Kindle 2 and DX - basic folders and organization

Ever since Christmas Day, an additional 1000+ visitors have been visiting these pages each day (how do they find it?), so I'd like to welcome them/you to the Kindle world :-)
  One way to do that is to highlight today a Kindle Tip from August that explains basic organizational features of the Kindle.  From forums, I've seen that even oldtimers often don't know about these features.

  There are no customizable folders, although Amazon is working on a software update to help with book organization, which they say will be ready before the Summer.

  However, there are built-in features for displaying only some sub-groupings of books when you choose to do that (limiting the number of items showing on your screen at a given time by type of document), and there are four ways to sort the displayed document titles.

  You'd be hard-pressed to notice the options by looking at the Kindle screen, which makes maximum use of screen real estate and keeps a clean interface, so doesn't show those options.

 The key is to cursor UP to the top and then to the LEFT, to then see the options to display only Personal Docs; or only Subscriptions; or only Books; while you can also choose instead to display All Items.

 While up there, at the top of the screen, you can also go to the Right and choose to SORT what is shown, by Author, Title, or Most Recently received or opened. On both of these options, you can go back and forth and then click on the two options you want.

Below is the original tip or guide to the Kindle's basic organizational features,
which was first posted here on August 18, 2009.

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Original posting August 18, 2009
There are some recurring questions in the Amazon Kindle forums as the Fall school sessions near, and I'll start including some of the more frequently-asked ones here, along with some answers and illustrations.

One from today, for both the Kindle 2 and Kindle DX.
Q: "...my request is how do I put order to my list of books and file on the Kindle?  I don't want to see every book I have in the order of last viewed - makes it hard to find what I'm looking for - I cannot find in the user's guide how to create folders or way to categorize my Kindle content."




A: You'll need to use the 5-way button to get to the top line, to even see the options available.

  Then, 5-way to the LEFT to see four category options for the type of items you want displayed (in this case I chose "Personal Docs).

. Personal Docs   (pdfs, Word docs, text you created on a pc and moved to the Kindle)
. Subscriptions   (Amazon's newspaper, magazine and blog offerings)
. Books
. All My Items     (This will display everything.)

Of course you have to make sure you're at the top line, because going to the left could actually start a deletion of a book or file if you're not at the top.


Next, you'll want to sort the group you chose, and there are three options for that. (In this screen picture I switched my choice to books).

Stay on the top line but, this time, 5-way to the right until you see:

. Most Recent First
. Title
. Author

Those are the three sorting methods offered us.

NOTE:   Amazon's database for authors apparently sometimes allows input for
1. last name, first name and
2. first name last name.

In this case, "Alan Zeleznikar" is displayed according to the first name while "Christopher Breen" uses the last name for the sort, coming before "Bufo Calvin."

A search for "zeleznikar" will bring up the title though.


Unfortunately, there is no way to make user-customizable folders currently.
  As a workaround until competitive forces create additional reasons for Amazon to offer this basic organizational tool, try a customer-created solution using the idea of "tags" created by using the note-feature for books and articles.

I have a small list of topics I want to cover.  If you have questions about how something might be done, feel free to add them under Comments here or write me at andrys1 [at] yahoo.com .

Customer workaround for user-definable folders

This is a popular blog-article which is being highlighted for newcomers and Kindle-blog edition subscribers.  During my vacation I'm including the more popular tips and guides. Kindle-blog edition subscribers will not have had these on their Kindles before and the subscription (99c per month) allows offline-review of the last 25 blog articles.

Original blog posting was May 24, 2009
In general, E-Readers that double as portable libraries really require a customizable folder feature.  Amazon recently extended the folder concept on the Kindle 2 for 1) "Archives" (which are for Amazon-purchased books already read and deleted from the Kindle but re-downloadable, free, from the customer's Amazon library area at any time via a click on the title in the Archives) and for 2) non-current periodicals.  They've always had folders for subscription newspapers and magazines (though not usually for blogs).

 The Kindle 2 (and Kindle DX) also has options for displaying 1) only books, 2) only subscriptions, 3) only "personal docs" or 4) all items.  These are also then sortable by Most Recent, Title, and Author (and searchable with the last two).

  However, as with bookstores and libraries, Kindle users have wanted user-definable dividers for categories such as Unread, Finished, Mystery, Non-Fiction, Romance, Biography, Self-improvement, etc.

  While this could make the process slower for displaying all books or less direct than finding a title or author by typing the first alpha-character and pressing the 5-way button, there's no question that categorizing books is a primary organizational tool when you have a lot of books and magazines.

Until the day that customer-defined folders are offered, customers have been recommending workarounds by using the "add-note" feature available for Kindle books.  

CUSTOMER WORKAROUND
An official Amazon Customer Service Forum post on March 5, 2009 stated:

' Kudos to Kindle Community member Bufo Calvin for this tip!
  With the ability to add notes to your Kindle 2 content and search for specific words or phrases on your Kindle 2's Home screen, you can categorize content by genre or other personalized terms.

' Open up one of your books, select Add a Note or Highlight, and enter in a word (or words) you'd like to categorize by - genres such as history, fantasy, biography, etc.  Try putting your initials or a common letter such as "x" before the word, "cshistory" or "xfantasy" for example.  Save the note you chose to enter.

' Now go back to your Home screen and type in the word you just used for your note.

' Once you've typed it, move your 5-way controller to the right and click on "Search My Items."  You'll see the book you just added the note to appear.

'  If you've added that note in multiple books, each one will appear in your search results. '

Note that this method is called "tagging" your book or "labelling" it.  This simulates folders except that it's more flexible.

  If you want a book for which two tag-words should exist together, then you can search for both words.  Only those books tagged with both words would show up in the results.

 Mainly, you won't find a word like "xwhatever" in any of your books, so this brings up only the books specifically tagged by you.

This does work for the Kindle 1 also, but the older model may take a day to index the 'tag' additions so that they're findable.  The Kindle 2 takes only a couple of minutes to do this.

 Amazon customers discuss various aspects of this in a current forum thread.  Robin McLaughlin located customer service's recommendation of Calvin's suggestion; "Laura" points out she posted this workaround at the same time and that many customers have thought about this.  "Tillamook Bay / lg" cautions that this system does not work with books done in the special Topaz format, which uses specially embedded fonts and is not searchable (nor can we change the line spacing in these).  The file extension can be .tpz or .azw1 but is essentially the Kindle format with slightly different description fields.
  UPDATE 8/17/09: I just learned that Tillamook Bay (Larry Goss) was using this workaround in September '08 based on another forum note he read earlier.

Mild shortcut for general searching:
Normally, when reading a book, you can bring up the Search box by pressing the spacebar.  If you're at the "Home" listing page, press the Enter key instead.

When typing in a keyword for a search while the 'action' on the right side says "find my items" (the default) or if it is already on the action you want ('google' or 'Wikipedia' etc), you need only press the Enter-key under the DEL key.

Otherwise, you need to 5-way over to the right and then press down on the 5-way.
  If the action for the keyword is not what you want (google, store, wiki, dictionary) then 5-way right, through some more options until you find the one you want to search.

How to print Kindle folder-list on a Windows system - Update

UPDATE 8/4/09 - to original post dated 8/3/09, 2:14 am.
  At the bottom is an addendum due to a question in the Comments section re making the scrolling Kindle-contents list accessible on the Kindle itself -- and also I've added a way to list sub-folder contents of the Kindle for those who make sub-folders for viewing on their PCs, despite the Kindle screen still showing all documents at the top.  The Kindle folders (done while connected to the PC) can help you organize your files in the device even if the Kindle doesn't show the folders.

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The guide below is to a simple and free way to print contents of your Kindle 'documents' folder if you are using Windows.  I verified that this works on my Windows XP.

Windows Explorer file manager doesn't support the printing of a directory/folder listing directly but here's a simple way to do it though you will need to run a DOS statement from Windows.  But that's not difficult.

  Be sure to see if a slash is a backward one "\" or a forward one "/" ... Direction is key.

1.  Connect your Kindle to a computer USB port with the USB cable that is part of the Kindle's power cord.
2.  Use Windows Explorer (not Internet Explorer), or whatever file-manager/utility you prefer, to find out what Drive Letter your Kindle is assigned by the system.  Mine is sometimes F:, sometimes G:
  Keep that drive letter in mind.

3.   Go to 'Start' at left-hand bottom corner and click on 'Start'
4.  Then click on "Run"
6.  Type into the resulting box, "cmd" (this runs commands in the DOS window)
7.  You'll see an old-fashioned DOS window and a 'prompt' that looks like "C:\"

In that DOS window:
8.  Type in the Kindle drive-letter (such as F: IF that's what it is).
9.  In other words, you'd type merely F: and press the Enter key.
10. That'll put you in the Kindle drive at the 'root' or top.
11. Type dir and press Enter key just to see folder/directory names.

We're going to create a list of Kindle documents in alpha order.
(I can update this later to show how to do other sort-orders if anyone wants.)

12.Type
  Dir documents  /on > kindlelist.txt  /d
  and press Enter key

That makes an alpha list of your Kindle documents, filenames only.

(Explaining above 'command' -- "/on" means "Order this list by Name" -- and ">" means "Get this listing and put it into a file.")

You can also get Date, Time, and Size but only before the file name:
OPTIONAL: Type
  Dir documents  /on > kindlelistmore.txt
  and press Enter key

So you now have a file of filenames only, or you have two files, one with more info.

At this point, just run whatever editor you use -- Notepad, Microsoft Word --
and then Open f:\documents\kindlelist.txt

  If you made a file with more info, open that one later too.

(Again, this is if  "f:"  is the drive.   It could be g:  or  i:
Make sure you type the drive letter assigned to the Kindle in all of this.)

And now you should see your listing (or first of two separate listings).

From your editor, you can print it.
  You can even copy/paste it into Excel.  Printing will be as normal.

That's it.  You can keep the file on the Kindle or delete it.
  Before you disconnect the Kindle, be sure to click on "Safely Remove" via that green icon at bottom right of your screen and click on 'Stop' the Kindle drive, to be sure your data stays safe.
  You should also close that DOS window too.


TIP: To avoid doing all the above while getting much more flexibility, try Calibre.  It takes a little time to install and set up but will be much more rewarding.

I hope this is useful.  Drop me a comment if something doesn't work for you.
Or even if it does :-).  You can use this for regular Windows directories of course.
 I wish I had a Mac way to do this but maybe Mac users already have that.

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Should work with:
  Kindle DX,  Kindle 2, and  Kindle 1.

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ADDENDUM 8/4/09

You can read the Kindle-list file on the Kindle, if you move or copy the kindlelist.txt file to the 'documents' folder (the filename you choose might be different).

So, once you're done, the last thing in the DOS-window typing sequence above would be:
Type
/>   copy kindlelist*.txt documents
and press Enter key.

That's it!

  An additional idea: Users comfortable with file-handling via Windows Explorer can make folders on the Kindle, via (File) Explorer, and be able to see everything on the Kindle in a more organized way in the Explorer file-manager, but the Kindle Home Screen will still show all of them together.

To make a file listing that also shows any subdirectories/folders under the Kindle's 'documents' folder that you might choose to create -- and their contents -- you'd add a "/s" to include subdirectories:

Type
  Dir documents /on > kindlelist.txt /d /s

And for the FULLER listing with Date/Time/Size, it would be:

Type
  Dir documents /on > kindlelistmore.txt /s

That's assuming those are the filenames people choose to use. Otherwise they substitute the filenames they actually chose.