How Does Bookmarking Work When Reading Pdf File On Kindle?

For the quick version on how I use this today: Kindle controls are invoked by a tap on the screen, the ribbon control for a PDF is used to add a bookmark for the current page view, and Notes & Highlights / Bookmarks are invoked from the menu (located at top of screen). Of course, as noted above, PDFs are fixed-layout. Hence, a given bookmark for a page will load the exact same page view (and likely suffer from not lining up correctly in instances where the file is converted, or the zoom level is changed). In terms of syncing bookmarks to devices, I find that if I email a PDF to my kindle “library” it will usually be synced across all of my devices. However, if I “sideload” the PDF via USB to my Kindle, the bookmark is usually restricted to that single device.

My deeper marking, in the form of highlights and very short notes, would typically be read in conjunction with the bookmarked sections of the PDF – and other, synced, documents. Other annotation would be done in PDFs opened in proper PDF reading apps, or – occasionally – converted to Kindle format for reflowing to read. The bookmark icon is great for marking recipes to try, or a favorite page in a manga scan, or simply where you left off in a long manual.

Bookmarking PDFs is another one of my fave reader tricks to work. Basically it’s similar to bookmarking Kindle books. To add a bookmark to a PDF on your Kindle, just open up the PDF on your Kindle and tap the screen to bring up the top toolbar. From there select the little ribbon icon (top right on most Kindles). This will add a bookmark to the current page which will be denoted by a little ribbon in the corner of the page.

If you have emailed the PDF to your Kindle or added it to your Kindle library using the ‘Send to Kindle’ feature, then synced it to Amazon’s cloud, your bookmarks and notes will likely also sync to your Kindle app on other devices, as well as to your other Kindles. However, if you ‘sidedoaded’ the PDF to your Kindle using USB, the bookmarks will be confined to the Kindle on which you added them, unless you take the trouble to back them up somewhere.

There are a few caveats when it comes to PDFs. First, fixed-layout PDFs are going to have their bookmarks point to particular physical page views of the PDF. So if you convert a PDF to Kindle format for reflowing, the old bookmarks won’t line up properly. For highlights and notes on older Kindles, these are saved in ‘My Clippings.txt’ whereas on newer Kindles these can be viewed online at your Amazon notebook page for the book (assuming the file was synced). For really heavy note-taking, I would recommend converting the PDF to read on a tablet with an app for PDFs that allows for good annotation, but for simple bookmarking (saving a particular page or two) the bookmark icon on the Kindle is so fast and intuitive that it’s really worth learning how to use it. Just bookmark a few pages and then go to ‘Notes & Highlights’ to see how it’s all laid out.

For me, bookmarks on Kindle PDFs are a quick way to mark pages of interest, rather than a full study tool. The easiest way to add a bookmark is to first make the page visible by tapping on it, then tap the ribbon/annotation icons to add a bookmark to the current view. All of your bookmarks and notes can be viewed by going to the top of the page and selecting the bookmarks or notes from the drop-down menu. The list of tagged pages can then be selected to view that page.

On the other hand, sync’ing notes and highlights can be very valuable. The PDFs that I email to my Kindle (using the Amazon email address or the Send to Kindle app) that are stored in my Kindle library as part of my eBooks will have their notes and highlights synced to my online Kindle “notebook” and shown on my iPad, iPhone and other Kindle apps. However, if I “drag and drop” PDFs onto my Kindle, the notes will be local to that Kindle and not synced to my online notebook or other Kindles.

As PDFs are fixed at the page level (meaning you cannot zoom in and out without affecting the viewable area), a bookmark is defined at the specific view that you have of a page, so it is not recommended that you bookmark PDFs and then highlight etc. within them. Occasionally, I will convert PDFs to a Kindle-friendly format, or read them on a tablet using a dedicated PDF reader to allow more in-depth annotations. However, as a means of reading casual novels, bookmarks, with occasional highlights and very short notes, suffice.