Kindle Paperwhite for Dummies (14 page)

When using the onscreen keyboard, you can access variations of certain letters by tapping and holding down on a letter. For example, tapping and holding down on the letter E displays accent marks and other diacriticals.

Figure 4-4:
The Search screen.

Enter text by tapping the appropriate letters on the keyboard, and then tap the Go button. Figure 4-5 shows the results of a search for
foreman.

The number in parentheses beside a title indicates the number of occurrences, or
hits,
of the search term in documents on your Kindle Paperwhite. By default, your search results are sorted by number of hits. Higher relevance is given to books with the search word in the title or with many occurrences of the word in the text.

Figure 4-5:
From the Home screen, search for words within all content on the device.

You can change the order in which your search options are displayed. At the top of the screen, tap the down arrow next to Number of Hits to see the sort options: Number of Hits, Recent, Title, and Author. Number of Hits sorts numerically by the number in parentheses; Recent sorts by the most recent items loaded on the device or viewed; and Title and Author sort alphabetically.

When you load new content on your Kindle Paperwhite, the device automatically indexes it — which is why the search function works. Occasionally, though, a file is indexed incorrectly. When this happens, you see
Unindexed Items
at the end of the search retrieval list. Unindexed items can quickly drain the battery. See Chapter 10 for troubleshooting hints to correct this problem.

Tap on the title of one of the retrieved (searched) items to display the results screen. A page highlights the search term in context, with the location number and, if applicable, the page number in the book. Tap the paragraph to go directly to the page in the book (or other content) that contains your search term.

Selecting a book to read

Any of the methods discussed in the previous sections can be used to quickly find books from your Home screen. When you find the book you want to read, simply tap the displayed title to open it.

Viewing content in the Cloud

If you purchase books, magazines, newspapers, or games from Amazon, those items are stored in the Cloud at your account. To view content in the Cloud rather than on your device, tap Cloud in the top left of the screen. When you do so, the number next to My Items changes to reflect the number of items you have stored in the Cloud.

In prior versions of the Kindle, what is now called the Cloud was known as Archived Items.

You sort and view content in the Cloud the way you do on your device. Tap the arrow next to My Items to select All Items, Books, Periodicals, Docs, and Active Content. You can also sort items by Recent, Title, and Author.

To download content to your Kindle Paperwhite, tap its title. Your wireless connection (Wi-Fi or 3G) must be turned on. If wireless is not turned on — which means your device is in Airplane mode — you will be asked if you want to turn off Airplane mode.

You can view items in the Cloud without a wireless connection, but Wi-Fi or 3G must be on to download content.

Only content purchased from Amazon is available for viewing in the Cloud. If you’ve bought or downloaded books from other sites, make sure you’ve backed up that content on your computer or saved it some other way, so that you can access it at a later date. We discuss saving and accessing content from non-Amazon sites in Chapter 6.

If you want to use a computer to view your content in the Cloud, go directly to your Kindle Library at
www.amazon.com/myk
.

Moving through a Book

Reading a book on a Kindle Paperwhite is intuitive. To go to the next page, tap anywhere on the page, except near the top and along the left. (See Chapter 3 for illustrations of the tap zones in portrait and landscape modes.) Tap near the left edge of the display to move back one page. To see the toolbar, tap near the top edge of the display.

As noted previously, you can also swipe left or right to page forward and backward, respectively.

Going to a specific spot

You can also jump directly to various parts of a book. Tap near the top of the screen to display the toolbars, and then tap Go To. A pop-up window appears, as shown in Figure 4-6.

The list of Go To options may differ depending on the book. Here are the options you may see:

Beginning:
The first words of text in the book.

Page or Location:
A particular page or location in the book. We discuss the concept of
page
and
location
as they pertain to e-books shortly.

Cover:
The book’s cover.