Best Bytes: Using Instapaper with the Kindle
Posted on May 2, 2011 by kcarlson | No Comments
Submitted by Nancy Stimson, University of California San Diego
Kindle owners are a loyal bunch who often prefer reading everything they can on the Kindle. Those of you who are Kindlephiles may be glad to learn that in addition to books, magazines and newspapers, you can also read saved web content on the Kindle.
A tool called Instapaper allows you to save web content (e.g., lengthy news articles, blog entries, or other web text) and read it later at your leisure – whether or not you have wireless access (e.g., on the bus, in a hammock, poolside). You can even save long email messages. PDFs, however, can be saved to Instapaper but can not be read on the Kindle. Instapaper is available on a variety of devices (e.g., computer, iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, and Kindle).
There are three steps to using Instapaper with the Kindle:
1) Register for a free Instapaper account on the web. There is no charge for creating an Instapaper account and there are free as well as paid iPhone and iPad Instapaper apps (the paid versions do not offer any additional features but help cover the costs required for Marco Arment, Instapaper’s founder, to keep it going).
2) Send web content to Instapaper. Add the Instapaper bookmarklet to your bookmarks bar. Then whenever you are viewing something on the web that you want to read later, click on the “Read Later” bookmarklet and you will receive a jaunty message that says “Saved!” This indicates that that item has been sent to your Instapaper account. Every Instapaper account also comes with a special email address so that you can email links or long email messages to Instapaper.
3) Set your Kindle and Instapaper settings according to the instructions listed on the Instapaper website. To get to these instructions, log into your Instapaper account, click on “Extras” along the top menu, go to the Kindle section and click on “set up wireless delivery.” You can set it up so that after you add a certain number of new items to your Instapaper account, that material will be automatically transferred to your Kindle, every day or every week, as you choose. I have created a video on how to set up your Instapaper and Kindle settings.
Note that there is no fee for transferring documents to the Kindle via wi-fi but there is a charge from Amazon if you transfer documents using 3G. If you have a wi-fi 3G Kindle, there are ways to force personal documents to be sent to you wirelessly so you do not incur any charges – check the “Manage Your Kindle” section of your Amazon account for details. You can also transfer Kindle-compatible Instapaper files manually using USB.
Every Instapaper delivery is treated like a periodical issue and old deliveries are listed in the “Periodicals – Back Issues” folder on the Kindle. After six deliveries are saved as back issues, the oldest ones are deleted from your Kindle. While the Kindle works for reading Instapaper articles, it does not allow you to delete them there; you have to be in the Instapaper application to do that.
When you view your Instapaper articles on the Kindle, you will see that the text was optimized for viewing and the articles are strung together one after the other creating your own custom newspaper – thus the name “Instapaper.”
Some advantages of reading Instapaper material – or anything else – on the Kindle include:
- read when and where you want to read
- a single portable ereading platform
- Kindle’s non-glare screen and “Pearl E-Ink” is easy on the eyes
- Kindle can read out loud to you
An earlier post on this blog reviewed several “read it later” tools including Instapaper but this post focuses specifically on how to use Instapaper with the Kindle. This review is based on the Kindle 3 wi-fi version but Instapaper works with all Kindle versions.
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