open the bookmarked page or select a highlight to jump to the e-book location you added it to.

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The vertical toolbar includes a Search option. Press that button to open a search text box and sidebar. You can enter keywords in the search box, and the sidebar displays e-book locations that include exact matches so that you can quickly jump to them.

You can also open PDFs in the Kindle software. Press Ctrl + Alt + L hotkey to open the Library. Then you can select Import PDF from the File menu. Select a PDF to open in Kindle as below. The PDF toolbars don’t have entirely the same options, but you can sill select the Notebook options for highlights, bookmarks and notes much the same as for e-books.

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Click Tools > Options to open the window below where you can select further software settings. If you select Registration, you can remove content from the device. You can also configure the UI language settings from that window.

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The Kindle for PC taskbar Jump Lists also include recently opened titles. You can right-click the software’s taskbar icon to open its Jump List below. Then you can select to open e-books from there instead of the Library. The Jump List also includes additional Go to Library and Sync and Check for Items options.

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So if you don’t have an e-reader device, Kindle for PC is a great software alternative. The Kindle app is also freely available for the Windows 10 Mobile platform. With the Windows program you can open all your favorite e-books, customize their formatting a little and add annotations to them with notes and highlights.