Tips about Converting Personal Documents to a Kindle Format

Are you unable to insert an active canvas or a sticky note, create on-page markup in your documents in the Kindle library, or are you receiving conversion fail errors?

Note:
  • Print format/fix layout documents (PDFs) support writing directly on the page with Kindle Scribe.
  • Adjustable layout documents (Microsoft word, txt, and the like) support on-page writing with active canvas and sticky notes on Kindle Scribe.

If you’re receiving conversion fail errors:

  • Remove any password protection or security settings in your document before sending it to your Kindle library.
  • Delete any Microsoft Word ink drawings from your .doc or .docx document. Ink drawings will cause the document conversion to fail.
  • Make sure that your document is in one of the following supported languages: Afrikaans, Alsatian, Arabic, Basque, Bokmål Norwegian, Breton, Catalan, Chinese (Simplified), Cornish, Corsican, Danish, Dutch, Eastern Frisian, English, Finnish, French, Frisian, Galician, German, Icelandic, Irish, Italian, Luxembourgish, Manx, Northern Frisian, Norwegian, Nynorsk Norwegian, Portuguese, Provencal, Romansh, Russian, Scots, Scottish Gaelic, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Welsh, and the Indic languages Malayalam, Tamil, Hindi, Gujarati, and Marathi.
  • Remove any large tables or tables with complex format tables.

If you're unable to insert an active canvas or a sticky note, or create on-page markups in your documents on Kindle Scribe:

  • Try sending the document again through Send to Kindle to make sure it has the latest features available for Kindle Scribe.
  • If documents contain elements that are currently not supported, on-page mark-ups, active canvas, or sticky note inserts won't work on Kindle Scribe. Handwritten annotations are currently not supported on documents containing:
    • Tables: Including tables with both horizontal and vertical text, larger in size, ones with drop-caps, and tables within tables.
    • Multi-Media content: Audio, video, and SVG images
    • Mathematical equations
    • Footnotes inside footnotes
    • Linear Gradients

Documents sent to your Kindle Apps and devices before 11/11/2022 are not compatible with the latest Kindle features. To activate these features, please import through one of the Send to Kindle service options.

If you added your document to Kindle library after 11/11/2022 and don't have the latest Kindle features available:

Please try one of the following tips to receive the latest Kindle format:

  • Remove download through the book action menu and re-download the document.
    • If the “Remove download” menu option isn't available, but the “Download” option is instead, the document may not have been downloaded before. Tap “Download” to download the document.
    • If you the “Remove Download” or “Download” options are not available, try importing the document again.

  • Send the documents again through one of the Send to Kindle service options.

If you're sending documents directly from the Microsoft Word app from Windows, Mac, or Web:

Here are some helpful tips about how your Word documents will look like on Kindle:

  • Tracked changes are automatically accepted, regardless of which option you choose.
  • Highlights are displayed on Kindle but cannot be edited.
  • Comments:
    • When you select “Like a Kindle book”, comments in your Word documents are automatically converted into Kindle footnotes with a gray background by design.
    • When you select “Like a printed documents”, comments in your Word documents are automatically hidden.
  • Ink drawings:
    • When you select “Like a Kindle book” for your .docx files in the Word for Windows and Mac, ink drawings are automatically removed such that your document can be converted to a Kindle format.
      • Please delete any Microsoft Word ink drawings from your .doc and .docx document. Ink drawings in .doc and .docx documents will cause the document conversion to fail.
    • When you select “Like a printed documents”, ink drawings on top of the page are preserved in the document.

For more help, go to: