Amazon ebooks how does it work

Rather than use the liquid crystals you'd find in an LCD or the ionized gas you'd find in a plasma display , electronic ink actually uses millions of microcapsules, only a few microns wide.

Each microcapsule contains a clear fluid and thousands of white and black particles. The white particles carry a positive magnetic charge, and the black particles have a negative charge. It's these positively and negatively charged particles inside the microcapsules that make electronic ink displays possible. An array of thousands of tiny electrodes lies beneath the electronic ink display. When an electrode emits a negative charge, it repels the negatively charged black balls, pushing them to the top of the microcapsule.

At the same time, the negative charge attracts the positively charged white particles to the bottom of the microcapsule. When the electrode emits a positive charge, the white and black particles switch places and the screen appears to be blank.

Working together, thousands of electrodes and millions of microcapsules generate the text and images you can see on an electronic ink display. Through precise charges the Kindle can display a range of grays to provide shading in images. You can even adjust the Kindle's font settings to display text in a larger or smaller font size.

The Kindles' electronic ink screens can also render images but having only 16 shades of gray limits the detail of any pictures.

E Ink now makes color versions of its displays, but as of none of Amazon's readers use it. The Kindle uses less energy to generate a page view than a comparable LCD or plasma screen, because it pulls power from its battery only during the initial page generation.

Once the image is on the page it can stay there without requiring electricity. It doesn't require more power until the user changes the page view.

This feature is what lets the Kindle's battery provide power for weeks at a time on a single charge. Amazon has released several different models of Kindle over the years, but as of the model lineup consists of the Kindle, the Kindle Paperwhite and the Kindle Oasis. The Kindle Kids Edition is very similar to the standard Kindle. It's a little bigger, at 6. Its battery can go up to four weeks before needing a recharge.

It also has what Amazon calls a "worry-free guarantee. With it, the retail giant includes the entire Harry Potter book series and the first volume of other series. The worry-free guarantee Amazon offers parents says that if the Kindle breaks, they can return it to Amazon for a replacement at no additional charge.

For the younger audience, the company also promotes Vocabulary Builder, which saves a list of the words children look up, and Word Wise, which shows definitions of difficult words as kids read.

Both of these features are available on other Kindles as well. Amazon's Parent Dashboard lets parents control features on Kindle readers and Kindle Fire tablets, such as setting time limits, an age filter, whether or not they can use Alexa or a web browser, and more. All Kindle readers have the same basic e-book functionality, but the more upscale models have other features readers may enjoy.

The Paperwhite and Oasis have higher-resolution displays ppi versus ppi. The Oasis's screen is 1 inch bigger, at 7 inches. If you want to use Amazon's cellular service, you'll need to pick up a Paperwhite or an Oasis. If you think your Kindle may get wet at the pool, in the tub or at the beach, you also need one of those two models. The Oasis differs from the Paperwhite in some subtle ways — you can adjust the warmth of the light, its light sensors automatically adjust to your environment, it automatically rotates the page when you rotate the device, and it has the two page-turn buttons on the front.

The Oasis is just a little larger, designed to be held on the side, unlike the others which must be held by the sides or from behind. If you order the Kindle directly from Amazon, it will come preregistered to your Amazon account, but if you pick one up at your local store, you will need to register your Kindle to download and sync your e-books. The Amazon Kindle gives you wireless access to an electronic store that includes millions of books, newspapers and magazines.

Amazon provides wireless service without a monthly subscription fee on some devices — you just have to pay a little more upon purchase of the device.

The cellular devices also allow for WiFi access to the e-book store but the non-cellular devices are WiFi-only. The Kindle allows you to buy books directly from the device. Alternately, you can browse books in the Kindle store using your computer's web browser and purchase them from your computer. Amazon will send the electronic books directly to your device. Amazon maintains a subscription service called Kindle Unlimited.

Despite its name, however, Amazon Unlimited does not include most of Amazon's electronic titles. Amazon claims the service has more than 1 million e-books. As part of its Prime subscription, Amazon also offers Prime Reading.

The service is similar to Kindle Unlimited, but while you do not have to have a Prime account to use Kindle Unlimited, an account includes access to a rotating catalog of e-books and audiobooks and one free pre-release e-book chosen from a list of editors' favorites.

Prime Reading includes magazines and comic books, but you may prefer to use a computer or a tablet like the Kindle Fire series to enjoy books in color. These files include digital rights management DRM that prevents you from sharing your files with other users.

Kindles can handle Audible files. Amazon also can convert several other types of files into the AZW format so that the Kindle can read them. These file types include:. Each Kindle has a unique email address. You can send compatible files to your Kindle by e-mailing them as an attachment to this address.

You can also connect your Kindle to a computer with the USB cord to transfer files. Every purchase you make from Amazon goes into a special folder called your library. Amazon uses a cloud storage model where the file lives on one of Amazon's computer servers. That means even if you delete a book from your Kindle to conserve space, the record of your purchase will still exist on Amazon's servers.

You can download the book again to your Kindle for no additional charge. There are also free Kindle reading apps for many devices, including iPhone, iPad, Android devices and Mac and Windows-based computers, so that you can buy and read Kindle books without purchasing a Kindle. What is an ebook? How do I read an ebook? What are the advantages of ebooks? What are the disadvantages of ebooks? How much do ebooks cost? What added extras do I get?

Where can I buy ebooks and try free samples? Can I get my novel published in ebook format? What is the future for ebooks? An ebook is a text presented in a format which allows it to be read on a computer or handheld device. Many titles which are available in printed versions can be read as ebooks, including bestselling fiction, classics and reference texts. Ebooks are also used to make out-of-print work available, or to bypass print altogether, as with new works by aspiring authors.

Ebooks can consist simply of the electronic text or may also contain extras, such as audio, video or hyperlinks. These are small hand-held computers that mimic books. They are the size of a paperback, run on battery power and have a back-lit screen. They display texts which have been downloaded from a computer, and allow the reader to search for keywords and to add notes and hyperlinks.

There are two free software packages that can be downloaded from the internet, Adobe Acrobat reader and Microsoft Reader.

Download here. There is a short registration form to fill out, requiring an email address and password. After choosing between Windows and Mac versions, follow the clear on-screen instructions to complete the installation. When you click on one of these ebooks, you'll see the option to Read for Free with Prime Reading. Click on that and download your ebook. This is only for Prime Members, so if you don't have Prime yet, get a free day trial of Amazon Prime here.

Amazon has tons of free and cheap ebooks and many of them are classic novels like "Jane Eyre," "Hamlet," and "Alice in Wonderland. Browse all the free Kindle ebooks on Amazon here. If you have a public library card which you should because it's free and easy to sign up for! Find your local library , sign in with your library card number, then browse all the ebook and audiobooks your library has to offer by subject, language, and keywords.

You can also place holds on titles and add books to a wish list. After you click " Borrow ," you'll be directed to your Amazon account to download the title to your Kindle device.

Once the loan period expires, the book will automatically be deleted from your account. OverDrive's latest mobile app is called Libby, and you can download it on iOS here or on Android here.

Project Gutenberg has more than 57, free ebooks. Most of them are classics that are in the public domain, so you can catch up on all those well-known books you've always meant to read like "Pride and Prejudice," "The Odyssey," "Moby Dick," and more. You just find the book you want, make sure that it's in a Kindle-friendly format MOBI is fine , and download it.

From there, you can email it to your Kindle email address so it automatically goes to your device. If you ever download a book onto your device that you later decide you don't want, you're not stuck with it. Kindle devices let you delete any ebook you have in several ways. And if you decide you don't want an ebook within a week of buying it, you can request a full refund from Amazon. Even if you have more than one Kindle owner in your household, you don't ever need to buy an ebook more than once.

Amazon gives you plenty of simple ways to share your ebooks. If you want to share the ebooks you've bought with friends and family members, you can add another adult Amazon user to your account and enable sharing access. You'll be prompted to add the Amazon account ID and password of the person you want to add. Once your friend or family member has entered their info, Amazon will ask them to confirm that they wish to gain access to your library. As a final confirmation, Amazon will ask you to enable sharing, too.

After you've completed all those steps, you can choose which books you want to share. Be forewarned that you must trust the person you're adding because they will have access to the credit cards associated with the two Amazon accounts.

Sharing ebooks with your kids is also easy. After that, you'll enter your parental controls password and your child's name, birthday and gender then tap Next. You'll then pick the books you want to share with your child and then tap Next and Done. Amazon lets you lend one book from your Kindle account for 14 days without any account linking.

Go to Amazon. Then, choose who you want to share the book with. Note that some books do not allow this kind of sharing, so if you don't see the option, it is unavailable. If you want to get a PDF or another document on your Kindle for easy reading, you can use Amazon's special Send to Kindle email address.

It should be something like this: johnsmith kindle. If you want to change the email address, click Edit next to your device, enter a new email address, and then click Save to save your changes. Now that you know your Send to Kindle email address, you can use it to send yourself PDFs, documents, and ebooks that you download on sites like Project Gutenberg.

Simply go to your email, enter your Send to Kindle email address, and attach the file you want to read on your Kindle. It will send to your Kindle as soon as you sync your device over Wi-Fi. If the file you want on your Kindle isn't a supported file type, you can write Convert in the email subject line, and the file will be converted into a Kindle-Friendly file. If you like to read articles online but you wish you could get them on your Kindle, you're in luck. There are plenty of apps that help you do that, though Amazon's methods are the simplest.

You can also use Instapaper and Pocket, two third-party apps, but we find Amazon's methods the easiest. To highlight quotations as you're reading, simply press down on a word, maintain slight pressure, and slide your finger along until you reach the end of the passage you wish to highlight. You'll see options, but highlighting is the default. You can look back on all the parts you've highlighted at any time or even share them on Goodreads , as we explain below.

If you read a lot, your friends read a lot, and you all like to share, review, and talk about what you're reading, you'll love Goodreads. It's an app and website for book lovers to review and share their thoughts on what they're reading. Click "Download Now. Click the "Run" button. The "Kindle for PC Setup" dialog window appears, showing a progress bar that tracks the installation process. When it is finished installing, Kindle for PC automatically launches.